It’s
rut season and the white tailed deer (Odocoileus
virginianus) are running, the bucks are clashing antlers, rubbing trees,
and making scrapes, leaving love notes to each other.
Rubs and
Scrapes...
Bucks make rubs for four
reasons, to mark their territory, like a signboard, to signal their presence to
other male deer. To demonstrate dominance,
the size and height of the male white tailed deer rubs offering clues to the
buck’s age, size and health. Bucks rub
their antlers and forehead on trees to leave secretions from their glands,
which signals their presence and readiness to breed to other deer. And lastly male white tailed deer use rubs to
strip the velvet off their fresh antlers.
Bucks rub trees with the
bases of their antlers, sometimes they rub head-on, with the tree trunk between
their antlers. Sometimes they turn their
head sideways, dragging their antlers perpendicularly up and down the trunk.
Rubs start to appear in
late summer when male deer rub the velvet off their freshly grown antlers. Early in the season it’s to remove velvet
covering their new antlers. Some bucks
don’t worry about rags of velvet hanging from their antlers, but others are
obsessed with rubbing off every strip. Some
bucks clean the velvet off their antlers quickly, others take longer.
During the autumn mating
season, or rut, and on into early winter until the antlers drop, the bucks will
continue to make rubs, since after the velvet is shed a buck’s testosterone
levels increase, and that brings with it frustration, anger and aggression. Some believe that bucks rub trees to blow off
steam, but it’s also a practice for fighting, and the trees become training
dummies. The rubbing helps strengthen
head, neck and shoulder muscles needed for fighting.
When a buck rubs its
antlers on trees or saplings, secretions (scent and chemicals) from its
preorbital and forehead apocrine sweat glands, as well as the nasal and
sometimes even salivary glands, are left behind on the exposed wood. These secretions left behind on the exposed
wood of the rub communicate messages to the other deer The size of the rub usually varies with the
size of the deer, with the bigger and older the bucks, leaving rubs higher up
on the tree.
While single “buck
rubs” don’t tell you much, rub lines with consistent rub orientation do. Normally, the direction a rub faces is the
direction from which the buck approached. If numerous sequential rubs face in the same
direction, this tells you the general course a deer is taking in travelling from
one location to another.
To mark areas they regularly pass through bucks will make scrapes, often
occurring in regular patterns known as “scrape lines”. A scrape is made when a buck paws the ground
with its front hooves to expose bare earth. As the buck scrapes the dirt, it deposits
secretions from the interdigital glands found between the toes of each hoof. Scrapes are mostly oval-shaped and are often found
with a sapling or tree branch hanging out over them. This overhanging branch or sapling is called a
“licking branch”. When the buck digs
the scrape, it will rub its forehead and pre-orbital glands on the licking
branches to deposit scents and chemicals. And once it has scraped up the earth under the
branch, the buck will urinate into the scrape with the urine passing over the
tarsal glands located on the inside of each of its hind legs. When a doe nears its estrus cycle, it will
also urinate in the scrape, alerting local bucks that she is or will soon be
ready to breed.
Scrapes and rubs, are called “sign-post markings” and are an
obvious way that white-tailed deer communicate. Although bucks do most of the marking, does
visit these locations as well.
But there is more to these markings than meet the HUMAN eye because
deer see farther into the UV spectrum than humans do.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Rubs, Scrapes and What
Deer See, Part Two©”, where we will talk about what deer see and what it means
for hunters.
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That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Sources
Collins,
Dac; “What Colors Can Deer See?”, January 5, 2023, [© 2025 Recurrent], https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/what-colors-can-deer-see/,
October 18, 2025
Durkin,
Patrick; “Buck Rubs Never Fail to Fascinate”, February 10, 2017, https://www.bowhunting.com/blog/2017/02/10/buck-rubs-never-fail-fascinate/,
October 18, 2025
Honeycutt,
Josh; “Learn How to Read Deer Rubs for Greater Success”, October 1, 2025, [©2025
Outdoor Sportsman Group], https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/reading-rubs-scrapes-greater-success/536907,
October 18, 2025
Kenyon,
Mark; “3 Lessons You Can Learn from Whitetail Rubs”, March 4, 2021, [© 2025
MeatEater, Inc.], https://www.themeateater.com/wired-to-hunt/whitetail-scouting/3-lessons-you-can-learn-from-whitetail-rubs,
October 18, 2025
“Rubs
Versus Scrapes: What’s the Difference?”, March 13, 2023, [© 2025 Outdoor
Specialty Media], https://crossbowmagazine.com/rubs-versus-scrapes-whats-the-difference/,
October 18, 2025
“Buck
Rub, Buck Scrape”, November 13, 2011, https://prairiegardentrust.org/buck-rub-buck-scrape/,
October 18, 2025
Wikimedia,
“Deer rub.jpg”, October 22, 2015, by Wasp32, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deer_rub.jpg,
October 18, 2025
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