# Response of Female White-Tailed Deer to Scrapes and Antler Rubs > Antler rubs and scrapes are usually read as messages between bucks. By watching three tame does day and night in a Georgia forest, researchers found that females sniff, lick and nibble fresh rubs, and walk through, sniff and urinate at scrapes. The authors suggest these signposts may help bring does into breeding condition. Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1989-sawyer-marchinton-response-female-white-tailed/ ## Citation and access - **Authors:** Timothy G. Sawyer, R. Larry Marchinton and Karl V. Miller - **Year published:** 1989 - **Journal or source:** Journal of Mammalogy - **Full citation:** Sawyer, T. G., Marchinton, R. L. and Miller, K. V. 1989. Response of female white-tailed deer to scrapes and antler rubs. Journal of Mammalogy 70(2): 431-433. - **DOI:** 10.2307/1381536 - **Access status:** Publisher link only - **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.2307/1381536 ## Tags - **Species:** Mammals > White-tailed deer - **Region:** North America > United States - **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Communication; Movement - **Methods and technology:** Descriptive statistics; Direct observation; Telemetry - **Data type:** New field data - **Observer qualification:** Not needed - **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology - **Year published:** 1989 ## Detailed keywords - **Species:** Studied: white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), three tame, free-ranging females aged 1 to 4 years at the start of the study. The signs studied (scrapes and antler rubs) are made by males. Mentioned for comparison only: domestic goat (Capra hircus), sheep (Ovis aries) and fallow deer (Dama dama). - **Location and habitat:** Whitehall Forest (337 ha), owned and run by the University of Georgia’s School of Forest Resources, Georgia, United States. Natural and planted pines (Pinus sp.), pine-hardwood and hardwood stands with grass openings. - **Topics:** signposts; antler rubs; scrapes; scent marking; olfactory communication between the sexes; forehead glands; urine; sniffing, licking and nibbling of rubs; forehead rubbing by a dominant female; fresh versus older rubs; female responses to scrapes; breeding excursions; priming pheromones; induction and synchronization of estrus (the breeding cycle); dominance status. Inconsistencies in the paper: forehead rubbing on 4 of 100 rub incidents is given as 5% (4 of 100 is 4%). The fresh-rub and older-rub group encounters add up to 53 (29 + 24) with 18 responses (17 + 1), while the paper gives 61 group encounters with 23 responses in total; the remaining 8 encounters and 5 responses are not explained (possibly rubs of unknown age). - **Statistics or models:** Descriptive statistics only: counts and percentages. Focal-animal observation with all-occurrences and instantaneous sampling (Altmann 1974). - **Data type:** New field data: observations from 30 May 1979 to 21 February 1980 (45 observation periods of 24 hours); rub encounters 18 September 1979 to 18 February 1980; scrape encounters 27 October to 7 December 1979. Published in 1989 as a short General Note reporting an earlier study. ## Synopsis ### 1. What they did Male white-tailed deer make scrapes (pawed patches of ground) and antler rubs (trees with the bark frayed off) during the breeding season. These signposts were thought to help males show dominance, but little was known about what they tell females. The authors reported an earlier study of how females react to them. They followed three tame female deer that roamed freely on a 337-hectare (ha) university forest in Georgia, United States, between May 1979 and February 1980. The females’ food habits, movements and home ranges appeared typical of wild deer in the area, and all three were bred by wild males during the study. Observers carried out 45 observation periods of 24 hours, each made up of two 12-hour sessions, usually watching from only 2 to 5 m away. They recorded every time a female came within 20 m of a rub or a scrape, and what she did. ### 2. What they found Antler rubs - There were 100 incidents in which a female was within 20 m of a rub (September 1979 to February 1980). - Between 6 October and 14 January, the females responded to rubs in two ways. First, a female would pause for several seconds, sniff the bare wood, and usually lick or nibble the rub and the frayed bark around it. All three females did this, but the dominant female accounted for nearly half of these observations. Sniffing, licking or nibbling happened in 23 of the 100 incidents (23%). The rate of response stayed about the same through the season. - Second, only the dominant female rubbed her forehead on a rub, on four occasions (given as 5%). This rubbing was gentle, did not visibly change the rub, and always went together with sniffing, licking or nibbling. - The three deer often travelled together, but when two or three were at a rub, only one responded. The 100 individual incidents were really 61 encounters by a lone deer or a group, and 23 of these (38%) involved a response. Which female responded did not seem to depend on dominance. - Fresh rubs drew far more interest: 17 of 29 group encounters (59%) with rubs thought to be under 2 days old drew a response, compared with only 1 of 24 encounters with older rubs. Scrapes - There were 24 incidents in which a female was within 20 m of a scrape (27 October to 7 December 1979). The females seemed to come across scrapes by chance. - Three behaviours were recorded: urinating within 20 m of the scrape, walking through the pawed patch, and sniffing it. Two females showed all three; the third showed none. - At least one of these happened in 9 of the 24 encounters (38%): walking through or sniffing six times, and urinating nearby three times. Sniffing happened only at fresh scrapes, and the authors regard it as a clear response; walking through or urinating could have happened by chance. - No female was seen smelling or licking the overhanging branch above a scrape, as another study had reported. Breeding excursions None of the females were under direct observation when they were likely mated. However, telemetry (tracking by remote location signals) showed that all three made an unusual trip outside their normal range around the time they conceived. These trips went 1.6 to 2.3 km from the centre of their core area and lasted about 24 hours. ### 3. What they concluded - Scrapes and antler rubs probably carry breeding information between the sexes, as well as signalling dominance among males. Females may be able to tell a male’s dominance or physiological state from them, although what they actually learn is unknown. - The females’ unusual trips at the time of conception were probably breeding excursions, to find suitable mates or their signposts. - In other hoofed animals, such as sheep and goats, the smell of a male can bring females into breeding condition. Because male and female white-tailed deer may not spend enough time together for this, signposts could do the same job. The females’ responses support the idea that scrapes and rubs are a source of priming pheromones (scent signals that change the body’s state) that help bring on and synchronize the females’ breeding cycles. ### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations - Tame, free-ranging deer that could be watched closely (2 to 5 m) day and night. - Focal-animal sampling with all-occurrences and instantaneous sampling. - Telemetry to follow the females’ movements. ### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations) _These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._ - Deer themselves read antler rubs and scrapes: females sniffed, licked and nibbled rubs and walked through, sniffed and urinated at scrapes. These signs are part of how deer communicate, not just traces left behind. - Females responded far more to fresh rubs (under 2 days old) than to older ones, so how fresh a sign is matters to the animals as well as to the tracker reading it. - A tracker may find female sign (urine, tracks through the pawed patch, licked or nibbled bark) at a male’s scrape or rub, so the sign at a signpost need not all come from males. ## Cite this summary Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Response of Female White-Tailed Deer to Scrapes and Antler Rubs (Sawyer and Marchinton et al., 1989). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1989-sawyer-marchinton-response-female-white-tailed/