"When you say the testicles were inside him, you mean they hadn't dropped into the "purse" yet?"Yes.
I have only cleaned one true "button buck" that was clearly only 6 months old. My brother shot him on the last day of antlerless season one year - but I don't recall if the testicles were in the purse.
I just tried to research this on the net, and came up with an interesting article about "cryptorchidism". That is when a male deer has atypical traits due to low testosterone levels. This could be either developmental, or could be caused by injury.
https://www.bowhunting.com/blog/2017/12/04/what-is-a-cryptorchid-buck/The article asserts this is the most common origin of "cactus bucks".
We did find a deer carcass about four years ago, that had 27 points on the antlers.
The antlers were not that big and the head did not look like the correct size for a "monster buck". (The coyotes had already started on the carcass before we found it.) I wonder if we have some buck genetics on our property for this condition?
We found that carcass a few days after the end of bow season. I assume it was wounded by bow hunters and escaped to the heavy cover by our creek where we found it.
The other option is poachers that didn't get a clean kill.
