Author: Huntman

Question: “My brothers and I have been whitetail deer hunting together for over two decades now and we, along with some friends, finally have a deer lease that is big enough to implement a whitetail deer management program on. We’ve been on this place for four years now. Our deer lease is 7,000 acres in size and is located in southeast Kansas. We will be starting a feeding program in January and plan on putting eight 300 pound protein feeders on the property. What percent of protein would you suggest for whitetail deer, and can you give me an idea of the amount of antler gain we can expect to see down the road?

Two years ago we have adopted a 3.5 year old minimum buck age and have gone from taking bucks in the 13’0s to bucks in the 150’s. Do you think this is okay or should we raise the minimum deer age or set a minimum antler score? Thanks!”

Answer: First off, let me say that it sounds like you have got a great situation for both deer hunting and the ability to grow bigger bucks! A ranch of 7,000 acres will allow you to comfortably conduct deer management for whitetail deer. White-tailed deer require a minimum 16 percent protein diet for optimal nutrition, so I would recommend the free-choice feeding of protein pellets with a minimum 16 percent protein. Can you feed a 20 percent protein? Yes, but I recommend going with 16 percent. The extra 4 percent protein will not deliver noticeably different results, except to your pocket book.

Supplemental feeding will definitely increase antler growth in bucks. Many hunters mistaken feed protein pellets just to increase antler growth. Yes, protein has this result, but the herd benefits far outweigh just antler growth. A simpler, less expensive way to increase antler growth is just to let bucks get one year older. That said, feeding protein will benefit the deer found on your ranch immensely. An increase in antler growth will be noticed by bucks in each age class, but does will also be healthier and will recruit more fawns into the deer herd.

The benefit of feeding protein for bucks, as in the additional inches of antler per buck, will vary from property to property. This is because other factors come into play. These factors can include overall habitat quality, habitat condition (precipitation related), age composition of the buck herd, deer density, genetic potential of bucks and the ranch’s buck to doe ratio. Most ranches that offer free-choice protein pellets between January and September can expect to see an additional 10 to 20 inches of antler growth per buck over unfed bucks of the same age.

Addressing your question about minimum age and deer hunting, a 3.5 year old buck has a lot of potential for increased antler growth. Deer complete their skeletal long bone growth at about 3 years of age. During the first 3 years, however, much of the nutrients that would be used for antler growth are needed for skeletal growth. Once this is over, bucks typically put those additional nutrients into antler growth. This is why bucks typically make a huge jump in antler quality from 3.5 to 4.5 years of age. I would recommend implementing a minimum of at least 4.5 years of age or older for deer management for whitetail deer for this reason.

Stay away from a minimum score for buck harvest. All this will do is promote the harvest of your best bucks at an earlier age. Some of the bucks with the best potential may reach your minimum score at 2.5 years old. It would be a shame to shoot that buck at 2.5 years old if older bucks of lesser quality are running around, left to do the breeding, that may never achieve your minimum score. Use age as your criteria and judge each buck based on his antler quality for his age. In addition to the factors listed above, deer management for whitetail deer takes being able to accurately age deer on the hoof. Make sure hunters on your property know how to age deer before you turn them loose.

Question: “I just received permission to a new South Texas ranch located just outside of Kingsville, Texas. The property owner gave me all the hunting rights to the place and placed the whitetail deer management in my hands. The ranch is 900 acres in size, but 100 acres will be planted to wheat later this week. That field will make serve as a great winter food plot. I have been seeing about 25 doe every time I drive through the ranch and corn the roads.

From my casual observations, there seem to be many more does than bucks. Most of the South Texas properties I have been on in the past have about the same number of bucks and does, but this place is skewed. Because of this, I am thinking about letting my friends and family harvest a few does this season, as well as guiding hunts off the ranch. How many does would you take off this ranch without effecting the buck to doe ratio?” Continue reading Deer Management in South Texas – What to Shoot?

Question: “We are interested in whitetail deer management so as to improve the deer hunting on our property located in Pennsylvania. The subject of feeding protein to deer gets mentioned a lot, and we understand that better deer nutrition leads to more fawns and bigger antlers in bucks. We already do some habitat manipulation to help the deer and we have lots of browse plants. However, we are unsure of whitetail deer protein requirements. Do you think protein is a limiting factor and would our deer would benefit from supplemental foods with high levels of protein?”

Answer: First, understand that most whitetail deer get their nutrition from plants found in their environment. So good job on your current situation. It sounds like your habitat management activities are producing a lot of high quality browse plants for deer. These browse plants are high in protein. Feeding deer, protein or otherwise, gets a lot of attention. The biggest reason is because it is the easiest thing a hunter can do.

Believe it or not, protein is not as Limiting as many deer managers think. That being said, it’s like a beef-loving hunter choosing between a t-bone and a ribeye. Both high-quality cuts will provide the protein levels that their body needs, but one is typically preferred. The same thing can be said of deer. On well-managed lands, quality plants will be available that deer can eat. On properties that have good natural foods and provide protein pellets, for example, deer have a choice. Some will go for the pellets, some will prefer the native stuff. Many will use both.

To understand protein metabolism and requirements in whitetail deer, it is important to keep in mind that whitetail are ruminants. Much of the protein that deer use does not get put directly to work. In fact, microbes in the whitetail’s rumen use much of the dietary protein for their own growth and reproduction. This sounds like a bad for the deer, but it’s not. The important thing to remember is that microbes are continually passing out of the deer’s rumen, which are then digested by the deer.

The conversion of plant protein to microbial protein benefits whitetail deer. Deer do need protein, but they really need are the building blocks of protein—amino acids—to survive and thrive. Whitetail deer can actually make their own proteins if they have the necessary amino acids. Also, many amino acids can be manufactured from other amino acids by the deer.

After reading the above paragraph, it would sound like deer do not need to consume much protein at all since they can create their own from amino acids, but deer can not create all the different types of amino acids that they need. The “must-have” amino acids that deer are required to have in their diet are called essential amino acids.

People and other non-ruminant animals require 10 essential amino acids in their diet. Without them, their growth is poor. Ruminants, on the other hand, do not have requirements for essential amino acids because the rumen microbes convert plant protein to microbial protein, which the deer then digests. Amino acids in the microbial protein closely match the whitetail deer’s requirements. So, one reason why deer are not as limited by protein as many people believe is that microbes help ensure the amino acid composition of the diet matches that needed by the deer.

My recommendation to you would be to maintain the deer population on your Pennsylvania property within the carrying capacity of the habitat. As long as they are not overcrowded they should fill their deer protein requirements from the browse, forbs and mast found there. Improving whitetail deer is about age, genetics and nutrition. The most important factor on many properties is simply allowing deer to reach their genetic potential. They will never do that if they do not have good nutrition and are not allowed to grow old. Manage for good habitat, proper deer density and age and the deer hunting on your property will improve. Feed them if you really want to.

Question: “We are interested in whitetail deer management and started a supplemental feeding program in January. I am trying to decide whether or not to continue feeding 20% protein pellets past the middle of September. Not sure. Also thinking that we will feed until it rains and then stop, but there are no clouds in sight.

I know of ranches that feed protein pellets year round and even one that is stops in early fall regardless of the habitat conditions on their property. I know supplemental feeding definitely helps the deer, and does still have fawn that they are nursing. Currently feeding protein, whole cotton seed, and some alfalfa hay. Whitetail deer are in good shape right now. What should we do?” Continue reading Supplemental Feeding of Whitetail for Deer Management

What is a Cactus Buck?

Question: Late last December, one of the guys on my deer hunting lease in located in Brown County, Texas, shot a good looking buck and the antlers were still in full velvet. He called the deer a cactus buck, but the deer did not have testicles. Also, I know that bucks usually shed their velvet in late summer, but this one did not. Would this cactus buck have shed his antlers or not in the spring?

Answer: It sounds like the guy you hunt with did in fact shoot what is referred to as a cactus buck. These bucks are not rare, but they are not abundant either. This “cactus” condition in whitetail bucks that results in antlers remaining in velvet and continuing to grow beyond the normal velvet-losing time of the year. The condition that causes a deer to be a cactus buck is called hypogonadism. It can occur just about anywhere in the whitetail’s range, but is common in areas with granite soils.

Cactus Bucks in Central Texas

The buck your friend shot also has cryptorchidism, which is a condition in which the testes fail to descend from the abdomen. This deer likely was impacted while still in the womb, as this condition is common in parts of Central Texas. It’s believed that diet of gestating females contributes to cryptorchidism in fawns.

The condition impacts testosterone levels, which regulate antler growth and development. In the most extreme cases, the testicles of cryptorchid bucks remain in the abdominal cavity and never descend into the scrotum. As a result, the normal production of testosterone is reduced and the normal antler cycle is destroyed.

In most cases, the cactus buck abnormality occurs naturally, without injury—these deer just do not develop properly. However, the same effect can result when a normal deer that suffers from testicular damage. A buck could function normally for several years then incur some type of testicular injury and then become an injury-created cactus buck for the rest of his life.

Cactus Bucks and Low Testosterone

In normal whitetail bucks, decreasing photoperiod during the late summer causes a rise in testosterone levels. This spurs the velvet shedding process. During the following spring, as days begin to get longer and photoperiod increases, a normal buck’s testosterone level drops. This initiates the antler shedding process.

This is not the case in these stag bucks. In cactus bucks, because they lack functioning testes, this cycle does not occur. Instead, cryptorchid bucks remain in velvet and continue to grow indefinitely, often developing antlers with numerous abnormal points, giving them the descriptive name, cactus buck.

Question: We have about 800 acres in Llano County where we have been practicing deer management over the past two years. We just started putting out protein pellets this past winter. I have been checking the game cameras recently and bucks are hammering the protein pellets. In fact, there is a bachelor group of five bucks coming to one particular feeder on the north end of our property every night.

The oldest buck looks to be about 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 years old, which is good to know that we do have some older deer on the place. One thing that does concern me, however, is that we have very few does coming to the protein feeders. Whitetail bucks seem to be dominating all four of our protein feeders, and we just are not seeing as many does as we thought. During the last hunting season, it looked like we had about three does to every buck, but the camera photos are showing more bucks than does. Is this common on other properties?

Response: Actually, yes, it is common for game cameras to photograph more bucks than does and protein feeders. This is because males, the biggest and strongest animals, tend to dominate the best resources, including protein feeders. This is one reason why I recommend that hunters and landowners to never use camera photos from protein feeders to estimate the buck to doe ratio on a property. Cameras placed on feeders will always skew the numbers towards bucks.

That being said, Llano County is looking pretty bad this year. With the lack or rain, I am surprised that you have not seen a good number of does on camera to, but there may be other reason involved right now. Does may also be tending to their fawns more right now since most are still quite small. Because of this, does may be avoiding all feeders, protein included, to some extent until their young get a bit older.

Lactation and fawn rearing takes a lot of energy, so I suspect doe activity around the protein feeders on your ranch will increase as fawns increase in size. Although cameras placed at protein feeders will not help you ascertain the buck to doe ratio, they will help you get a really good idea of the bucks on your piece of real estate. These photos should reveal the buck age structure as well as help you find the shooters this deer hunting season, whether they be mature trophies or those classified as culls, and that should help your deer management program.

If you want to use game cameras for deer surveys, scatter several cameras across your property on trails, water sources or roadways. This will help you estimate the buck to doe ratio as well as the fawn production of deer found on your property.