Huntman | Deer Management

Deer Management for Whitetail Deer

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!” Continue reading Deer Management for Whitetail Deer

How to Grow Bigger Bucks: Selective Deer Hunting for Improvement

Question: “I have land for deer hunting in Eastern Kansas. I want to grow bigger bucks, but I know that I have several full-rack whitetail bucks that I have seen this hunting season with missing brow tines. Should I remove these deer from my herd? In addition, I am also seeing quite a few spikes, most of them with spikes that are more than 10 inches in length, with decent mass too. Should these bucks be taken or will they grow to be larger bucks in the future? Any deer management info for this situation would be appreciated.”

Response: If you want to produce and grow bigger bucks, then I suggest learning as much as you can about deer management techniques. Manipulation of habitat and selective deer harvest can help by improving age and modifying genetics. Of course, property size is important in how much you can do for the deer in your area. The more property you have, the more you can do to help the animals in your area. Continue reading How to Grow Bigger Bucks: Selective Deer Hunting for Improvement

Deer Management in South Texas – What to Shoot?

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?

Whitetail Deer Management: Deer Protein Requirements

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. Continue reading Whitetail Deer Management: Deer Protein Requirements

Supplemental Feeding of Whitetail for Deer Management

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

Cactus Bucks | Velvet-Covered Antlers Year-Round

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 Texas: What is a Cactus Buck?

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.

Blue Tongue and EHD Disease in White-tailed Deer

Blue Tongue and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) are viral diseases that impacts farmed and free-ranging white-tailed deer. Though Blue Tongue and EHD are distinctly different, these diseased are sometimes impossible to tell apart. In fact, blood tests results are very similar. For the sake of this article, Blue Tongue and EHD will be used interchangeably. This disease is found most often in sheep, but Blue Tongue has also been found in other livestock such as cattle and goats and other wild ungualtes such as pronghorn antelope and whitetail deer.

White-tailed deer populations have been dealing with these diseases for years, but deer populations continue to hold strong. Blue Tongue and EHD outbreaks in the U.S. occur in deer almost yearly at southern latitudes. EHD and Blue Tongue are spread by midges such as flies or gnats. These insect vectors spread the disease when they bite deer. As a result, outbreaks are virtually untreatable and typically run a course on an annual basis, although weather conditions impact the duration and severity of the outbreak. Continue reading Blue Tongue and EHD Disease in White-tailed Deer

Deer Habitat Improvement for Whitetail and Other Wildlife

From coast to coast across the United States, wildlife game species get the most interest of any wildlife. This interest stems from income and recreation to private landowners through hunting, and state and federal agencies are available to help landowners interested in wildlife and habitat management. One of the best-known game species around is white-tailed deer. Deer management and deer habitat improvement are the number one drivers of land owner interest in manipulating plant communities.

Fire is an important management tool that has been almost eliminated from many habitats, but is beginning to make a comeback. Prescribed fire is generally accepted as the most economical habitat management tool available, and it’s a very effective tool for whitetail deer habitat improvement. However, we all are aware of the risks and liabilities of improper use of this tool. Prescribed fire is a great tool for managing deer habitat, but also providing high quality plants for other game and non-game species. Continue reading Deer Habitat Improvement for Whitetail and Other Wildlife

More Bucks on Camera than Does

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? Continue reading More Bucks on Camera than Does

Protein Feeders for Deer Hunting, Management

Hunters across the white-tailed deer’s range know that one of the best deer management practices out there is providing free-choice supplemental feed. In Texas, many hunters use food plots in the fall for deer hunting purposes, but more ranches use protein feeders for deer hunting than other other method of supplemental feeding. Protein pellets were initially offered in troughs, then came the feeder tubes and now this interesting protein feeder design from a well-known manufacturer.

Texas Hunter Products, a San Antonio based company known for making quality products for outdoor enthusiasts for over 50 years, has developed and patented a new feeder that makes feeding protein pellets easy and cost effective. Bob Brock, the company’s president had this to say about the feeder, “It’s one of the simplest and most affordable ways to accelerate antler growth in deer populations.” Continue reading Protein Feeders for Deer Hunting, Management