Originally posted by meltingfeather
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Culling doesn’t work
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Genetically there is no way to know if one deer is superior to another without proper nutrition and age. Two deer might be young, one looks inferior to the other but as they age very well could be superior. Remember a deer is still growing his skeleton until 4, I'd like to see him at least 1 year throwing all that nutrition into his antlers.
That's why I let ALL my deer reach 5 before passing judgement. I just want y'alls crystal ball to look into the future and make these decisions, that's all sure would save on the protien.
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Originally posted by El General View PostDeer are born 1:1 or pretty close to it, but females tend to live longer than males, so on a free range place you don’t need to shoot a bunch of bucks to keep the ratio near 1:1.
Shooting bucks makes no impact on herd numbers. We do not feed protein. So, we shoot does to keep population numbers down for improved nutrition.
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Originally posted by 160class View PostIt absolutely does, you can still only carry so many bucks on a property.
Originally posted by 160class View PostWhen you’re shootings both bucks and does you are impacting the herd, it doesn’t matter what you want call it, but it is managing/culling/skimming the herd shooting bucks and does
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Originally posted by El General View PostProperties certainly have a finite carrying capacity for all animals that compete for food, but the sex doesn't effect carrying capacity.
When you shoot bucks, you are not impacting long term herd numbers in a meaningful way on a free range place. When you shoot does, you can effect long term numbers in a meaningful way.
I get the argument you’ll never get rid of a certain genetic, but you can defiantly help it out by killing/culling/skimming inferior mature bucks to get the better genetic deer to become the more dominant deer in an area. My situation is also different as we are a very large LF pasture, and it’s all a numbers game, you take X amount of bucks and X amounts of does.
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Originally posted by El General View PostProperties certainly have a finite carrying capacity for all animals that compete for food, but the sex doesn't effect carrying capacity.
When you shoot bucks, you are not impacting long term herd numbers in a meaningful way on a free range place. When you shoot does, you can effect long term numbers in a meaningful way.
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Originally posted by Mexico View PostGenetically there is no way to know if one deer is superior to another without proper nutrition and age. Two deer might be young, one looks inferior to the other but as they age very well could be superior. Remember a deer is still growing his skeleton until 4, I'd like to see him at least 1 year throwing all that nutrition into his antlers.
That's why I let ALL my deer reach 5 before passing judgement. I just want y'alls crystal ball to look into the future and make these decisions, that's all sure would save on the protien.
No crystals balls here.... I need one though to go with my Dr. Deer manual..I would be set
We have a lot of deer. We start SKIMMING at 4 for the worst of the worst but if they show any inkling of having a good frame/beams, nice tine length, kickers, tall brows they get more time....even the 8s because we love big 8s. The deer killed at 4 are usually just junk....spindly white horns, short tines, no brows....the lesser of the deer we have. We also take the range conditions into account for the year when considering. We subscribe to if you have 5 deer that could qualify, shoot the worst first and hope the better deer that make it or we pass on make a jump....and that's just a group decision.
That being said we aren't kidding ourselves that we are some Cotulla Cowboy trophy factory or we are some superstar armchair biologists that have it all figured out. Our three biggest deer taken off the place are only 154, 157 and 158 with a nice amount in the upper 30s to low-150s. And we are happy with that. We just do what we can with what we have without breaking everybody's bank. Figured its common sense to kill lesser bucks of the group and enough does to allow more groceries (natural or provided) for those we keep around...and cross our fingers they stay on our landowners 4400 acres or some illness doesn't kill them out of the blue..Last edited by Smart; 10-23-2019, 10:12 AM.
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Originally posted by Smart View PostNo crystals balls here.... I need one though to go with my Dr. Deer manual..I would be set
We have a lot of deer. We start SKIMMING at 4 for the worst of the worst but if they show any inkling of having a good frame/beams, nice tine length, kickers, tall brows they get more time....even the 8s because we love big 8s. The deer killed at 4 are usually just junk....spindly white horns, short tines, no brows....the lesser of the deer we have. We subscribe to if you have 5 deer that could qualify shoot the worst first and hope the better deer that make it or we pass on make a jump....and that's just a group decision.
That being said we aren't kidding ourselves that we are some Cotulla Cowboy trophy factory or we are some superstar armchair biologists that have it all figured out. Our three biggest deer taken off the place are 154, 157 and 158 with an nice amount in the upper 30s to low-150s. And we are happy with that. We just do what we can with what we have without breaking everybody's bank. Figured its common sense to kill lesser bucks of the group and enough does to allow more groceries (natural or provided) for those we keep around...and cross our fingers they stay on our landowners 4400 acres or some illness doesn't kill them out of the blue..
I'm blessed to be able to help manage one of the most premier HF ranches in Mexico, the deer get all the protien they want. It's been under fence since '08... I could be off a year one way or another.
It's been intensely culled for 10 years, under DMP management ( And no outside genetics) and you still know what our number 1 issue is? CULLS! We killed 35 last year.
Those genetic traits are thousands of years old and probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Have we seen an improvement? Yes, but it's taken years and years.
Just talked to the owner and it looks like another 25 will go this year. Just goes to show even under intense HF management culling is almost futile, open range... well you get the point.
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Originally posted by Mexico View PostYup I get it, you understand though that the next year you'll have a new round of "junk". Most don't.
I'm blessed to be able to help manage one of the most premier HF ranches in Mexico, the deer get all the protien they want. It's been under fence since '08... I could be off a year one way or another.
It's been intensely culled for 10 years, under DMP management ( And no outside genetics) and you still know what our number 1 issue is? CULLS! We killed 35 last year.
Those genetic traits are thousands of years old and probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Have we seen an improvement? Yes, but it's taken years and years.
Just talked to the owner and it looks like another 25 will go this year. Just goes to show even under intense HF management culling is almost futile, open range... well you get the point.
Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
You need to inroduce the owners and biologist to the practice of "skimming"! It's the newest thing...game changer...double down aint got nuthin on a good skimmin!
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