Culling doesn’t work

[Mex. Bowhunter]

So according to the keyboard jockeys now killing any deer is culling cuz Webster’s?
lol

Go Back and Read it Slowly

[El General]

That’s ridiculous.

Which part?

[Smart]

Which part?

You whole post talking in absolutes.....but mostly the last paragraph first sentence...

[Mexico]

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.

[Mexico]

Skimming.. keep up Cotulla!!

I'm a little sad you gave my name away, maybe I'll move down to Pearsal or something

[160class]

Deer 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.

It absolutely does, you can still only carry so many bucks on a property. When 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

[meltingfeather]

Skimming.. keep up Cotulla!!

got it!

[Smart]

I'm a little sad you gave my name away, maybe I'll move down to Pearsal or something

Its a way of life..

[El General]

It absolutely does, you can still only carry so many bucks on a property.

Properties certainly have a finite carrying capacity for all animals that compete for food, but the sex doesn't effect carrying capacity.

When 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

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.

[160class]

Properties 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.

Yes it does cause you’re keeping the ratio in check, and it’s still less mouths to feed. A mouth is a mouth, it doesn’t matter if it has hang down and berries or not it’s still a mouth to feed.

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.

[HogHunter34]

So if you shoot a deer on your neighbors property at night with a 22 caliber is it still considered skimming?
Asking for friend who hunts East Texas

[jshouse]

Properties 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.

But you can't just shoot all the does you want, you have a certain number of tags, therefore some bucks need to be shot as well, if you are trying to keep ratios in order and reduce mouths.

[Smart]

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.

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..

[Mexico]

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 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..

Yup 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.

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[Dale Moser]

Yup 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!