Herd management example and strategies

[HappyM]

There has been a good thread about producing 150" deer so I thought I would try a different angle about how to use data that is often collected on ranches and get thoughts from others about strategies. These data have been collected from an actual hunting operation I am familiar with and used some of their strategies on my place. (friend is manger and he agreed to let me use the data)

Data is from 2 different years. Only real difference was survey count.

Data. Year 1. Year 2

Survey deer density. 10. 12. Acres/adult deer
Adult deer. 372. 312 Calculated from survey
Doe/buck ratio. 1. 1. Aug sept observations
Recruitment. .5. .5. Fawns / doe

Adult bucks. 188. 156

Survey data was very consistent except for deer density. Manager experience suggest mortality was about 10% until 4, 30% 4-5, and 50% afterwards inclusive of hunting takes. Their estimates based upon some grad research. I always struggled with it but it does not seem unreasonable with their management program.

Buck herd composition at beginning of season by age would therefore be along the lines of the following:

Age. Year 1. Year 2
F. 48. 40
1. 44 36
2. 40. 32
3. 36. 28
4. 32. 25
5. 22. 18
6. 16. 14
7. 8. 7
8. 4. 3
Adults. 202. 163 Added all above but fawns
Act harvest 40. 36

So the survey , mortality, and harvest data don't exactly jive but they are reasonably close. They would imply to me that there are more deer on the
place than they survey or the ratio is more like .9 vs 1 because they

seem to consistently harvest more 4+ year old deer than are calculated to be available.

Their harvest is about 50% < 145" and 50 over with several 180+ each year.
Their harvest is about 40% to 50% 4 and 5 year old management bucks and the rest are mature animals. Great ranch and great deer. They protein feed free choice for most of the year and have good groceries. Not golden triangle
good, but good. Lots of oilfield activity right now. Lots of data and things to think about.


We can all dream we had this place but the real question is what would you do if you did and what would you do with it regarding herd management and why?

Lots of professional managers and weekend warriors on here so what say you?

[Encinal]

What do they want to change? Fawn crops are low. You could work on that.

[HappyM]

Their goals are to keep improving their herd. Purpose of thread was to see what you would do with this herd.

[Encinal]

Herd that produces a couple 180's a year out of that many deer is down to micro adjustment and micro results... Unless they want a major shift to produce more deer... By carrying more deer or something.. It looks like they have it covered...

[FCTrapper]

Their harvest is about 40% to 50% 4 and 5 year old management bucks and the rest are mature animals.

IF they felt like they needed to change anything, they should look at not shooting the 4's. Look at shooting management bucks at 5, not all of the bucks they pass will make a big jump but a couple will.

[TexasTK]

The 6-8 year old numbers look a little low to me. I would strive to move more deer into this category if it were me. Curious as to how many protein feeders per acre they run ?

[Split Arrow]

I would try to recruit more bucks into the 6.5 or older age bracket(s). Other than that, things seems pretty good on paper.

[JAGR]

I would try to recruit more bucks into the 6.5 or older age bracket(s). Other than that, things seems pretty good on paper.

x2 more mature bucks

[Rwc]

I have read this once, left it and then printed it off and have re-read it. I can not see that I would change anything.

Great post,

Thanks
Rwc

[HappyM]

The ranch is right at 3800 acres. High fenced. He has around 10 protein feeders if I recall and they get hammered during the spring and summer. The reason he culls hard at 4 is to keep his density numbers down. He has told me he has tried everything in the books to get his recruitment up. Pounding predators in the spring, roller chopping to help with brush cover (thinning mesquites and promoting brush), and watering stations. I personally think if it will ever rain agian he will have a few years of good recruitment. He has been where he had .75 or .8 does per buck and sufferred considerable mortality ( I have had the same experience), and so if does not trim the bucks at 4 or 5 he gets his densities to the point the top choice browse gets over utilized and hurt. He shoots roughly 35 does a year and the ratio seems to hang right at 1 from observation data during August and September. For me the observation data is suspect. I know on our ranch we see does and fawns in groups of 2 or 3 does and their fawns but you only see bucks in fairly large bachelor groups that time of the year. Therefore if you miss one or two bachelor groups you could really skew your numbers. My guess is his D / B ration is more like .9 and the numbers make a little more sense to me. I have modeled my plan after this ranch but this year and last I have shot about .5 does/buck to get the doe numbers up just a little and get a few more fawns on the ground. If it started raining I would go back to hammering the does. I love this stuff.

[Encinal]

If he fed more his fawn crops would do better. He's still pretty undersaturated on feeder density. I don't know if that is in the budget. If he wants more big deer, he can increase his carrying capacity by feeding more at more locations.

Ratios don't really matter... all that really matters is that you have enough does to produce the numbers of bucks that you need to harvest 4-7 years down the line. A natural buck/doe ratio should have slightly more does than bucks because of the increased mortality of bucks in the late summer and rut/post rut, but with proper nutrition and water saturation, you can do all kinds of things with ratios. It's really just about preference... You can even go inverted on ratios if you want... the higher your consistent fawn crops are... the higher the inverted ratio you can maintain.

As far as deer density, higher deer density places tend to get deer to eat a higher percentage of their diet at the protein feeders.

[HappyM]

Encinal what is your fawn/doe ratio and your acres per protein feeder. Mine has been .6 the last 2 years and we have a free choice protein feeder every 250 acres. Our KR lease the recruitment was .15 fawns /doe this year from heli survey in October when the ground looked like the moon. Need rain bad to grow some decent fawning cover.

[Encinal]

If it looks like the moon, its going to be bad regardless.

My fawn crop was 80% on one side of my place and 60% on the other. We have been TTTing deer out predominantly on the west side... so the age structure of the does over there has gotten a little bit lower in recent years... causing the lower fawn crops.

Last year our fawn crop was 35% in the drought. If you maintain an older doe herd by taking doe fawns as your doe harvest... your fawn crops will go up dramatically... we just haven't been doing that the last few years.

Our feeder density is about 1:65, but our feeder STATION density is about 1:120 We have multiple feeders at each location to reduce bullying, and when we can, we try to get the Stations as close to water as possible.

We use plate feeders that have a little spillage so very young fawns can eat protein off the ground as soon as they are at heal... and plates low enough where they can very soon thereafter stretch and get their own feed directly off the plate.

We keep hogs down, so I have recently removed all of our hog panels from around every protein feeder. We still have cattle pens up to keep the cows out.

[FCTrapper]

We run 1 feed station per 157 acres. This year I'm adding trough feeders in each pen to be hand filled weekly. This is to help reduce Bullying ( like Encinal referred to ). Also to allow more fawns and does to eat. I run corn feeders in most feed pens during spring and summer and set the timers to spin for a couple seconds twice a night. To help promote feeding at its most optimal time during the off season. We have to keep cattle panels up for now. Hogs are still around in high numbers. We also feed cottonseed in each feed pen, we saw consumption pick up towards the end of summer so the should pick back up on it when we put it out in January. Another thing we did this year was feed all the way through deer season, we killed a buck this week that had a 220 lb live weight and its end of December. I'm hoping it helps to jump start antler growth this spring. It's hard to enjoy the "Moment" because it always seems I'm looking forward to next year. Lol.

[HappyM]

FCTrapper do you free choice during deer season on the protein?