Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

Turkey Pictures

W

[bgleaton]

Turkey Pictures

Here is a picture of what a couple of our feeders look like some days:

We are going to change our feed times on our two 1,000lb+ Krivoman feeders that sling the Spincast Feed (protein/corn mix) at 6am and at 8pm because the turkeys will still be on the roost at those times. I am hoping to figure out a way to keep these **** things from eating so much feed.

[Big pig]

I did the same thing with my corn feeders after season on our feeders that aren't fenced.
Now I see more pigs. But overall much better feeding the deer than those feathered corn vacuums.
Still amazes me I have the only turkeys that won't hop a circle pen. We see dozens of birds each hunt.

[hammer63]

So my twin brother and older brother went out to the ranch this weekend to fill all of the feeders (protein, cottonseed, etc.) and install the Krivoman timed protein adapter on one of our feeders. We are definitely going to buy another Krivoman timed protein adapter and put it on another one of our Krivoman feeders because this will allow us to continue to feed it during the deer season, but it will be on a timer just like a normal corn feeder. I also think it will help prevent the turkeys from eating all of the corn off the ground, but only time will tell about the turkeys. Here are some pictures:

1,500lb Krivoman feeder with the Krivoman timed protein adapter:

Couple more pictures of the new water trough that we installed on the north side of our property:

We put out 1,000lbs of cottonseed, 2,400lbs of 20% protein, and 1,450lbs of Spincast feed. This Spincast feed is 14% protein and provides better nutrition than corn and works great in our corn feeders. It's basically a small pellet and corn mix.

Great job and nice set up!

[bgleaton]

2/21/2016 Update

My dad was at the ranch this weekend and checked our feeders and trail cameras. All three of the cottonseed feeders are getting hit pretty hard and one of them was completely empty, so we filled it back up. He also topped off the 1,000lb Trough feeder, but I realized that they aren't hitting the protein nearly as hard as they did last year at this same time. They only ate around 550lbs out of the trough in the past 3 weeks. Normally, they eat around 1,000lbs in 4 weeks.
We installed the Krivoman timed unit on 1/30/2016 and set the timer to open at 6AM and to close at 8PM. We checked to see how much feed they had eaten and only around 150-200lbs was eaten in the past 3 weeks. They really are just not hitting the protein that hard right now, which is very strange because they normally kill it. We haven't go that much rain, if any, recently, but I guess there is still so much natural forage for them to eat from all the winter rains. We also changed our two 1,000lb+ Krivoman spincast feeders to throw the Spincast mix at 6AM and 8PM to prevent the turkeys from eating all of the protein/corn mix, so we will see if that helps. I just want to make sure that all of this feed goes to the deer instead of the turkeys.

[Hydestik]

Y'all definitely got more turkeys than we've got on our place. We are on the North side of the San Saba.

[Brute Killer]

I just read thru this entire thread. It's obvious the improvement in your bucks. AND with that in mind, my opinion on feeding deer has changed somewhat. Frankly, in the very recent past, I found it all distasteful, usually because I of my perception that it goes hand in hand with high fences, breeder pens and grotesque racks.
Your improvement of your property and the deer on it is evident, and the feeding program is at the heart of it.
Good job.
(I need to get out more)

[Big pig]

Went to Goliad to check my Krivo timed feeder
Deer had drained it although I had it opened only 5 hours a day total
Guess I had more deer than I knew. Several nice bucks, but no shooter.
Don't know how much the coins ate cause the camera had been moved to point away from the feeder. It is in a pen so probably most was eaten by the large doe herd I saw many times on the camera. Windmill is only 300 yards away.
This was over a period of 6 weeks and totaled only 900 lbs.

[bgleaton]

I just read thru this entire thread. It's obvious the improvement in your bucks. AND with that in mind, my opinion on feeding deer has changed somewhat. Frankly, in the very recent past, I found it all distasteful, usually because I of my perception that it goes hand in hand with high fences, breeder pens and grotesque racks.
Your improvement of your property and the deer on it is evident, and the feeding program is at the heart of it.
Good job.
(I need to get out more)

Thanks! We would rather have quality habitat and feed a little protein, but when we purchased the property it had been overgrazed severely so we have really had to feed lots and lots of protein. Our goal is to continue to feed protein year round, but we want to continue to improve the native habitat by removing cedars, prescribed burns and re-seed perennial native forbs and browse. We are hoping that if we keep our populTion in check, we will see a small drop in feed consumption once we get the habitat where we want it within the next 5 years. We are hoping to eventually have a couple fall food plots this fall also.

[Brute Killer]

No doubt with the whole state in a drought and likely your neighbors' ranges in poor condition, you start putting out feed and you got lots of customers.

[RJK70]

Wow what a place. We lease a 1,000 acres close to yall. Beautiful country, you are fortunate to own a piece!

[bgleaton]

Wow what a place. We lease a 1,000 acres close to yall. Beautiful country, you are fortunate to own a piece!

Thanks! We are very fortunate to be able to own it and manage it ourselves. It's a lot of fun to watch these deer grow, but man it's also a ton of work to improve the habitat. There's always something to do out there, that's for sure.

[bgleaton]

3/13/2016 Updates

We were at the ranch this past weekend. We ended up receiving around 6in of rain and boy was it wet out there. Both the big and small ponds were overflowing and everything was starting to green up really nice.



Filaree is everywhere out there right now, which is around 14% crude protein and 65% TDN:



I attached a piece of metal on both sides of the 1,000lb ASF trough to prevent turkeys from being able to reach in and eat out of it. We'll see if this helps.



The Krivoman timed unit is working great and they are really hitting the cottonseed right now:


San Saba River:


We found four sheds this weekend and they happened to be two matching sets. Each antler was about 400 yards away from each other so I was very surprised when we found two matching sets:

[bgleaton]

More Pictures...3/13/2016

Primroses are popping up everywhere:


We also saw a lot of turkeys. They weren't being very vocal just yet, but they were showing off for the ladies:

[RRagan83]

cool sheds do you know the bucks that dropped them