is it Genetics or is it food ?

[jshouse]

TxSportsman when you are comparing dwarfs to regular humans that's like comparing Coues Deer to Midwest Whitetails. Not really a valid comparison.....will a Coues Deer ever be as big as an Iowa Deer?

But if you poured the food to a herd of Coues deer and let them reach maturity....over several generations I would bet ALOT of money that their antler size would improve drastically.

What I think it boils down to is that the people complaining about bad genetics is vastly overused.....and probably not a valid argument when the deer's environment won't allow them to reach that potential.

El Gato has figured out a way to take the "restrictor plate off the carburetor" and is running WOT now!

yep...which brings up another question, i don't have much time but real quick...before gato started his project were all those 140s they saw (again, going off of memory about what they saw prior to fencing) just oppressed monsters? or was it a process, an evolution of improved nutrition and age, that lead to the deer he has now? in reality, they are the same family of deer genetically...

[elgato]

yep...which brings up another question, i don't have much time but real quick...before gato started his project were all those 140s they saw (again, going off of memory about what they saw prior to fencing) just oppressed monsters? or was it a process, an evolution of improved nutrition and age, that lead to the deer he has now? in reality, they are the same family of deer genetically...

Both, I believe genetically suppressed at the time and genetically improved from nutrition over time. { BTW 140" would have been generous in the beginning}

[unclefish]

yep...which brings up another question, i don't have much time but real quick...before gato started his project were all those 140s they saw (again, going off of memory about what they saw prior to fencing) just oppressed monsters? or was it a process, an evolution of improved nutrition and age, that lead to the deer he has now? in reality, they are the same family of deer genetically...

My vote is - oppressed monsters. We all have oppresed monsters except for a few folks on this thread.

[bgleaton]

So our neighbor to the west of us high fenced his property about 10 years ago and has since done prescribed burns, cleared cedars and supplemental fed every year. He has not brought in any outside genetics or breeder bucks and two years ago he shot a buck that scored 172". They have shot a buck in the 150's or greater every year for the past 5 years. I understand that genetics are important, but in this example it was nutrition and age that improved his deer herd. Before the high fence, the previous neighbors, before we purchased the property, shot a lot of youngsters and only fed corn. It took almost 6 to 8 years for him to see some major differences, but it just shows that the genetics were in fact there.

[bukkskin]

THats an interesting observation. A question to ask is about the history of the deer. If born from controlled breeding in a pen then certainly he is going to have a genetic advantage.It's like comparing random circumstance to lightning in a bottle. If he was a free range native genetic buck then of interest is what was the nutritional plane his parents and family tree have been on for generations as compared to the nutritional plane of the deer in the new home? Nutrition improves the bell curve of antler genetics over time.

elgato, thanks for the reply. Here is the thing that I see. I feel that there are different sub species that have evolved over a long period of time in different regions of Texas.
I hunt in Mexico, same as you, but I live in Pipe Creek(hill country). I also raise deer in pens. My Mexico deer dwarf any deer I have ever seen around here by a lot. My pen deer dwarf my Mexico deer also, by not quite as much. I have always considered body size into the equation when picking my Breeder for the year in my pens, typical symmetry also.
And I agree with an earlier poster. Take two 5 foot Myans, man and wife and see what their kids look like. They are most likely gonna be "short"
Now take David Robinson and an extremely tall woman. Their kids would most likely be "Tall"
Bigger body, bigger head, bigger pedicle, bigger antlers, the way I see it.
Your deer in LA are probably bigger bodied than your mexico deer, if I had to guess. And I am not taking anything away from you, you have done an awesome job, and I admire that.
I'm just saying not all deer in Texas are created equally, by region or area. Some have the genetics, some don't.
But, I could be wrong.
I just don't see these house deer could ever,ever catch up.

[bukkskin]

So for the 'average' mgt. minded lease holder or land owner which makes the most sense. Spend $ to introduce superior genetic into a herd that that is nutritionally compromised with no idea of what the current genetic potential is? Or spend $ to raise the nutritional plane for the deer you have and thus have an ever shifting positive effect on your current herds production and genetics starting immediately?

Both!!!!

[Lynn21]

James kroll says age , nutrition , and then genetics.
He's the guru on whitetails.

[iHunt]

Genetcis have to be more important than food. Why are there different sizes of deer on the same place. Aren't they all eating the same thing?

[TxSportsman]

is it Genetics or is it food ?

I'll go a little off track again.

First, does DMP work. Certainly it can if you saturate the property with enough deer to shift the bell curve.

Does introducing store bought top end genetics work. Certainly it can if you introduce enough deer to make a material impact in the herd and your willing to take the risks....risks such as the introduced deer being unadapted to the range diet, resistance to local infections and diseases etc.

I propose that there are very very few places anywhere in the country where the nutritional plane is high enough 365 days a yr to fully manifest the genetic potential of the deer. Simply look at the annual antler quality oscillations on even the best most intensively fed ranches resulting from varying yearly climatic conditions and you can gain some insight. And I believe that most deer properties are well below what is necessary to express full genetic potential.

Thus continuing with that proposal, because of insufficient nutrition there are very few places where deer express their genetic potential TODAY. And this has been happening generationally. Do we really know what the genetic potential of any property is?

If you want to make an immediate dramatic improvement in the quality of deer you have now, then make sure they have an unlimited broad variety of the highest quality plants available to them 365 days a year. then you will begin to see what the genetic potential of your herd is. Until then you are just guessing.

Lets take it a step further. If you want to dramatically improve the herd quality over time then assure 100% nutrition [ and health...do your deer get wormy? Think that might effect antler quality?] 365 days a yr. for several years. Numerous studies in deer, humans and other mammals have identified the maternal effects impact on genetics. Simply stated if an off spring is born to a mother on superior nutrition then that offspring will tend to grow bigger [ body and antlers ] The effects can become exponential at about 10 yrs but results can be seen annually.

So for the 'average' mgt. minded lease holder or land owner which makes the most sense. Spend $ to introduce superior genetic into a herd that that is nutritionally compromised with no idea of what the current genetic potential is? Or spend $ to raise the nutritional plane for the deer you have and thus have an ever shifting positive effect on your current herds production and genetics starting immediately?

Do you feel you would have achieved the same or similar results without "culling" inferior genetics? "What if" you only shot the top 50%, in terms of antler size, rather then the lower 50% (or whatever your cutoff is) and continued your nutrition regiment... Do you feel that the lower half would continue to increase in size? Or do you think you would eventually remove those superior genetics from the herd? I know, it's another hypothetical that some people will hate!

Nutrition is excellent, but let's not forget one of the most, if not THE most important management tool (the gun).

[Truckville]

Lee and Tiffany got it right, if you want big bucks move to where big bucks are. How do you make small bucks giants? Either side of the argument will cost you a fortune done properly and take years or decades of your life. So the answer to the question in my opinion is either as long as you have lots and lots of money and time to spend.

[kyle1974]

The Genetic attribute is only effective in certain scenarios. A small HF vs large low fence would be the 2 opposite sides of the spectrum. In some scenarios there is absolutely no way you could alter or assist the genetics. Genetics is a very complicated subject that truthfully I doubt many understand the magnitude of its power. Back to the OP in my opinion the most important of the 3 is AGE then NUTRITION and Lastly Genetics, unless your in a scenario that is more controlable then Genetics would be second.

I agree that "changing" genetics is hard, if not impossible. expecting an entire herd to be genetically different would probably take hundreds of years, in a high Fence situation.

bringing in better deer than what you had though is relatively quick and entirely possible. DMP pens for example... it's a game of odds, and tools like DMP stack the odds in your favor.

even though, not every deer will get to be an astronaut when he grows up.


and I also agree... to the OP's question. Let your deer grow up and get old. That's how you know what their potential is.

[GTXHUNTER88]

For us it is food first, for without nutrition you do not see the genetic expression, then it comes to weeding out genetics which includes the age factor.

[krod777]

Me too

[perfectstorm]

How many generations under a relatively small high fence (1000 acres/under) do you also consider into this equation that you are line breeding animals. From my understanding that is how the original breeder deer were brought about- by fencing native deer & line breeding them amongst themselves in the pen for multi-generations.

[bukkskin]

Age and the best nutrition possible are going to get you the most out of the deer you have ,Yes.
But I think if those two things being a constant, Genetics can be the most important one of the three.

Think about it, say you owned 10,000 acres in Texas and all the deer on the ranch and within 200 miles in all directions died off from "whatever".

Now, TPWD offers to bring you 200 head to restock.

You can pick from native deer at Canyon Lake(no offense to Canyon lake area hunters or landowners.) or You can get them from one of Brittinghams places in South Texas.

Which deer would you pick to restock with?

To me there is a difference.

I know that nutrition has a huge impact on weight and antler development, and I believe the 35% in the study.
Here is a "Personal" example of why I believe "genetics" is so important and that all herds are not equal under the same conditions.

In 2012 I had to move my whole herd. I had to sell my 2 yr old bucks because I didn't have a pen ready for them in time. I had a bottle raised "pet" that I named "Pip-squeak". Now me and pipsqueek was buddys, so I wanted him protected. So, I called a hunting friend of mine who happens to live in Pipe Creek also. He has about 75 acres of high fence that he raises axis and blackbuck, it also has some native whitetails.
My friend said, "yeah bring him on, He can die of old age here"
So I load up and off me and pipsqueek go for Pipe Creek. Now you all know how bad the drought was then. I pull in and it looks like 75 acres of concrete with oak trees and cedar sticking out of it. I was worried, but I was in a bind. So I dropped the tailgate on my little truck, opened the door on my little plywood box and pipsqueak jumps out. He hits the ground on his feet, stops and eats the last remaining blade of grass on the place and walks off.
My friend calls me every week and says he hasn't seen him. He feeds the deer every evening behind his house. That's it, no protein feeders in the pasture and no native browse left.

Two months go by and he finally calls and says " hey pipsqueak is standing here with the other deer and he don't look too good". I said "well throw some alfalfa out, he probably hadn't eaten since he got there".
He finally recovers from skin and bones after he finds the "only feed" on the place. It was touch and go, we thought he would die.

That year he was poor(2013), antlers and all, although he was a very nice typical ten when I dropped him off (2012).
In 2014, friend calls and says "hey you need to come check out "Squeek". That's what he calls him. Tells me that he is "LEAPS and BOUNDS" over any other deer on his place and that he would be proud to shoot him in Mexico.

I stop by and check him out, nice big framed typical 11. All the other bucks are typical 8 pts, maybe one 9 pt. But, none of them come within 40 inches of ol "squeek". They all eat the same thing, which isn't much mind you. So why is this one deer so much bigger than the rest under the same conditions??
I have a pretty good idea myself.

I am not discounting nutrition at all. I would love to be able to plant food plots where I hunt. If they would grow, we would have a bunch of shooters instead of borderline shooters I'm sure

So here we are 5 1/2 yrs after I dropped off my little runt orphaned bottle raised buck.
He is alive and well and just shed his antlers.
My buddy feeds NO protien on his ranch, just a small bucket of corn behind his house and puts out some old raggedy round bales of coastal.
He called me in Nov. and was bragging on "pipsqeek".
Yesterday he said that he had found both sheds so I drove over there today.
17 scorable points. This year he threw matching drop tines on both sides.
G2's are 13 1/2"s and 12 3/4"s
G3's are both 11 1/2"s
G4's are over 8"s
G5"s are not very long but this is the first year he was a main frame 12.
He was 7 1/2 years old this winter.
Anyways, he completely dwarfs All the native bucks by a Huge margin. Nothing even remotely close.
Oh, he is 1/16th Northern blood.