is it Genetics or is it food ?

[jshouse]

and maybe its semantics, maybe "change genetics" should be "improve genetics," although an improvement is technically a change, improving genetics is probably a better term.

[TxSportsman]

is it Genetics or is it food ?

That's a serious amount of time! Your talking about evolution... I don't feel that is tangible material here. I hope you read my entire post.

[jshouse]

have you seen el gato's thread? look at the deer he is growing now vs. the deer he started with. best example I can think of.

[jshouse]

That's a serious amount of time! Your talking about evolution... I don't feel that is tangible material here. I hope you read my entire post.

and its not really, humans have grown 4" on average in the last 150 years, whats that, about 3 or 4 generations?

[Mex. Bowhunter]

That's a serious amount of time! Your talking about evolution... I don't feel that is tangible material here. I hope you read my entire post.

Your comparing Deer Life spans to human Life Spans You will see a lot faster change in Deer than Humans due to the Next Generation being able to Breed at earlier stages

[TxSportsman]

I think we are getting a little off track here... of course there is going to be evolution over long periods of time. That's a proven scientific fact, not something I am debating. Does nutrition have something to do with it? Sure it does. But is that tangible for the lease hunter? For the ranch owner? No, it's not. Does feeding your deer herd help them get to their genetic potential? Yes it does, you will see bigger deer.

Elgato's thread is neat and he is doing a really great thing... But lets do another hypothetical. How about a large piece of property with a sub-par deer herd (genetically speaking). Lets do this;

-Feed the herd excellent food, food plots, protein
-Let the deer survive naturally, that is, ZERO hunter harvest and have the animals die of old age (of course there are other factors that would come into play, overpopulation etc but this is a hypothetical so forget those)

What happens now? What happens to the herd with no hunter harvest to determine antler characteristics for nature? If there is a study without any hunter harvest, I would be really interested in seeing the results.

[Mex. Bowhunter]

I think we are getting a little off track here... of course there is going to be evolution over long periods of time. That's a proven scientific fact, not something I am debating. Does nutrition have something to do with it? Sure it does. But is that tangible for the lease hunter? For the ranch owner? No, it's not. Does feeding your deer herd help them get to their genetic potential? Yes it does, you will see bigger deer.

Elgato's thread is neat and he is doing a really great thing... But lets do another hypothetical. How about a large piece of property with a sub-par deer herd (genetically speaking). Lets do this;

-Feed the herd excellent food, food plots, protein
-Let the deer survive naturally, that is, ZERO hunter harvest and have the animals die of old age (of course there are other factors that would come into play, overpopulation etc but this is a hypothetical so forget those)

What happens now? What happens to the herd with no hunter harvest to determine antler characteristics for nature? If there is a study without any hunter harvest, I would be really interested in seeing the results.

I Have No Clue what you are debating any more? What if? what if? What If?

[jshouse]

it was perfectly tangible for ranch owner el gato. IIRC they barely saw 140" deer when he started, pretty typical with most hunters in texas I would say, now they kill 200" deer every year with the same 140" genetoics, MONSTER food plots, and letting deer get old.

using the "no hunter harvest" argument is off track in my opinion, it has nothing to do with what the guys here want to know...not than I am any type of expert or that my opinions should be given any more salt than randy the cashier down at the ez mart...

[jshouse]

I Have No Clue what you are debating any more? What if? what if? What If?

haha, that's what I was thinking...

[TxSportsman]

I'm not debating, I'm just asking questions, hoping to spur some more intellectual conversation about it and hopefully get some brains churning. I'll stop.

[Mex. Bowhunter]

no reason to stop but, you went from a farming environment to a zoo

[helim83]

Man, there is some seriously awesome info on this thread!!!!! Until a few posts ago....lost me.

My buddy has a high fence place in San Diego. He has a brought in several breeder bucks, and generally speaking has a very nice herd going. They feed year round, and has some food plots planted and plenty of fresh water. Everuthing super green down here due to all of the rain. We were talking about me putting a couple of deer out there. I was thinking more breeder bucks, but now I'm thinking some bred does might actually be the way to go.

Lets keep this thread alive and on track!!! Too much helpful information to lose!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gingib]

Man, there is some seriously awesome info on this thread!!!!!

Lets keep this thread alive and on track!!! Too much helpful information to lose!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes this was a great read and lots of good info for us management minded hunters

[unclefish]

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!

[elgato]

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?