Build a doe factory to create a buck factory

[BenA]

I have a next door neighbor who owns 1200 acres. A mile wide and two miles long. He has given me permission to hunt 100 acres adjacent to my land. His land is covered with deer - and plenty decent bucks. I have ridden through his property of an evening and seen over 200 deer. The land is about half wooded and half cow pasture. Besides me, he lets two guys hunt the rest of the property - bow only - if you kill it you mount it.

I cant explain in writing how many deer are on this property. Point being, he does nothing intentionally for deer other than minimize hunting pressure. He plants fescue. He sprays all broadleafs to keep his pastures clear of weeds. 270 head of cattle on the property. Continuous human activity - yet the place is covered up with deer. The owner does not hunt. Hard hunted land all around the 1200 acres. Nowhere on the property is farther than 1/2 mile from other’s hunting land.

Point being - you dont have to be a deer genius - or even care about deer - to have an excellent deer herd.

Exactly. He is supplying the most important factor. You see that underlying theme with all the "gurus".

 

[SwampCat]

Exactly. He is supplying the most important factor. You see that underlying theme with all the "gurus".

This is one thing I dont really understand - neighbor has a ton of deer - and they are "tamer" than mine. Bucks much more predictable. I have 400 acres next to him and bucks are much more nocturnal. He is out and about all over his ground five times as much as I am - someone drives the entire perimeter fence every other day - plus eight to ten hours a day within internal acreage hauling feed, checking waterers, checking and repairing internal fencing, etc - almost everyday. Hunting pressure is probably more days on his place than mine - but obviously spread out over more acreage.

Do deer recognize the difference between work activities and hunting pressure? Human activity by itself cant be the determining factor on neighbor's place or on mine. One difference is some of our hunting activity is done with a firearm and none of the hunting is done with a firearm on his place. We shoot maybe twice a year at deer. There are a couple of deer killed a year off his 1200 acres with a bow and a couple of deer killed a year off my 400 with bow or rifle. He has no hesitation about shooting at coyotes, hogs, or black vultures (with permit) with a rifle - anytime of year. My deer habitat is much higher quality than his - but he has much more marginal habitat. That is the only real glaring difference.

 

[SD51555]

Repetition is his big advantage. He likely never stops to engage those deer directly, just keeps going about his business, and always moving at a friendly pace, and can be heard coming from a long ways away.

 

[drycreek]

To the tune of Jailhouse Rock:
The buck threw a party at the factory of does
But the bullets went a flying and away he goes,
The orange army was jumpin' and the joint began to swing
You should've heard the popping when the bullets began to ping!

Let's rock
Everybody, let's rock
Everybody near the big salt block
Was shootin to the doe factory Rock

The semi auto were a spitting like a tenor saxophone
The lever actions were a workin like a slide trombone
The big bore bolts were a going crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was a orange army gang

Let's rock
Everybody, let's rock
Everybody near the big salt block
Was dancin' to the doe factory Rock

You probably have a future Native, but I don’t think it’s gonna be upstaging The King. You’re a dang good apple grower though !

 

[drycreek]

Repetition is his big advantage. He likely never stops to engage those deer directly, just keeps going about his business, and always moving at a friendly pace, and can be heard coming from a long ways away.

This is what I think.

 

[SwampCat]

Repetition is his big advantage. He likely never stops to engage those deer directly, just keeps going about his business, and always moving at a friendly pace, and can be heard coming from a long ways away.

Exactly the same as me. I do have a polaris ranger and he has a yamaha viking. We both drive Chevy trucks and JD tractors. We ride around the acreage every couple of days - just as he and his folks do - maybe slightly less than his crew. We bring deer feed - and there is always deer on fresh feed within an hour. He carries deer feed - just cow feed.

I think it is purely acreage. I have drove around my 400 acres and seen 60 deer. You might see 200 on my neighbor’s place - but his place is 3 times as large with hundreds of acres of open ground where deer are more visible. They usually kill a really nice deer or two each year - where as we kill one every two or three years - but again - he has three times the acreage.

My point being. I intentionally create bedding cover, summer and winter food plots, feed high protein feed, maintain nwsg in my open areas compared to fescue - I work at it. This guys does absolutely no habitat management for deer - he plants fescue and kills desirable broadleafs - and still maintains a high deer density with good quality bucks. He cares nothing about human intrusion, much the same as us.

We have a high deer density - as does he. He does not allow does to be killed - and neither do we. It makes me wonder if this is the key. If I did nothing but protect my does - and stopped all the habitat work - would my deer population be what it is, now?

 

[Native Hunter]

You probably have a future Native, but I don’t think it’s gonna be upstaging The King. You’re a dang good apple grower though !

And, I did it My Way....

 

[SwampCat]

This is what I think.

I have had a number of friends come to my place and ride around on my ranger with me - and almost all of them are struck by how tame my deer seem. It is very common for me to drive by deer 20 yards away and they look but keep feeding.

I understand all that. The point being, this man does no habitat management to intentionally benefit deer - in fact, he destroys good deer habitat - yet the deer remain at high density.

 

[BenA]

This is one thing I dont really understand - neighbor has a ton of deer - and they are "tamer" than mine. Bucks much more predictable. I have 400 acres next to him and bucks are much more nocturnal. He is out and about all over his ground five times as much as I am - someone drives the entire perimeter fence every other day - plus eight to ten hours a day within internal acreage hauling feed, checking waterers, checking and repairing internal fencing, etc - almost everyday. Hunting pressure is probably more days on his place than mine - but obviously spread out over more acreage.

Do deer recognize the difference between work activities and hunting pressure? Human activity by itself cant be the determining factor on neighbor's place or on mine. One difference is some of our hunting activity is done with a firearm and none of the hunting is done with a firearm on his place. We shoot maybe twice a year at deer. There are a couple of deer killed a year off his 1200 acres with a bow and a couple of deer killed a year off my 400 with bow or rifle. He has no hesitation about shooting at coyotes, hogs, or black vultures (with permit) with a rifle - anytime of year. My deer habitat is much higher quality than his - but he has much more marginal habitat. That is the only real glaring difference.

You are the best judge of your own place, and I think you answered your question. These are the key things I heard where I see a difference:
You said he is on his ground five times as much as you and almost daily.
You said that his property has much more visibility than yours.

I think both of those are key factors. The deer can see him doing his thing much easier and more often, so they are conditioned to it more.

 

[SD51555]

With that many deer around, why not take some does?

I don't have anywhere near that many deer up by me. I bet we may have 15 DPSM in a good year pre-hunt, but we can regularly lose the fawn crop in the winter, and even bonus deer to lack of winter food, length of winter, and wolves. I think we need to whack some just to make some breathing room for the remaining deer to have a chance at survival. I spent years not shooting does only to find numerous dead deer on my property in the spring. Don't know why they died, but mother nature always harvests our surplus.

 

[SwampCat]

With that many deer around, why not take some does?

I don't have anywhere near that many deer up by me. I bet we may have 15 DPSM in a good year pre-hunt, but we can regularly lose the fawn crop in the winter, and even bonus deer to lack of winter food, length of winter, and wolves. I think we need to whack some just to make some breathing room for the remaining deer to have a chance at survival. I spent years not shooting does only to find numerous dead deer on my property in the spring. Don't know why they died, but mother nature always harvests our surplus.

We used to kill some does and our deer population started dropping precipitously. It was sometime later when I got to know a lot of my 15 acre adjacent landowners - and they have no problem putting several does in the freezer. Since our fawn recruitment numbers are typically below .5 fawns per doe, it takes a lot of does to produce enough fawns to cover all annual mortality - from hunting to predation, auto kills, flooding, etc.. After 20 years, we have found this works best. Our top live buck weight has also increased. We have killed three 200 lb plus bucks in the last five years - biggest in the previous 40 years was 185.

What is your fawn recruitment? Twins are extremely rare here.

 

[Granular]

One area I feel like the Sturgis' videos have helped me is that I now focus a lot more on fall and winter food sources and severely limit my summer food plots on my Iowa and Illinois farms. I think that is really what he is trying to say IMO. I think he is also trying to set up farms where you can hunt successfully throughout the season including the back side of bedding areas (in addition to just food plots and does in heat) which may be part of this discussion as well.

On a side note, he is also clear about planting brassica's and cereal grains separately at different time periods which seems fundamental. One of the guru's promotes a blend of both (DD) in his seed company and farm habitat plans which makes me scratch my head a bit (Most of his other info I generally agree with and really enjoy).

I guess they all have their strengths and weaknesses but I do feel like I have learned some things from Sturgis. He also appears to be a hard worker and has an entrepreneurial spirit.... traits which I admire.

As I've gotten older I'm glad these guys take the time to put together videos as I enjoy watching them. They deserve a return on their time and investment so if they make some money that is a good thing it keeps them going....my two cents worth.

 

[SD51555]

We used to kill some does and our deer population started dropping precipitously. It was sometime later when I got to know a lot of my 15 acre adjacent landowners - and they have no problem putting several does in the freezer. Since our fawn recruitment numbers are typically below .5 fawns per doe, it takes a lot of does to produce enough fawns to cover all annual mortality - from hunting to predation, auto kills, flooding, etc.. After 20 years, we have found this works best. Our top live buck weight has also increased. We have killed three 200 lb plus bucks in the last five years - biggest in the previous 40 years was 185.

What is your fawn recruitment? Twins are extremely rare here.

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen twins by me. We’ve had two bad winters in a row, so I’m surprised to see any fawns. I’ve got one on cam now that looks really good far as size goes. There’s another doe with that group. I can’t tell if it’s a yearling or an doe that lost her fawn.

A new matriarch moved in this year, a real parking cone for a face. I may pull back on shooting a big doe this year and aim for a yearling. The ones that produce will get a pass in the event we get a third bad winter.


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[BenA]

One area I feel like the Sturgis' videos have helped me is that I now focus a lot more on fall and winter food sources and severely limit my summer food plots on my Iowa and Illinois farms. I think that is really what he is trying to say IMO. I think he is also trying to set up farms where you can hunt successfully throughout the season including the back side of bedding areas (in addition to just food plots and does in heat) which may be part of this discussion as well.

On a side note, he is also clear about planting brassica's and cereal grains separately at different time periods which seems fundamental. One of the guru's promotes a blend of both (DD) in his seed company and farm habitat plans which makes me scratch my head a bit (Most of his other info I generally agree with and really enjoy).

I guess they all have their strengths and weaknesses but I do feel like I have learned some things from Sturgis. He also appears to be a hard worker and has an entrepreneurial spirit.... traits which I admire.

As I've gotten older I'm glad these guys take the time to put together videos as I enjoy watching them. They deserve a return on their time and investment so if they make some money that is a good thing it keeps them going....my two cents worth.

In the scenarios he is in, it might make sense to not have summer food directly on his property, because it's 10 feet behind him on the adjacent property. He doesn't even hide it with his drone footage. He owns the bottoms between the ridges of summer food on his SE MN place. He's even planting clover and chicory in places around the edge of those bottoms.

Where facts disagree with Sturgis is in the importance of summer food or even maybe more importantly spring food. Spring and summer are when does are giving birth and nursing fawns which are huge nutritionally demanding periods. Also, bucks are putting on antlers, which is another one. If you are in an area with a large amount of agriculture like beans, corn, and alfalfa, deer are pretty well off during that time period except for coming out of winter into spring when most of that isn't planted. The faster a deer can catch up in replenishing its body reserves, the better off it is. I've heard him say they don't need summer food, because it's a time of plenty, and there's green everywhere. If you don't have soybeans and alfalfa or some other good food around, and you're not actively managing your woods and fields for early succession food, then a lot of the plants they have available are nutritionally inadequate at that time even though they are green. As many plants mature, they become less palatable and less digestible and the nutrient content goes down.

With all that said, I still think he has a lot of good content. His underlying concept like all the others is security. He just puts his(and some "borrowed") twist on it. Not a bad thing; just not anything revolutionary. He just puts it in a simple formula that a lot of people can use.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

One area I feel like the Sturgis' videos have helped me is that I now focus a lot more on fall and winter food sources and severely limit my summer food plots on my Iowa and Illinois farms. I think that is really what he is trying to say IMO. I think he is also trying to set up farms where you can hunt successfully throughout the season including the back side of bedding areas (in addition to just food plots and does in heat) which may be part of this discussion as well.

On a side note, he is also clear about planting brassica's and cereal grains separately at different time periods which seems fundamental. One of the guru's promotes a blend of both (DD) in his seed company and farm habitat plans which makes me scratch my head a bit (Most of his other info I generally agree with and really enjoy).

I guess they all have their strengths and weaknesses but I do feel like I have learned some things from Sturgis. He also appears to be a hard worker and has an entrepreneurial spirit.... traits which I admire.

As I've gotten older I'm glad these guys take the time to put together videos as I enjoy watching them. They deserve a return on their time and investment so if they make some money that is a good thing it keeps them going....my two cents worth.

By summer plots do you mean clover/alfalfa or corn and beans? How was limiting them helpful?

I think for a lot of us, we don't have acreage to sustain corn/bean plots anyways so they are a waste of time but having clover come on strong in the spring benefits your fall plots and soil health anyway. I could see how fewer deer eating the woody browse in the summer could make for a better setup come fall when deer are back and on the fall plots. The main reason I would want a "summer" plot (beans/corn) is for late season hunting when the legumes are dormant or dead and the brassicas and cereals are buried by snow.

Edit to add: the deadly dozen is a weird one to me too. Don talks about about having your crops at ideal age for palatability but sells rye and sugar beets in the same blend?

 

[SwampCat]

I've heard him say they don't need summer food, because it's a time of plenty, and there's green everywhere.

I think that is a problem with the so called deer consultants is they dont quantify a lot of their comments. If he would have said - summer is a time of plenty - up north - there may have been more accuracy to his statement. Summer time in the deep south with continual temperatures over 100 degrees and little to no rain - we are quickly drying out - and it is going to get worse. Summer is our stress period.

A lot of folks who are just getting into habitat management believe everything that these guys say - but I do know it is extremely difficult to quantify every single statement. I worry much more about my Aug/Sep food supply than my Jan/Feb food supply.

 

[BenA]

This was briefly mentioned in the introduction of the linked paper, but I wonder if you broke it down by age class if there would still be an equal mixture of bucks and does.

That's a really good point. There was that gps study done in Delaware where they showed no daytime habitat type preferences were apparent for bucks until they looked at age classes. When they separated the 4.5 yo bucks out, they noticed a strong preference for the safest areas (swamps in that case) for that age class and over. The younger bucks of 2.5 and 3.5 didn't show that same affinity for the most part. The older bucks chose the areas that had the least hunting pressure.

 

[Granular]

Wind Gypsy: I was referring to Clover/Alfalfa, especially Alfalfa. Is helpful because it frees up more acreage for Fall/Winter food.....helps keep does (factory lol) and bucks on my land and not leaving for neighbors that provide Fall/Winter food (pretty serious whitetail hunting areas with good soils and big ag nearby during the spring/summer/early fall).

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I think that is a problem with the so called deer consultants is they dont quantify a lot of their comments. If he would have said - summer is a time of plenty - up north - there may have been more accuracy to his statement.

To be fair to Sturgis, the "time of plenty in the north" qualifier has been included or i took it as implied when he says such things being as he has always talked about his northern MI, WI, and MN properties a lot. He could point to his rye/cereal use for early spring nutrition before all the row crops and woody browse is rocking again. In that case, i can see why creating additional steps and work to focus on having clover in june/july wouldn't be particularly important. The thing is it's so easy to just add some clover/chicory to fall plantings and let it do work for you until it's time to plant again the next fall.

 

[b116757]

This is one thing I dont really understand - neighbor has a ton of deer - and they are "tamer" than mine. Bucks much more predictable. I have 400 acres next to him and bucks are much more nocturnal. He is out and about all over his ground five times as much as I am - someone drives the entire perimeter fence every other day - plus eight to ten hours a day within internal acreage hauling feed, checking waterers, checking and repairing internal fencing, etc - almost everyday. Hunting pressure is probably more days on his place than mine - but obviously spread out over more acreage.

Do deer recognize the difference between work activities and hunting pressure? Human activity by itself cant be the determining factor on neighbor's place or on mine. One difference is some of our hunting activity is done with a firearm and none of the hunting is done with a firearm on his place. We shoot maybe twice a year at deer. There are a couple of deer killed a year off his 1200 acres with a bow and a couple of deer killed a year off my 400 with bow or rifle. He has no hesitation about shooting at coyotes, hogs, or black vultures (with permit) with a rifle - anytime of year. My deer habitat is much higher quality than his - but he has much more marginal habitat. That is the only real glaring difference.

We use a good amount of korean lespedeza in some of our pastures and will drill in winter rye in addition to normal broadleaf control. Some hay meadows are native grass some are or where red clove before we started row cropping 150 acres. Your neighbor likely has a lot more going on than just fescue in those pastures if I was a betting man. I’m currently trying to figure what to over seed into a 50 acre poor quality native grass pasture to improve its feed value. Right now I’m leaning towards frost seeding some of the Durano White clover I’ve been fooling with into that 50 acres it will likely cost me $1400 or so to seed it. I may yet go a different route and plant something else idk yet.