Visiting Deer - Sharing Resident Deer Resources
- Thread starter TXArcher
- Start date
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Plat food plots and manage native habitat.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
All I get are visiting deer on my land!
Some hang around for a couple weeks, some visit daily.
I try and provide better cover, food, security, water on my property than the neighbors have.
It has been working great for us, especially if there is any pressure on the deer in neighborhood.
I put in ponds, plant plots and provide feeding stations. Lots of nut, fruit and browse trees/shrubs.
Some hang around for a couple weeks, some visit daily.
I try and provide better cover, food, security, water on my property than the neighbors have.
It has been working great for us, especially if there is any pressure on the deer in neighborhood.
I put in ponds, plant plots and provide feeding stations. Lots of nut, fruit and browse trees/shrubs.
I conduct September camera surveys and according to the survey, I usually have about 60 deer on my 350 acres. But I also understand a lot of those deer spend a lot of time on the neighbors’ ground also - but most of them are “regulars” on my ground. I have about 25 acres of food plots and usually six supplemental feed locations. My regular deer weigh more now than they did 15 years ago.
About half my ground is in the bottoms and subject to flooding, moreso late winter and spring. When the bottoms flood thousands of acres - my land receives a large influx of deer - “visitors”. My land cannot accommodate them for long periods. Usually the bottoms are flooded for only a week or two and I dont really notice a lot of over browsing. When the floods last a month, I do.
About half my ground is in the bottoms and subject to flooding, moreso late winter and spring. When the bottoms flood thousands of acres - my land receives a large influx of deer - “visitors”. My land cannot accommodate them for long periods. Usually the bottoms are flooded for only a week or two and I dont really notice a lot of over browsing. When the floods last a month, I do.
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
What you're talking about makes me think about a western situation with migratory herds. I don't think most of us differentiate between resident and visiting deer beyond possibly having different usage patterns at different times of year (ex: if you keep food available and more deer move in after crops in the area are harvested).
BenA
5 year old buck +
Look at your plants that are being browsed (exclude planted forages). Identify species in your region of the country that are highly desirable, moderately desirable, and minimally desirable. If you have no highly desirable plants for your region present or they're being browsed to nothing, you have to make more by decreasing the number of deer overall (resident or not) or increasing the highly desirable browse through various habitat improvement practices.
It is hard for a small property to provide all the resources needed year round for a large herd of deer that moves between a large number of properties.
I let the other landowner provide what the deer need for most of the year. I try to provide the food and cover that they need from September through January so we can shoot them! I'll never own a property that is large enough to have any completely resident deer - all I can do is try to make the deer that drift through my properties spend as much time as possible there during the fall. I'm actually happy if the deer avoid my place in the spring and summer so they can leave my preferred browse alone during the growing season.
In my area, keeping the neighborhood deer here in the fall means having thicker than average cover for the area and more/better food than the neighbors. I also think it is a benefit to have some food sources that drop slowly from trees and can't be immediately wiped out by a large herd of traveling deer. Slow dropping fruit trees that drop fruit over a long time period could be a huge draw as the deer can't reach the fruit high on the tree unlike a typical food plot that can be wiped out as quickly as the deer can eat it.
I let the other landowner provide what the deer need for most of the year. I try to provide the food and cover that they need from September through January so we can shoot them! I'll never own a property that is large enough to have any completely resident deer - all I can do is try to make the deer that drift through my properties spend as much time as possible there during the fall. I'm actually happy if the deer avoid my place in the spring and summer so they can leave my preferred browse alone during the growing season.
In my area, keeping the neighborhood deer here in the fall means having thicker than average cover for the area and more/better food than the neighbors. I also think it is a benefit to have some food sources that drop slowly from trees and can't be immediately wiped out by a large herd of traveling deer. Slow dropping fruit trees that drop fruit over a long time period could be a huge draw as the deer can't reach the fruit high on the tree unlike a typical food plot that can be wiped out as quickly as the deer can eat it.
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