Some places have too many. Some don't. you can't cookie cut every situation. Looks like you did what you needed to do SE

Wait, what! Some places have too many ?!

He hasn't had his one on one site visit and personal meeting with CNC yet. Harold will show him the light and get him corrected.

Remember , you can have a lot of deer if you have food for them.

So my question is how do you determine when there are to many deer on a property?

Im really confused here. Are the deer on this property starving? it looks like a well used field to me. Not sure how one is supposed to determine if there are too many deer on this property from this picture. I got invited to a 500 acre property this year because they "had to many does" there fields looked a lot worse than this. They had not taken a doe off of that property in over 5 years. they also did not allow gun hunting on that property until after Christmas and you couldn't shoot a doe with a rifle. so when I went i took my crossbow. I was sitting on a 1/2 acre plot with a corn pile 40 yards in front of my stand. I had 11 deer come in to that corn pile at around 4 in the afternoon. I shot the biggest doe in the group. The 3 guys that hunted the property were hunting that day and they all saw at least 6 or more does and we all killed a doe that afternoon. They wanted 5 does killed off the property and we almost did it that in one afternoon. Even though I was happy to shoot a doe for them, I'm still not sold that they had "too many does" every deer we killed was close to 100 pounds I don't think they were starving.

So my question is how do you determine when there are to many deer on a property? This is directed at the OP

Let's just say you have a 2.5 yr old on your property that shows genetic potential to blow up to 150 plus. His momma may have had the genetic that was passed to him. Start killing does and you may kill off your dominant genetic.

Wait you want to grow mature bucks that express their potential, but did I read right that field isn't even soil tested?

Have you seen any negative impacts on your turkeys after spreading all the chicken litter? Not trying to derail, but the mention of chicken litter being spread had me wanting to ask the question.

That was my first thought I ain’t allowing it on my property.

Have you seen any negative impacts on your turkeys after spreading all the chicken litter? Not trying to derail, but the mention of chicken litter being spread had me wanting to ask the question.

More doe killing won't help. I have a somewhat similar situation. For 20 years there were an average of 14 does a year killed in the field. Didn't matter how many you killed there were just as many the next year. My cousin and I got tired of killing them, we still see equivalent numbers, not more not less, and the same ratio of bucks. There was only one deer killed this year, a 4.5 yo 9 point. Hopefully the bucks we let walk made it, there are 2 will be 4.5yo or better next year. Some decent younguns coming along also. We may invite some kids to come kill a doe or three this year just because.

Listen to what you're saying! You killed does and "There were just as many the next year." Wouldn't it make sense that had you not killed 14 does that you'd had those 14 does plus, let's say 1.5 fawns per doe which would be 21 fawns plus the 14 does. That's 31 extra deer you'd seen! You can't look at it like you're looking at it. You're totally missing the deer you took out of the herd and you're TOTALLY missing the offspring that would have been there. Approx 11 of those fawns would have been bucks, but don't worry about the bucks that could've been. The key is to keep the carrying capacity of the land in check. AND... carrying capacity changes each year.

And on a property that small, all 11 of those buck fawns born to the does living there, would have dispersed off onto surrounding properties in a 2-10 mile radius. Do some research on buck fawn dispersal. Unless you’ve got thousands of acres, 90% of the young bucks you see on your property will have been born somewhere else and dispersed over onto you. It’s a major reason why what your neighbors and neighbors neighbors are doing and shooting, really affects what you’re able to do and accomplish management wise on your property

So Mbrock and Abolt300... what acreage would you say it takes for a deer to be hunted on the same land it was born on? If all the bucks born on your property pretty much leave, should the goal of having healthy does and fawns change to trying to attract more spikes and 2 year olds? Or are the paths to both those goals the same?

I'm trying to decide if trapping coyotes should even be a concern anymore since those buck fawns wouldn't have stayed on my property anyways. Let the coyotes kill the fawns to make more room for the bucks coming in from other properties.

Yotes eat young doe fawns also...

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Speaking of coyote depredation . Ft rucker put some good info out years ago about this. Best i recall , they concluded coyotes were responsible for north of 70% fawn mortality. Its an eye opener for sure

I try to trap at the right time to create a void of coyotes during fawning. I used to do the same with coons during turkey nesting. Will have to get back in both of them this year.

I believe there’s research now showing if you want to save your turkeys you need to be more concerned with the coyotes than coons.

I believe there’s research now showing if you want to save your turkeys you need to be more concerned with the coyotes than coons.

We found some coyote crap other day that had pieces of a Gobbler beard in it. We'd had a nice Gobbler in the area (on cam) and he disappeared, guess we know what happened to him now 🫤😡🫤