There are as many different kinds of food plot mixes on the market as there are days in a year, but a lot of people do not realize that the best food plots for white-tailed deer actually grow naturally! In my opinion, natural foods are the best food plots.

I guess by definition what I am writing about today can not really be considered food plots, but more like techniques to provide additional foods for deer. But I believe habitat management is the first step in deer management!

Disking- This is a simple technique that can be implemented (get it) during both the spring and fall. There is nothing magical about how disking works. The only thing necessary is that you use a disk to disturb the surface of the soil so that forb seeds can become “exposed” and germinate.

To promote warm season forbs for deer, disk the selected area before spring green-up. To promote cool season food plots simply disk the area where you would like your native food plot to be during late summer. In addition, to promote more edge and diversity you can alternate disked and undisked strips (strip disking). (more…)

There is a lot that is not known about how white-tailed deer affect their habitat under different densities with and without supplemental feed. But, that’s exactly what a research project initiated on two South Texas ranchesd hoped to determine — the effects of deer on native vegetation.

To accurately conduct the research, six 200-acre enclosures were constructed on both ranches. In addition, they were divided into 3 pairs — each with target populations of 10, 25, or 40 white-tailed deer. One of each pair was supplemented with a free-choice (all you can eat) pelleted supplemental ration and the other was left to forage from only native forbs and browse. To document changes in habitat condition, canopy cover and biomass were estimated annually. (more…)

It’s almost May, so fawning season is just around the corner. And as such, today we are going to talk about providing fawning habitat. Overuse of grasslands/rangelands that are overstocked with domestic cattle on a long term basis can kill individual plants, usually grass species. This can be a huge problem for fawns. Fawns need grassy cover.

Sure, whitetail do not consume much grass — it makes up less than 10 percent of their diet and they typically on eat it at a very young growth stage — but it is important for fawn cover! Healthy ground-cover can help with fawn survival and help get more fawns recruited into the adult population. (more…)

Good habitat management is the cornerstone of a successful deer management program. But providing good habitat is more than just planting a couple food plots, setting up some protein feeders, and hoping it rains. In fact, none of that stuff is habitat management. Those things can help with available food resources, but they do little to address big issues for the plant communities found on your property.

Sure, food plots and free-choice feeders do provide supplemental food, but habitat management is a whole other issue. Habitat management is not as straight-forward as placing out food for deer to eat, so many people shy away from it. Habitat management is actively creating or restoring processes that impact habitat and food production at several levels – and they can have long-term benefits for deer rather than just over a single season or year.

As time consuming as habitat management can be, not all techniques are difficult to implement. Although I touch on different techniques from time to time, today I just want to talk about timing. Timing, as in life, really is everything! (more…)

Exotic deer were first imported into North America during the 1900’s and are now found throughout most of the white-tailed deer’s range in the United States. The number of exotics increased rapidly in the 1950’s. In Texas alone, the last exotic survey was performed in 1996 — and at that time there were an estimated 190,000 animals and 76 different species. Current estimates put the statewide number of exotic ungulates at 250,000!

Research has examined food habits of axis, sika, fallow, blackbuck antelope, and aoudad sheep — and data conclusively found that most exotics directly compete with white-tailed deer. Exotic deer, like whitetail, either preferred forbs or preferred browse, but could perform well on grass, as well. Regular readers of Buck Manager know that white-tailed deer prefer forbs when they are available, but as forbs become unavailable, they shift their diet to browse. (more…)

Although browse plants are the staple of the white-tailed deer, too much brush can hamper your overall deer management program, particulary when it’s invasive cedar (ashe juniper) or nuisance regrowth such as mesquite. These woody plants are not targeted by deer and often times create problems with overly-dense canopy cover — preventing more beneficial forbs and browse from establishing in addition to decreasing water infiltration on rolling and sloped terrain.

However, with brush control comes brush control options: biological, chemical, and mechanical. The use of mechanical equipment to control woody plants will typically result in the initial growth of forbs and annual grasses and the resprouting of many woody species. As a result, woody species targeted for control may have to be stump-sprayed to prevent regrowth. Find out more about the life history of the plant you intend to control prior to investing valuable time and money. (more…)

There are many effective ways to control or maintain brush. Where woody plant growth is short and overly abundant, such as arid areas like south Texas, chaining is an feasible and cost-effective way to get the job done. White-tailed deer need brush, but where too much cover exists, the removal of some brush can be a great deer management strategy.

The concept behind chaining is simple. Pull a big chain, knock down woody plants, and create more edge and places for forbs to grow. Chaining is typically done with two dozers that pull a ship anchor chain. It’s recommended that the chain be pulled in a half-circle or “J” pattern between them (from an aerial view). The chain should not be stretched tight between the dozers!

In order to pull out the target species of brush, each link should weigh more than 50-pounds. And since you will likely have to hire someone to pull this management activity off — unless you have two bulldozers and some 50-pound per link chain lying around — they will know exactly what to do if you tell them what you want to accomplish. (more…)

White-tailed deer the need cover and big, mature bucks relish it, but having too much cover is not necessarily a good thing. Open areas are needed to grow beneficial forbs for deer — and deer prefer habitat with a lot of edge — so providing a variety open areas within wooded habitats are deer magnets. This article gives a few tips on things to keep in mind for your brush management program.

In general, brush cleared from better soil types results in higher forage production and typically cost less. As such, before you go to clearing excess brush off or opening up forested lands on your property, do a little preliminary investigating to determine the soil types found on your property. Soil reports are published by the USDA for most counties in the United States and will save you both time and money.

The next step in your brush management plan should be to avoid steep slopes. Steep slopes are not only prone to erosion, but steeper slopes usually have thinner soils and do not respond readily to brush control practices. Use your resources for brush management on level, deeper soils that are more easily cleared, managed, and provide consistent deer forage. (more…)