Considering the broad range of habitats occupied by white-tailed deer, it is no wonder managers become confused about the nutritional requirements of deer. In the course of my articles on buck management, I have repeatedly discussed the three factors that influence antler quality in bucks: age, genetics, and nutrition.

Of these factors, nutrition is probably the most easily to control for producing quality bucks with quality antlers. Whitetails are extremely adaptable and food preferences and requirements vary greatly between and even among regions. White-tailed deer are much different than other deer species (which tend to be generalist with regards to forage.) Whitetails are more specialized feeders that select specific foods in order to satisfy their nutritional requirements. (more…)

Prescribed burning can be very effective at maintaining highly-productive white-tailed deer habitat. It is one of the best mangement tools we have. However, many folks get really nervous whenever someone talks about burning their property because there has been so much negative press regarding wildlfires and the “destruction” of wildlife habitat. Truth be known, wildfires are natural and both plants and animals are adapted to the periodic disturbance caused by fire.

Prescribed burns, however, are not and should not be wild. When setting up a prescribed burn, prescribed fire, controlled burn, or whatever you want to call it, the person responsible for the fire basically writes a prescription for the fire. This means that a host of conditions must be met in order to carry out the burn safely and effectively. Fire breaks, fuel loads, sustained wind direction, relative humidty, and safety equipment must all be address for a properly conducted prescribed burn. When all conditions of the burn are met, the prescription is completely achieved, and the area can be burned. (more…)

How much of your property or ranch should you put into food plots? Good question, but the answer depends upon the actual amount of deer habitat you and neighboring properties have, the carrying capacity of the land, and the amount soil you have that is food plot friendly.

Generally, estimates range from 1 to 6 percent in both cool season and warm season food plots, but that wouldn’t make much sense if your property is smaller in size. (more…)

A review of offerings at sporting goods stores reveals a myriad of products designed and marketed to attract deer to the hunter. Products, of course, fall into several categories, including food, dietary supplements, calls, decoys, musk and/or scents. Many of these products claim to deliver monster bucks for some unknown reason to anyone who applies them in the prescribed manner at the right time.

Although most products help a hunter increase their chances of success, this success is dependent upon the hunter understanding deer and how they react to nature and other influences. With this is mind, this article focuses on the various “supplemental” attractants used to attract white-tailed deer.

In Texas, it’s legal to hunt deer over a baited area, but hunting adjacent a feeder is not a perfect science. Deer will walk through scattered corn to get to a tree that is dropping acorns every time. Furthermore, deer may not even make themselves visible when habitat conditions are great - all while a mountain of corn grows under your feeder. (more…)

Very little research has been done with wildlife species in relation to the consequences of suboptimal nutrition conditions on estrous cyclicity and reproductive capability. White-tailed deer in Texas ideal for such research due to the reproductive seasonality and common reproductive failure when food quality and quantity is low. A research study out of Texas A&M University - Kingsville is studying the effects of reduced food intake on white-tailed deer estrous cyclicity through the evaluation of several specific nutritional measurements.

In the first year of the study, mature whitetail does were fed “all they could eat” on a high nutritional diet and bred. In the second year, doe diet was restricted from September through November and even up into mid-January and bred. (more…)

When considering the management of white-tailed deer, unless your property is game fenced you should realize that adjacent lands are also included in the home ranges of many of the deer on a ranch less than several thousand acres in size. Only those deer within the interior of a really large ranch may have home ranges located totally within the ranch, while those in a wide band around the ranch’s perimeter likely move back and forth onto adjacent lands. The quality of a ranch’s deer population will in large part be dependent on both the habitat quality and population management strategies (i.e. hunting pressure and deer harvest) on both your and neighboring lands.

The key to producing a productive and healthy white-tailed deer population is dependent upon the quantity, quality, and variety of food plants produced by the habitat or range. Food availability can be improved in the following ways:

1. Harvesting deer, including does, to maintain total deer numbers at or below the capacity of the habitat.

2. Stocking the range with a moderate number of domestic animals, preferably those that do not directly compete with wildlife, and utilizing some form of a deferred-rotation system of grazing.

3. Controlling invading “noxious” woody vegetation, such as excessive brush species that are not needed for cover. This will reduce competition between plants species and increase the production of grasses for cattle and the production and availability of browse and forbs preferred by deer. It is recommended that your property be a mosaic of 50-60% wooded/brush with the remainder in scattered openings and/or food plots.

4. Avoiding the stocking of excessive numbers of exotic big game animals or at least keeping their numbers at a low level, since exotics compete with white-tailed deer for browse, forbs, and mast. If you are really interested in producing trophy white-tailed deer, stay away from competing exotics.

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A ranch must be divided into at least two pastures before even the least complex two pasture/one herd deferred-rotation grazing system can be implemented. If not cross-fenced, the land manager would need to have access to other areas where livestock could be moved to during the prescribed rest periods. Electric fencing is a lower cost and less labor-intensive alternative to barbed wire for dividing a ranch into multiple pastures.

For a deferred-rotation grazing system to be most effective, all the pastures in the system should be more or less equal in size and/or have similar grazing capacities (e.g., pastures on the most productive, deep soils of a ranch would have higher livestock grazing capacities and should therefore be smaller than pastures on shallower, less productive soils). (more…)

What do deer eat? Deer eat mostly browse (leaves, twigs, shoots of woody plants and vines) and forbs (weeds and other broadleaf flowering plants). They do eat some grass, but only when it is young, green, and succulent. Sheep, goats, and exotic game species compete directly with the whitetail for preferred deer foods.

Deer food shortages usually occur during late summer and winter months. Adequate forage is usually available during the spring and fall seasons because of mild temperatures and increased rainfall. A variety of foods and habitat types is essential to good deer production and survival.

Deer eat a variety of plants, and different plant species become more important at different times of the year and importance can even vary year-to-year depending upon environmental conditions. The following plants are examples of some good deer foods which are readily eaten by deer when and where they are available. (more…)