Buck Manager | Buck Manager

Buck Antler Growth: Management Options

Question: “I have a 5 1/2 year old buck that is a 9 point. Do you think there is a possibility that he may become a 10 point for this hunting season or do you think he will stay a 9 point buck? He has been a 9 point the last 3 years and I’ve been hoping for him to grow that 10th point, but no luck yet. Of course, I love having him pass on his genes.”

Response: Whether your buck grows into a typical 10 point frame buck depends on a number of variables. He very well could, but if I had to bet money one way or the other then I would bet that he comes up short, yet again, this year. For the most part, antler growth in white-tailed bucks is fairly predictable. The 3 major factors that impact antler development consist of age, genetics and nutrition. That will never change, but many other variables that comprise each of these categories may. Let’s talk about how each of these factors could impact your buck.

Deer Management for Big-Antlered, Mature Bucks

Age and Antler Size

Whitetail bucks will often increase antler points as they get older, but their antlers will peak and begin to decline if the buck is allowed to get really old, becomes ill, gets injured or if nutrition falls off. It is important to note that an increase in antler points is relative to the number of points a buck had to start with as a yearling, as a 1 1/2 year old deer.

As a rule of thumb, a buck that starts with fewer points, say 2-4, will have fewer antler points at maturity (5 1/2) than one that has 6-8 as a yearling. Bucks that are allowed to age will have antler spreads that are wider and most notably, heavier “horns.” Antler mass (circumference) can be another good physical characteristic to hone in on when aging bucks in the field. An older buck equals heavier antlers, but not always additional points.

From my experience, the overwhelming odds are that a whitetail buck that does not have a 10 point main-frame by 4 1/2 years of age will not develop one in subsequent years. Yes, it CAN happen.

Antler Development in White-tailed Bucks

Genetics and Antler Potential

Genes are the underlying factors that determine the potential for antler growth in any buck. Growing older along with good nutrition will allow a buck to physically express those underlying genes, but no amount of age or food can “fill the gap” where a buck may naturally lack. If you know the deer on your hunting grounds have access to high quality foods, then all you can do is let them get older and, if possible, practice selective buck harvest to remove those with less potential for antler growth and leave those with more potential.

Selective harvest (i.e. culling) works. It’s not so much about changing the gene composition of a local deer herd, which can happen in intensive situations over years, but rather about allowing those great 3-4 year old bucks to get older and removing the lesser ones so they don’t.

Buck Nutrition

Removing deer from a whitetail herd is the most important aspect of deer management. Whitetail management is a numbers game, which is why I mentioned (above) removing those low-end, middle-aged bucks and leaving the better ones. Selective harvest removes deer from the herd, but it also decreases competition for resources, which affects food and nutrition! It’s also important to shoot does, which can influence (or not) the number of animals in a population annually.

Large numbers of does, as compared to bucks, lengthens the breeding season and will physically run down bucks. They WILL have smaller antlers the following year if they do not have adequate post-rut nutrition.

More deer means less food per mouth, while fewer deer means more food per mouth. A buck’s diet and overall level of nutrition impacts his annual antler growth. This is most notable during years when habitat is really great or when habitat is really poor. However, tough years are harder on 1-3 year old bucks than those that are 4+ years old.

Older, bigger bucks have more resources for antler growth to pull from within their bodies (bones) and they also have access to the highest quality foods within an area. Skeletal growth continues until age 3, so mature bucks do not have to worry about that either.

Managing for Buck Antler Growth

Deer Management Considerations: Your 9 Point

Based on the number of antler points your buck has a 5 1/2 years of age, my guess is that this buck is destined to be just that, a 9 point. If you were waiting on him to be a 10 point then you did the right thing, you were patient. However, at 5 1/2 years this buck has age on his side and still no dice. I suspect that the genes for a 10+ point frame just are not there, so no amount of age will get him over the hump.

Remember, there is no deer management without deer hunting and harvest. If you are fortunate enough to see this mature buck this deer hunting season then my recommendation would be to take him. The odds of him surviving to the next season are decreasing rapidly with every year, and he’s competing with some (hopefully) better bucks for both food and breeding rights. Every deer is a good one, but especially when it’s a mature buck. Best of luck!

Public Hunting in Texas: Draw Hunts Going Online

Texas is well-known for white-tailed deer hunting, but it’s also known as a state that is overwhelmingly privately owned. That means finding low cost and/or quality public hunting opportunities can be few a far between. However, with a little luck you could be hunting smack-dab in the middle of some well-managed lands. That’s because Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) offers some really good draw hunts on public hunting lands across the state.

We took advantage of these draw hunts growing up, specifically for deer, and it did allow us to see some beautiful parts of the state as well as meet some other awfully nice hunters. The TPWD draw hunt system is basically a lotto system with an entry fee that puts hunters in areas where animals need to be removed. It was an annual, late-summer ritual to sit down with their printed draw booklet and “map out” the areas where we would enter, hopefully hunt.

It was never a sure thing since the odds of getting drawn were low, but more years than not we were fortunate enough to get to go hunting somewhere. Most of the these public hunts take place at TPWD’s wildlife management areas, but they also hunt state parks and some state and national forest. Now the whole draw system is going online, so although it will make it easier for hunters to apply, it may very well increase the competition.

Source: Effective with this summer’s applications, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s popular Public Hunt Drawing System will be online-only. The Public Hunt Drawing System offers affordable hunting experiences in more than two dozen different hunt categories, including eight specifically for youth only. Applications will only be accepted online — no “Applications for Drawings on Public Hunting Lands” booklets or application forms will be printed and mailed out.

With the new paperless system, hunters will be able to browse the drawn hunt catalog by hunt category and location using interactive maps, as well as complete the application and pay online. Selected applicants will be notified by email and can accept permits and pay any fees online. Permits will be issued by email and can be printed at home or stored on a mobile device. Those applicants who are not selected may still be eligible through a secondary drawing if any permits are unclaimed by the payment deadline. There may still be opportunities for traditional standby hunts at some locations.

In addition to now being able to apply for multiple hunt areas within the same hunt category (i.e. apply for a Gun Deer — Either Sex hunt on more than one hunt area), the online system will give hunters more time to apply. Application deadlines start in August and wrap up in January. Applicants will have until midnight on the day of the deadline to apply.

Non-refundable application fees for drawn Special Permit hunts range between $3-10 for each adult applicant 17 years of age or older. Selected adult hunters pay an additional permit fee of $80 for regular hunts and $130 for extended hunts. There are no application fees or drawn hunt permit fees for youth age 8 to 16. There are no application fees for the e-postcard hunt or the U.S. Forest Service Antlerless Deer permits.

Applicants will also retain and continue to accrue Preference Points, now called Loyalty Points, as in the past. Points will stay with the category and be applied to each application equally.

The new online-only system will begin accepting electronic applications in July for 2014-15 Drawn Hunts, including Special Permit hunts, E-Postcard hunts, and US Forest Service Antlerless Deer Permits.

More information about the new online draw hunt system can be found on their web site.

Peak Antler Development in Whitetail Bucks: When?

It’s never too early in the year to start talking about bucks and antler growth for the upcoming hunting season. I have high expectations for some older bucks that should look very nice this fall, especially given the timely late-Spring rains that just soaked the area. That translates directly into additional high-protein forbs, new growth on browse plants and increased antler growth, not to mention better habitat conditions for hiding fawns. Things are looking up!

Today, we’re discussing antlers. We can still refer to them as “horns” while at deer camp.

Specifically, we’re looking at changes in antler growth in bucks, mature bucks. Every deer hunter has stories or at least game camera photos of some odd-antlered deer. And let’s face it, hunters enjoy talking about those deer as well as all the other wild things we’ve witnessed while out hunting white-tailed deer. There are an untold number of events that happen in nature that we never had seen had we not been sitting nearly motionless and scentless for hours on end. Ok, let’s focus.

When it comes to managing deer it’s really all about population (herd) management on a given property, although certain individuals (bucks) can be exceptionally poor or amazingly great. It’s also the outliers that we tend to remember, the ones way out on either end of the bell curve. Some recent and extensive research on antler development using known-aged bucks seemed to confirm some of the things we knew about whitetail bucks and antlers, but they also found some other interesting data about changes in marked, free-ranging bucks from year to year.

Mature Bucks and Changes in Antler Size

The general consensus among seasoned hunters, deer biologist and academic research suggest that most white-tailed bucks reach peak antler growth around 5 to 6 1/2 years of age. This is definitely the case for the overwhelming majority of bucks, so it definitely has management implications. That said, a few do some really whacky stuff:

Source: “Using data from 170 bucks captured more than once while they were mature, I constructed a distribution of the magnitude of change in antler size for bucks 5 to 8 years of age. The figure below shows the distribution of 211 instances in which antler-size change was measured in subsequent years.

For example, there were 47 bucks that gained 0-5 inches in antler size from one age to the next and there were 37 bucks that lost -5 to -0.1 inches. These data come from the South Texas Buck Capture project with captured bucks on 5 ranches in Webb and Kleberg Counties over a 10-year period.”

“From these data, it is clear that successive antler sets of individual mature deer vary by less than 20 inches in 90% of the instances. However, in 3% of instances, antler size changed by more than 40 inches. We will use 40 inches as our criterion to define an outlier in antler-size change of mature bucks.”

More on Antler Growth in Deer

Male white-tailed deer grow and shed antlers on an annual basis, typically starting a new set in late spring. Antler growth is regulated by hormones, which are controlled by day length (photoperiod). Throughout late spring and summer, antlers are filled with a rich blood supply and are covered with a hair-like membrane referred to as velvet. During this stage, antlers are quite vulnerable to injury, which many times result in deformed antlers.

Actively-growing antlers are high in water and low in dry matter content (phosphorus and calcium). Late in the summer, antler development slows and the antlers begin to mineralize (harden). When growth is finally complete, blood flow to the antlers stops completely and soon after all of the velvet is rubbed off (typically within a single day). Hunters often see a by-product of this effort, as rubs will be found on pliable saplings up to small trees that are 7-8 inches in diameter. This result is a buck with a brand-new set of hardened antlers.

Following the whitetail breeding season, de-mineralization occurs at the base of the antlers in healthy bucks and that causes them to shed their antlers. Early antler shedding can be attributed to deer that are not completely healthy, for whatever reason. Immediately following antler drop the entire development process starts over.

Habitat Management: Managing Grasslands for Deer

Managing Grasslands for Better Deer Habitat

There are numerous methods for land managers to improve the value of the white-tailed deer habitat found on their property. Habitat management is the foundation of managing whitetail. Hunters and land managers often contact me to ask about ways to enhance habitat for white-tailed deer, but that is a wide-open question with an answer that will vary widely between properties.

If the plan is to help deer and other wildlife on your land then the very first thing should be to take inventory of what you do have. What assets does the property currently provide for deer and other wildlife?

More often than not, the plant communities found on a farm or ranch offer more than one might expect. There is value in just about every plant when it comes to wildlife in general, but obviously some specific plants are better for deer than others. Before we get too far along, let me clarify a couple of the terms that I’ve already used. Plant communities and habitat are two different things. Most animals, whitetail included, require a number of plant communities to comprise the habitat that they need.

Plant Communities & Deer Habitat

Examples of plant communities would be forest, grassland, marsh, riparian (river/creek) area. The collection of plants that comprises each plant community is often different from one another (though some plants can be found in different communities). We could even get more specific and have oak forest and pine forest or tallgrass prairie and shortgrass prairie.

Wikipedia: Plant community is a collection of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The components of each plant community are influenced by soil type, topography, climate and human disturbance.

Now that we are on the same page, let’s talk specifically about grassland communities in terms of habitat management for white-tailed deer.

Managing Grasslands for Deer Foods

Whitetail are not cows. Grass does not make up a large part of a deer’s diet. Whitetail really only eat grasses when the grasses are very young, palatable and often most nutrient-rich. This is even the case in food plots that are planted to small grains such as oats an wheat. Deer use them readily when the plants first begin grow. As long as deer continue to feed in the plots they are steadily provided with new growth, but will shy away from them once the plants become more mature.

So grasslands are of little value, right? Wrong. Although grasses tend to dominate grasslands (that’s obvious), grasses are not the only plants found there. Forbs (weeds) are also found in these areas and are typically in high supply during the spring and fall or just about anytime when there is enough rain. When we see deer in a pasture it is often the forbs they are eating, not the grass.

Deer habitat management should include manipulation of native grasslands and pastures to promote more foods. Plant succession is the change in species structure of an plant community over time. Low succession plants offer a higher food value for deer and other wildlife, namely seed eating songbirds, Bobwhite quail and doves. Managers can promote early succession forbs within un-grazed grasslands by disking and/or mowing at least 10 percent of their open land each year, either just before Spring or Fall.

Managing Grassland Habitat for Whitetail Cover

If deer do not eat grass then why have it at all? Well, it does provide decent screening cover for adults and it’s used heavily by fawns. Grass is a commodity that is, unfortunately, not always readily available on on properties. On lands that graze cows using a continuous grazing system composed of one herd and one pasture then often there is just not a lot of grass cover at all. A rotational grazing system is best for the habitat when it comes to the management of white-tailed deer.

Cows are an automatic, biological mower and disk combined. Not only do cows consume much of the grass but their hooves disturb the soil, both actions that promote forb growth. As long as the cows are rotated off the forbs have their day in the sun and then the grasses grow back.

The problem with a pasture that is only a few inches tall is that it neither provides screening cover for adults nor resting cover for fawns. In some areas, tall grasses (~3-feet) can provide a significant amount of screening cover for deer. Think of areas like the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and western Kansas. This is also true in farm country, especially during the winter months, when deer need just a little cover to facilitate movement.

Grass Cover, Fawns & Deer Hunting

At the time of writing, it’s mid-May and there have already been a number of reports of fawns on the ground. Good grass cover is critical for their survival as well as future deer hunting opportunities on your land. It takes good deer habitat to produce and recruit white-tailed deer year after year. It’s key that you learn how to improve deer habitat on your hunting property if you are interested in managing whitetail.

Proper management of grassland communities should be a part of an overall habitat management plan. Deer need a little bit of everything in terms of major plant communities, and healthy grasslands add both food and cover. Small changes can make big differences of properties of any size when it comes to managing white-tailed deer habitat.

Contraception for White-tailed Deer Management in Developed Areas

Contraception for Deer Management

Much of what we discuss on this site concerns managing white-tailed deer populations for optimal health, which leads to increased fawn survival and improve antler growth. That’s great for hunters and sustainable, rural deer herds, but people living in suburban areas that chock-full with overabundant deer have a completely different perspective when it comes to whitetail management—and the number one objective there is to decrease the deer population.

It’s interesting that deer herd reduction is the common prescription for two goals that are just about 180 degrees from one another; managers are aiming to produce more and healthier deer while deer management in developed areas is strictly about reducing deer numbers, deer reproduction.

Deer Birth Control?

A lot of the people that live in suburbs are a bit different than the folks that live out in the country. I understand that plenty of deer hunters find themselves living in the ‘burbs, but it’s important to realize that only about 5 percent of the US population actually hunts. That means the overwhelming majority of Americans, which could be you or the bulk of your neighbors, do not. Nothing wrong with that (because there is already a lot of competition for hunting lands), but since we are in America everyone gets to have their say, right or wrong. Case in point: Birth control for a free-ranging deer herd.

Source: “My decision to pursue this is ultimately a practical one. If it works, we will finally have accomplished what other communities have failed to do and found a non-lethal approach to the deer issue that would work in a dense village like ours,” Swiderski said.

Swiderski said the five-year study, which also involves the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton, Mass., will cost the village about $10,000 this year and possibly less next year.

Researchers hope to treat 60 deer this year and during the next two winters, and to continue to monitor them. Captured does — tranquilized first with a drug-filled dart — will have a numbered ear tag attached, blood drawn for a pregnancy test and an initial vaccine dose. Known as PZP, the vaccine uses a doe’s immune system to stop her eggs from being fertilized.

But after about a week of looking for deer, Naugle and Grams had tagged and treated just one. They can fire at deer no more than 20 yards away with their air-powered rifles, and they are still learning where the animals spend their days.

“It’s a slow process. But next year, by the time we come back here, we’ll have everything figured out,” Naugle said.

Contraception for Free-Ranging Deer

To get to the point, contraception does not work on free-ranging white-tailed deer herds. It barely works on captive deer herds because of either the inability to get an appropriate dose of birth control to the deer on a daily basis or because enough of the deer can not be “treated” within a short enough period of time (i.e. more females are added annually). In this case, I’m going to have to claim insanity for this town because the most telling words in the entire article were these, “If it works, we will finally have accomplished what other communities have failed to do…”

It’s a shame to throw away good money. If anyone who reads this lives in an area with overabundant deer, whether you are a community leader looking to control the deer population or now simply an informed citizen, stand up and let your neighbors know that contraception for deer does not work unless you are willing to build a deer-retardant fence that is at least 8-feet tall around the problem area, then drastically reduce the population through either deer hunting or trapping, and then maybe there is at least a chance that some type of birth control can work.

If all of that is not an option, then the most cost-effective way to control suburban deer populations is through regulated hunting. Unless you have unlimited resources, hunters are your only hope. Be nice to them.