For those of you who raise Axis....

What do you typically use as a rule of thumb for harvest rates/numbers for your Axis each year? (I am referring to both mature bucks and does)

We are going to begin raising Axis on a new property my family is purchasing. The property is 124 acres (near Huntsville, TX) and we plan to keep a herd of approximately 100 Axis.

They seem to have similar reproduction habits to whitetail.....and with whitetail, the general "rule of thumb" used by guys like Jack Brittingham is to harvest around 15% of your buck population every year....along with 20-25% of your doe population.

So let's just say we maintain a group 40 Axis bucks with 60 Axis does. That would mean taking out 6 bucks and 12-15 does per year.

FYI....we do not plan to buy additional "shooter bucks" once our population is built up. We also plan to wait until age 5 before shooting any bucks (except for the occasional cull).

Any helpful advice you gents that raise Axis could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

you going to try and raise 100 axis on only 124 acres
hate to have your feed bill ?

you mite want go with 10 bucks and 30 does
especially if your not going to take any for five years

Yes we are....

We aren't in this to make money. It is for family/friend entertainment only....

How can the herd withstand taking 25% of the buck population? I find that hard to believe....

I never said we weren't going to take ANY for five years. I said we weren't going to take any bucks until they were five years old. We will be taking at least a couple deer out by the 2nd year.

I think he means the amount of animals to start with, not the amount to harvest. I believe he means start with a less amount of animals if very little harvesting for 5 years.
Jake

Jake is right. Your take to me does not work out the way you stated. If you have 40 bucks and 60 does and you are planning on taking 21 deer off a year you are going to be way over stocked more than you already are in a short time. Also having seen places that have way less deer than that in larger places you are going to have some serious fighting and parasite problems.Also you better have a good at least 8' fence with "stay Tite" net wire. I have a 10 acre trap with a 6 and a half ft. fence and axis regularly jump it. I have a larger pasture with old style net wire and before I got all the axis out of it they tore holes in it at least once a month. But having said all that, good luck and let us know how it all turns out.

I never said we were starting out with 100 deer.....we have plans to purchase 42 to begin with.

The goal is to maintain a population of 100 animals.

We also plan to fence the perimeter with 10 ft. net wire.

Don,

So you don't think taking 21 deer off ever year would be enough??

Sounds like you have it figured out Not sure what your asking or what kind of advice your looking for. None seems to be the right answer. I say....your plan looks good

Hey ES-

I'm no expert, but what's special about the 100 total? On most friends HF ranches that have Axis, ~80% of the does produce twins. Why not have a goal of ~40 total deer and a 1:1.5 B/D ratio. That would allow you to take ~2 mature (5yo+) bucks each year, along with a high number of does and culls.

I think if you try to push mature bucks much beyond that total you will really run into injury problems as the dominate bucks don't have enough acreage to split into separate herds.

Friends who have stocked Axis have been shocked at how quickly they populate. Doesn't take long with multiple rut cycles and twins. If you are starting with 42, I would expect that your harvest rate will need to be substantial from year one.

How many do you really want to take in a year? How many trophy bucks? I would scale your herd size accordingly. 100 on 124 acres is way too many regardless of your plans. We have about 100-150 on 1500 acres, and that's more inline, we were running @ about 250, and pulled it back for the range quality. Forget the feed bill, your land will look like junk with that many head on it - I've seen it many many times. We end up taking about 6-8 bucks per year off that pasture, and 12-20 does depending on our survey results.

Well the main goal behind having 100 deer total is to have the ability to take at least half a dozen trophy bucks a year.

I also didn't mention that we are looking at possibly buying some neighboring property that consists of approx. 44 acres. That would bring our total to 168 acres. The 44 acres has some great pasture land, while our 124 is around 95% brush and hardwoods along a small creek.

Txnrog,

Where is your property? I don't know, but I doubt it's in East Texas. There is a HUGE difference in carrying capacity in East Texas than other parts of the state.

This place in particular has excellent habitat. I have visited numerous properties in the eastern part of the state that have more than one animal per acre and have absolutely no problems.

I hunt around Huntsville and I say load'em in there. They will inevitably escape, get into the national forest, and give us public hunters a shot at an axis trophy.

Haha.....ours probably won't escape. We have some detailed plans of a virtually "escape proof" fence....top secret stuff

Just curious but do you have irrigation?

Good luck building an escape proof fence!!! Keep in mind losing an axis every couple of years is much cheaper than spending an arm and a leg on top secret fence modifications.

Not at the moment....(haven't even closed on the property yet), but we plan to very soon.



You are right....but we will almost certainly put something expensive in there at some point...and that is the reason for the higher-quality fence.

I do like the word PROBABLY, LOL! It's good to see you have a sense of humor. In all seriousness, you know a lot about exotics and seem dead set on making this particular situation work so I think you should try it. If no one ever bucked popular wisdom we would have no reason to try anything different. You might end up writing the book on high density axis management. For my support of such a bold endeavor I do have one string attached however, if this doesn't work out the way you planned then I expect a PM sent offering me a cull hunt at a discounted price.

I don't think whitetail reproduction rate is anything close to axis rates. Axis does stay pregnant and will drop 2 a year commonly (1 every 6 months). The survival rate is higher than WT also.

If you start with 42 animals, assuming 30 does & 12 bucks.

In 13 months you will have close to 100 deer. Your third year you'd be closing in on 300.

By the time you went 5-6 years to have trophy bucks, you'd be neck deep in axis.

But go ahead and try it - I would LOVE to come help you thin the herd.

Okay guys, I will say this one more time.....WE ARE NOT WAITING 5-6 YEARS TO SHOOT ANIMALS!! We sure as heck aren't going to be buying 12 yearling bucks and 30 yearling does to start the herd....(more along the lines of 2-3 fully mature bucks, 4-5 middle-aged bucks, and 4-5 young bucks.....and 20-30 does of various ages).

And we are not going to have 300 Axis on our property....

There will be plenty of does, culls, and even a couple trophies shot in the first 2 years....

Thanks for everyone's input.

Wade you got the right ideal.

If you're dead set on a density that high, you might as well put catch pens and a barn on there to make some $$ in live sales.

BTW, I do have some animals at close to that density - I have a breeding pen of manchurian sika with 18 animals in 25 acres. I have to separate all the young males from the herd after their spike year or they'll kill each other - I have lost several 2 yr old males before we had the facilities to separate. Also have to watch close for foundering on the older animals. Lots of protein and not much room to roam is a sure bet to have some issues.

We're in the hill country. Best of luck with your endeavor

As long as you have SOME KIND of mgmt plan in place (which it sounds like you will), you should be fine. There will obviously be some 'trial & error'...but the good news: the "season" is year 'round and the spool of tags never ends! Not like WTs where you have a finite time table each yr and "limited" tags.

After the 1st yr or 2, you can census the herd #s, monitor disease/mortality/repro. rate, degradation, depredation, etc. and work from there accordingly. Best of luck on the new venture. Sounds like fun to me!

We're just up the road in College Station, so let us know if we can help out.

Are you planning on only having axis there? I would say to consult a biologist about the specific carrying capacity of your land before planning on having that many animals on that small of a property. 1 acre per animal seems a bit low, especially with the droughts we've had recently. Also, axis are primarily grazers and it sounds like the first 124 acres will be a little thin on the grassy areas.

FWIW - We've got a small place on the edge of the Edwards Plateau and we supplimentally feed, though in small amounts through timed feeders. Our recommended carrying capacity is somewhere around 10-12 acres per animal, per a very well known wildlife biologist.

I do appreciate your concern....but Axis are not primarily grazers. They are capable of switching back and forth from grazing to browsing on a whim.....which is one reason they are extremely hearty animals. They will take advantage of nice green grass....but they eat plenty of browse as well.

Besides Axis.....we MIGHT also raise a few Blackbuck.....but Axis are the main focus.

I'm not trying to sound negative here....but I really didn't ask for everyone's approval of the carrying capacity....LOL. I simply asked for info on harvest rates.

Thanks.