My Cousin in Law has a 5000 acre, high fenced ranch in Brady. They are growing some really nice whitetails. They are thinking about introducing Axis to the ranch. Great trophies and table fare. They have a full time person on the ranch and feed both corn and protein. Every, stand location is on an oat field. Yes, its a pretty sweet set up.

What are some do's and don'ts I could help him with? Things to watch out for and problems he can anticipate.
Thanks

The bucks can mess up fences. They will bully the WT if there's not enough food for everyone.

From personal experience Axis are more trouble than they are worth. He best have very good fence. "Stay Tuff" type. Next is hope there are no Axis on the outside of his place.

If they are really wanting to raise big whitetails then stay away from mixing in exotics unless they have really deep pockets and love to throw money away on a lot of extra feed. Once you introduce bucks and does on a ranch that size they will have them forever.

Lots of money on fences!!

If you double the lower 4' of fence you'll be ok. But to me axis aren't worth the feed and extra fence costs. You can't sell many axis bucks for more than 2500.

Another option is to only stock young axis bucks. You can get spikes for around 400. That way you don't have to cover the feed bill for a sustaining herd.

I have decided to limit my exotics to antelope species. They don't jump feed pen fences (addax and oryx both males and females have trophy horns too), so protein is reserved for high dollar deer.