Whitetail Pricing

Talking with some friends today and they brought up a another guy that raises/sells whitetails to hunting ranches (breeder). He told them that pricing had been going down around 10% per year due to so many deer being available in the market. He said the heyday of whitetail breeding had passed. He also said they had to either focus on 350"+ deer or just true volume for hunting ranches.

At what point do we finally get oversaturated with feedlot raised/released deer? Do we ever reach that point?

Anyone else seeing a weakening market past couple years?

If oil stays below 55 a barrel you will see a huge price drop. Oil/customer/client money is keeping it a float now.

Kind of what I was thinking. I didn't think exotic prices would stay as high as they are now either though.

Prices will stay high as long as they have the demand(hunters).

I get that, but same stand point. Big money is in corporate entertainment

There was a very high demand for bucks this year. Pricing was not off due to it for many sellers. Buyers wanted you to believe they were buying all they could find at lower pricing. Some buyers had huge numbers to buy that they needed but could not find the numbers to fill.
Not all hunters are corporate either. You need to just look at the number of out-of-state hunters who come to hunt here on ranches that cater to them.

The resort where I work is hosting the Whitetail Breeders Assn conference again this year. Its in January. Might have an answer for you after that.

Agree....

Same premiss in any exotic livestock program, demand and demand type set the bar. I think if oil and gas is whats supporting it and, if I was a breeder/rancher, I'd be getting ready for the "fall" That would be the same as the housing market supported by weak loans in a way, a bubble ready to explode. I have no doubt that O&G is buying them some time though.

A buddy of mine works on a breeding ranch in the Hill Country, I wont say the name of the ranch, but they sold an unborn fawn that will be born this spring for $300,000. Apparently it was some kind of record price. So I don't know if I agree with prices dropping all that much. They sell other fawns bred from a particular buck for $25,000 a piece.

i too agree there are more deer on the "market" this year than any other year. it seems like more ppl had deer to sell this year than i can remember.
had a guy call me the other day looking for a deer over 180". found several that were lower priced than usual. usually by this time of year its hard to find big deer available to harvest.
as far as exotics, the prices will prolly remain high for awhile longer. i dont think there are quite as many animals in the market of trophy quality. i think when Wt prices went up more folks went to exotics and decreased the number of breeding stock to produce more.
just what i think is happening and im in now way an expert on much of anything.

Sad. That's all.

I looked at the price list that we had when we were in the outfitting business. The price list is from 1980. 34 years ago. Axis $750,BB $750, Aoudad $900,WT $750, Fallow $750 and you will really like this Hogs $600. So you can see if you factor in 34 years of inflation hunting is cheaper now than 34 years ago.

Have a buddy with a HF place that sells hunts. They used to just do enough hunts to take the number of mature bucks plus mgmt deer they had organically. Have had so many people booking hunts lately they've just had to buy stocker bucks and release them at the beginning of the season.

Maybe I am a minority of one, but I cannot stand to look at they cactus headed freaks some of the breeders turn out. Some of the huge clean typicals are beautiful, and might go 200" or touch beyond, but beyond that, it makes me sad for the animal and looks like a cull to me.

Would I like to shoot a big typical, yes, but more and more, I am as happy watching them and shooting a 110" 5 or 6 year old for the freezer.

I agree, if the trend of oil prices continue and people start losing jobs, you'll see some bargains.

Majority of those sale prices are set up by the breeders selling the deer/fawn. They have a buddy buy the deer/fawn at an auction then buy it back from him after the sale. Happens all the time at deer sales and even a livestock sales at times. So I call on the sale actually going through and deer changing ownership. Just a smart marketing move on the ranches part to drive up prices.