So this post just bites at me from a biological standpoint. Mainly because most bucks that are fawned in an area go through a process called dispersal where around age 1.5-2.5 they leave, and don’t come back. This has been verified across many states through many studies. It just happens.

Who stays? Mainly the doe. A few bucks will stay, but the buck dispersal range is anywhere from 1-10 miles, rarely even more. So unless your place is ginormous or HF, the more likely scenario is your doe passed on that trait. Or your neighbors bucks that hit your doe during the rut.

Just one more example of why this study doesn’t work with a HF population and whyHF genetics can be more “controlled” even without explicit breeder pens. The deer don’t follow normal behaviors and dispersal goes to nothing and you don’t have to worry about your neighbors “infecting” their bad genetics into “your” herd.

Base on the info you provide the flaw I see is making assumptions for the buck sired before it reaches maturity in an ideal environment population and forage being the primary driver to fully express the genetic potential of the sired buck.

"For sure, but then you get away from the LF nature of the study and start talking breeding pens...we all know breeding pens work and can create some absolute monster deer. We see them on nearly every HF game ranch for a reason." This is definitely an unwarranted assertion. Nowhere did I get away from LF and into breeding pens. Our place is technically low fence and has no (zero) breeding pens.

"BUT, the conditions of the study were to mimic LF native deer herd. In that herd, they found almost all the bucks did some breeding, not just the big strong massive deer. That presumption (only the biggest and strongest deer breed nearly all the doe) is just false and it is probably the reason some folks have issue with this study. When you start with a faulty assumption about actual deer behavior, you will make a faulty conclusion. Real deer behavior is real deer behavior. As soon as we manipulate a doe breeding with a mature 20 pointer, then we are not allowing deer behavior to happen and it is man made behavior. I am sure you understand my point here." Of course all male deer attempt and are successful at breeding does - no kidding. Too many does come in estrus for 24 hours or so and at the same time. The bigger bucks just cannot breed them all. That is exactly why you cull out the inferior herd members so they do not pass along their undesired genetics. When a doe gets in heat, she will get covered by whichever buck is closest to her - that is what happens in nature. They do not look for the biggest rack of horns or best body, they look for who is available. If one is not available, another's genes get passed on. Who is available is determined by proximity, strength and those bucks hunters allow to survive.

"And again, you are making the point for the study by what you said...the doe had a big influence here. Now, please tell me, how do we identify which doe are the ones that will create big influences? If you can do that in a LF native deer population, you have a blank check written for ya." Exactly, I could not have said it any better. Without ear tags (and we don't have any) you can only control the buck to doe ratio. Keep your numbers in line. I think it was Al Brothers who said that is the 1st step of any management process.

you might not be able to completely decide who breeds who, but you can help to decide who does not breed who.

you might not be able to completely decide who breeds who, but you can help to decide who does not breed who.

Generally our younger bucks carried no obvious trait to distinguish them on a yearly basis so yes they may leave, but we have tracked returning mature deer on our place from the day we started. Even collected pictures from the previous group and not only do we see the same bucks every year, but they're often seen in only certain portions of our ranch or the "sanctuary" next to us.

We acquire pretty sold data for nearly 50K acres around us and these few ranches have identical genetics as us and this has been the case for the better part of 20 years.

My million dollar question: Why do we suddenly have spikes or inferior younger bucks showing up when this has never been the case on our place or anyplace close to us? Anthrax has changed things that I do not understand