Gotcha, so around 4.5 yo or above they are productive and up until around 6.5

So for 2 good seasons they will be decently productive. Not a lot of window there. hence what you said earlier.

Tex b ....Don't forget we have replacements with young does..for every 61/2 taken other groups are being filled as years pass. Yes we may empty a group but others are being replaced...very confusing I know. As years go by we have different amounts of fawns being moved up to the next group ...thus filling in when others are emptied. Mature does give twins for year one and year two and year three giving 6 that fill in for the ones lost. With some doe seasons the fawn production is as high as 100 % of the does...with good management it can go higher and out of control fast. That's why have to have a controlled process of keeping the herd at a certain level..this can be very confusing. With the right tools the numbers will be a revolving door...one leaves ...one is replaced...thus having some years a high fawn production ..some years a low fawn production. This is how we keep our foot on the brake some years and then put our foot on the gas when the population gets too large. I have a soft ware were I can plan years in advance...even with this it is not easy but can be done. It just takes work keeping abreast as to what is happening in any one year and where the herd is going.
You're probably going to have questions that I will not be able to answer ...even with the good tools I have..this is the reason we have to have a population check every year.

thanks

I bought my place 38 years ago with a big, healthy deer behind every tree. And the trees were 95% oak and 5% cedar. Then we had a serious 4 year drought; 15 to 20 years ago. The trees and range healed up but the deer have never been as numerous or healthy. The area is not over hunted. Actually very little hunting adjoining me.

The only difference I can think of is that very few people, including me, still raise cattle. Thus, we no longer plant winter wheat to feed the cattle which were also utilized by the deer. I planted about 10 acres some years ago but the pigs that had invaded destroyed everything.

Dave....sorry that you're going through a hard time with your deer herd...I also went through this very thing. Some friends of mine had a lease but said no deer..they said they only saw 4 does last year they had the place. I was in need for a deer lease so I took the place. The things working against me were:
1. many hogs
2. I had 25 hunters hunting my fence line
3. I had hunters only put out corn a few weeks before season
4. poachers hunting the off seasons
5. no fences
So...I fed heavy...put up fences with locked gates....built two large pens....put up 6 feeders... threw corn by hand three times a week..put up cameras and passed on info getting pics of trespassers...counted deer and found we had a shortage of does..asked the biologist to cut down on doe permits .went from 1 doe permit per 35 acres to 1 doe per 150 acres..hunted hogs as many as 40 to 50 per year. ...we took no does for 7 years.. I talked to the neighbors to help manage.
All this worked....slowly our herd grew to a density of 8.0 and we could go to even more deer if we wanted.
My suggestion is to go to work and find your problems and work them...you could fix all this and have little deer. Count your deer every year with a credible process to see how you're doing. Find your problems...work to fix them...DON'T GIVE UP !!!!

GOOD LUCK !!!
PRAY !!

It sounds like you were over-stocked to begin with. The winter-wheat created a false carrying-capacity; winter is usually harsh and controls the number of animals you can accommodate. The removal of a prime winter food source and the increase in pigs had pushed your deer back to 'real' numbers.

Dave....on my lease now, if you don't have pens, you're not going to have many deer at your blind. They can coexist, but not like when you have a pen. You can see this from the hunters on this forum.

how many human females dont have conception issues under 10% body fat, it gets exponential with every percentage point under 10%. Huge problem with Women Athletes.

no different in other animals, if you dont have the health to carry or hormone levels, conception can be an issue, by natural design.

every herd is different. on large ranch herd health varies from one end to the next due to range conditions

no idea if he had a conception issue or observation issue but easily could go either way

BOBO, agree with what you are saying about human females, and i dont doubt that could happen in a severely undernourished deer, but deer are survivors not weak like humans and they will eat what they can and scrape by on nutrients and get what they need. An adult doe is also working on a normal low fat % of body weight all summer long, they plump up during the fall and early winter as much as they can and they live off these fat reserves for months over winter, sometimes losing as much as 20-30% body weight before they are depleted. This would be an extreme case of body fat wasting and unlikely to see that everywhere, but by and large the deer body goes thru very regular and very sizable body changes every year. They are used to this and this does not stop the annual estrus cycle from occurring in 90% of deer. Maybe one or two, but 9/10, no way.

Otherwise, we would see that while hunting. We would see no rut activity and no chasing, tending etc.

If this guy said he hunted hard all year and saw none of the usual rut activities one would normally see (and thay he had seen in previous years) and this was followed by a lack of bred doe, then maybe we could make the argument that drought caused the resident doe to not go thru estrus and thus not be bred. From a nature perspective, that would be exceedingly rare.

Also from a nature perspective, humans are very odd and our behaviors are not followed in nature for the most part. Humans are probably one of the few species that willfully create a lack of reproductive drive. That goes against all of nature, so nature has work arounds and most animals will breed and then if they can not take care of the babies the babies get abandoned, killed by the parent, or they die from poor nutrition or other reasons we just call natural.

seen it happen in Hill country on deer. We took 42 does 16 +- years back off 2800 acres MLD last week in Jan, Weights where -21% yoy, kidney fat none measurable for most part and only 10% had embryos last week in Jan. Still had observed rut… ages where 2-7 on does ,

Rut observation is just that. It doesnt mean that the doe will fertilize or even makes it embed into the uterus. on top of the she could very well sluff well before mid jan.

not say this is or isnt his case but if he had a very bad moisture year it could very well be

I wont argue what you witnessed, clearly i wasn’t there to be able to argue against it.

As with almost everything, anything is possible


Edit: that last line is the opposite of the iconic line in anchorman about sex panther

holy smokes, I failed miserably at proof reading. LOL. long day

No worries BOBO, i fail most of the time as most of my posts are done via phone. My fat thumbs and my stupid autocorrect make for some fun posts sometimes

I have a stupid mini iphone, all they had during covid and I need to upgrade, or come see you so you can give lazer vision

well, well, well Bobo!! I had no idea you were so versed on the female reproductive system.


This half dime be talkin' about body fat percentages and stuff. You got an graphs you can throw at us?