Now that season is over, I'm looking towards next season, and wanting to see if I can do anything to improve our habitat. Here's what we are already doing:

1. Protein
2. We don't hay the fields until at least late June/early July in order to provide better cover for the fawns.
3. We do keep the corn going, but we lower the timers to just 3 seconds each after March.

I am thinking of broadcasting some clover seed or something that will re-seed itself every year as well. I also want to do a controlled burn to clear out underbrush and promote new growth, but that will be a HUGE undertaking and probably ain't going to happen this year.

What other suggestions do you have?

Number one thing is cedar control and back to tall native grasses

Even if you just poisoned them an acre at a time.

agree, cedar (actually juniper) control. per my wildlife improvement plan, we clear cedar and push into piles or rows for additional cover for small game, turkey and deer. Water is another source or area of improvement

Burn/winter disk

Water is one thing that we are not lacking on. Two ponds on property in Navarro County. Although they will get very low, they've never, to my knowledge, gone dry.

Had not thought of Cedar Control as deer habitat improvement. I actually have been wanting to get rid of some cedars, so now I have two reasons.

Plant a white oak or two.

We've already got a few thousand of those. Property is 247 acres. I'd say about 100+ acres is heavy wooded post oak with a few blackjack in the mix.

Burn, and then winter disc? Or Burn, or winter disc?

Not sure what it is about White oak vs post and black but it’s most preferred acorn ever, I’ve watched deer walk over corn to eat white oak acorns

My Buck hunting took a noticeable slowdown when I lost 4 huge White Oaks and their acorns. It wasn’t just the trees, but more where they were. The loss disrupted the long term travel route of the deer.

Tony Lapratt has some good videos about this subject.

Water, food, a good mix of both cover and open for native grasses and plants. If I got rid of all cedars my place would look like the moon. Every place is different.

Now is the time to increase your deer herd by increasing your feeders to 20 seconds twice per day. You will see a big difference..also water..you need FRESH - CLEAN water in a pen along with your corn feeders as you will need at least two feeders going. I had a creek with water near by but my CLEAN water was like candy. You do this and let me know the difference you see. Each year your does will be dividing from the herd into their fawning areas around March, which you will need to feed separate,,,I fed 7 lb.s per fawning area. How do you know where a fawning area is? Just divide up your lease into about 40-60 acres around water and thick brush with an opening about 30 feet wide and "hand feed" only- no feeders in areas away from your pen... every chance you get. I fed every other day. This will also hold the deer in close. You may not notice a difference until you stop after about three years. Try to get a deer count at each fawning area and your pens with cameras.

Don't get rid of all the cedar. Deer need thermal cover for things like the snowpocalypse. But, something I read about open areas - it lets them stay a little cooler during the hell months of summer. I try to hire some clearing each year and have a random patch work of open versus left alone. Right now I need some decent moisture to burn the plethora of piles that I have.

Put out a couple of trace mineral blocks and see what they do. They love them on my place, but it depends on the area. Somehow get them up away from pigs, if possible. I'm still trying to perfect what to put them on. Took me 2 years to realize they rust out steel. (Chemistry was not my forte.)

Agree on this one.

Good to know

We must have a million oaks. All kinds. They did not WALK OVER corn to get to acorns this year but instead they never came close to corn. Weird year for us. Good for the deer though if they got all they need to eat without moving.

Fyi - after some quick research, a post oak is a type of white oak.

White oaks are preferred early in the season because they don’t have a high tannin level and are palatable to deer as soon as they fall. Red oaks have a higher tannin level and deer prefer not to eat them until later in the season once tannins have leached out of the red oak acorns.

On average, white oaks will drop acorns every year and every 3-5th year will be a bumper crop, while reds drop acorns every other year.

Easy way to ID red vs white oaks is red oaks will have a pointed lobe to its leaves while whites have rounded lobes.

When we added water pilas across the ranch it made a huge difference - quail and dove everywhere and during a drought when our ponds went dry they were golden for the deer.

These trees are huge, as in can’t put a climber in. On my ranch in Oklahoma deer literally walk over corn. I’ve never seen a huge stand of White oaks though. More single trees

Add some Persimmon

Uncle, check with TWA, just call em. They have programs/advice just for small landowners.

TWA?

Texas Wildlife Association. Great organization does many things but helping educate landowners on habitat improvement is one of them. If they aren’t helpful then let me know and I’ll rattle their cage.

The county USDA/FSA/NRCS office may be helpful and even have some cost-sharing programs available. Your local TPWD biologist can also come out, make an assessment, and provide some recommendations too.