2018 Fawn Crops

The extreme drought in South Texas prior to September, plus some trailcam photos of what seemed to be abundant predators really had me worried about our fawn crop this year. Flew our annual helicopter survey on November 15 and had an observed 90% fawn crop! Cameras continue to indicate excellent fawn numbers on our place in NE Webb Co. Pilot said ours was the best fawn crop he had seen so far this season.

Interested to hear numbers for other counties and regions. We feed protein free-choice year-round and had water in most tanks through the drought. Even still, I think we got very lucky.

South Duval Co. Don't have that good of data, but from sits in the stands and cameras we had a decent fawn crop. We have more predators than you can shake a stick at. I attribute our good fawn survival rates to good cover. No livestock and the whole place looks like this... minus the javi

Between sitting in the blind and checking game cameras I'd say ours up in Stonewall county was very poor. I've got great cover and feed corn/protein year around but there are tons of yotes and bobcats and with the drought it doesn't look good around here.

On our places fawn crop started off excellent, fawn survival so far is really dismal.

I've yet to see a solo doe this season.

Of the 10 does that I see regularly in my food plot and on game cam, one has twins, and two have a single fawn. The other 7, do not have fawns. I don't know if I am correct, but I attribute this to predators. We are covered up with coyotes, they even come in my yard and ambush a chicken fairly often. And I am also convinced, the hogs may take a fawn on occasion.

Think any of those 7 are last years fawns that didn't get bred?

I am west of you in Stephens county and have seen one fawn this year. I also believe the coyotes are the reason....they seem thicker and bolder than I ever remember them.

I have about 7 resident does in and around my place in Dickens county only 2 had single fawns. I have unreal coyotes and only once saw twins in 7 years of owning the place. Visiting biologist suggested we have less than 50% fawn survival and it appears correct

Mid Webb county....fawn crop originally looked very poor according to sightings from stands in Oct. and early Nov.
It looks now like it may be better than we had first thought but still not great. We see very few twins with maybe 70% of the does with a fawn.
Most of the bucks we knew from last year and before seem to have survived with the exception of a couple which is the norm.
Antler quality is OK with some bucks about the same and others growing substantially.
Water was scarce in some areas of the ranch but was available in most areas. We only feed CS and consumption was significantly lower than normal.
We have not done flight survey yet but don't rely much on that data as we seem to get better information from many hours spent on the stands.

At my lease in Stephens I have seen groups of 4-6 does without fawns. I've also seen a doe with 3 fawns about every sit. And quite a few with one fawn.

So far my fawn recruitment in southern OK is pretty good. Lots of doe with twins and many with singles. It is at the point now where the buck fawns are almost the same size as an adult doe, almost. The doe fawns are getting bigger but still easily distinguishable from the adult doe. So numbers are easy to see.

Interestingly, I shot a doe recently and it was not pregnant. Should have been about a month of so into the pregnancy but wasn't. I look forward to seeing what the summer shows as far as big bellied doe. I didn't see a fawn on camera until later in the fall, although sits at the stands showed fawns.

I’ve declared war on coyotes.