Deer do grow big...

In Alabama. If these would just get out!

http://www.theswampwhitetails.com

"CLIENTS ENJOY FAIR CHASE HUNTING ON A DIVERSE LANDSCAPE"

1,500 acres that's fenced in. Must be free-range deer in the big pen.

I noticed that too. Contradiction in terms.

who owns that place?

And the deer are sorted by antler size into various sub-paddocks so that you can hunt in the size range that you pay for.

That's rich

I have hunted high fence ranches before, and have never seen this. Occasionally, there are breeder pens inside the larger enclosure, but they aren't hunted.

Every place I have hunted high fence whitetail deer (1500 acres up to almost 6000) has one fence around the perimeter. I have never hunted this particular operation, or any outside of Texas for that matter.

What a joke

Pretty nice two year olds there. I can see why we would never want those genetics in the wild of Alabama.

The owner of Burke’s mechanical. Don’t know his name but my brother did some work there when he worked for Burke’s

John Travis. 😀

Looks like a good write off. I don't know why anyone would spend that kind of money just to kill a deer.

They are not all grown there. Think they get deliveries yearly

SMH. Nothing more than a zoo.

I can't get to the pictures just the video

Pricing looks pretty much in line with others.

you cannot raise enough buck to shooting size on 99% of those places, so they have to buy bucks to have enough to sell.

If they want to make money they have to have a lot to shoot

I wondered if I was the only one that couldn't get the pictures of the deer to load up. They are growing the bucks bigger/faster on the farms for the clients. If they can show a client a 2 1/2 year old to shoot and the client is happy the farm doesn't have to grow the buck to 4 or 5, quicker raised target less cost. Like any other product that can be produced quicker. I remember in the 70's we had broiler chickens and they wanted us to keep them till they were a little over 8 weeks old for slaughter, had to get the average size chicken that the company wanted. Now they are probably killing the chickens at 6 1/2 or less weeks old. Same with hogs or cattle.

Some of these places have to shoot the bucks at what we would consider too young, say 3-1/2 YO, because their headgear gets too big. Someone showed me a picture of a buck he shot last fall with a bow at one of these places. It was a huge, freakish rack but the body and head looked young. He told me it was 3-1/2 and scored 405" .

they want to grow em big FAST, so they can sell em a younger age. Less time/money in them, less chance of death by injury or sickness before selling.

I couldn’t get the pics to load either. But I agree with the chickens. Doesn’t take long at all for one to be ready to eat these days

For those who can't see the PICS there are tons of huge bucks in the PICS.

My first thought was, how do they raise that many bucks on a place?

So, if they are purchased, where are they bought from?

Alabama has a law against importing deer from any other states.

Are all these huge bucks being purchased here in Alabama?

Finally got the deer pics to open WOW... Then I checked prices. NOOOO

lots of big bucks produced in Alabama and sold in Alabama

All it takes is one good hurricane or tornado......

Herbie Burke’s Jr.

A friend told me that Hurricane Michael blew down 11 high fence areas between Bristol and Marianna, Fl.

There are I think 158 licenses game breeders in the state. I know everyone here likes to hate on the industry and it being nothing but rich guys. However the truth is a lot of families and mom and pop farms make a living raising stocker bucks for these operations. Alabama is a closed border state, so unless they are breaking the law then the deer were raised onsite or by a smaller breeding operation. The majority of these stocker bucks are sold at two years old in the 120-200” class. I think the breeders generally get 50% of the total price they shoot for. So if you can raise 25 shooters in athe 180 class a year then you can net 75-80k. However it is hard work so unless you like high risk (15-20% annual attrition more in bad EHD years, building fences, mowing feeding., and general farm type work I would not recommend it. I was out to 3am this morning and back at it at 8 to 5:30 today as my wife’s uncles farms fence was damaged. He didn’t loose a single deer tho as he literally stood in the rain for 45 mins after the tornado went though keeping them corralled until help could get there and get the fence patched. The genetics are in Alabama are as good as anywhere in the country now most farms are shooting for 180” two year olds now.