I've been monitoring a few bucks here in south Alabama. Has anyone else noticed their bucks not looking as ran down as usual by this time of year? This is completely by observation and trail camera, nothing scientific but I'm not seeing the ran down skinny deer like usual. I didn't know if they didn't have to chase as much this year, or maybe the warm weather brought food out early, or maybe the rut wasn't as intense as usual. What say you?

Id venture to guess with the warm weather they didn't expend as much energy, trying to stay warm, thus causing less of a weight drop

^^^ This is a plausible answer.

Another scenario is high doe to buck ratio. The bucks are not having to chase does as hard because there are enough does to go around.

This is definitely the problem were I hunt.

With the warm weather there was even more browse available and they did not need to travel much to find a belly full.

This is true but typically if they are actually in "chase mode" I wouldn't think they would be worried about eating, at least for those few days. I agree with your statement however

Our's are in rough shape!

Same here. The ones I saw from around the 20th on in north Wilcox looked pretty dang beat. Busted up, run down, hair missing from nose to tail from fighting. Still chasing or looking hard though.

The worse I ever recall based solely on dead deer killed in the area. LOT less fat than usual for the same times of year. Rarely see broken antlers here (only saw 1 with a broken tine this year) but less scarring from fighting this year.

I was moving some stands this week and I found one on his death bed. He was our #1 wanted buck, 5.5 year old. He looked to have lost 40 lbs. I'd post pics, but don't know how. He was in pitiful shape...but has had a swollen neck since late November.

I can only speak for the properties that I hunt on....

But, the drought hit us hard late Summer & early Fall. We had very few acorns. And, many of those were not completely filled out. Actually, we do not even have a tremendous amount of hardwoods to produce acorns on these properties. The browse, of which we have plenty due to cutting, clearing and burning, dried up and was of little nutritional benefit. We did have a good bit of Summer food planted. It grew off early and was HAMMERED once the drought hit. We do have large food plots. But, we did not get them planted until the 2nd week of December due to the weather and our schedules. About the only thing that the bucks had to rely on to build fat reserves was our Supplemental feeding. And, it is insufficient to 'fatten' all the deer. It is simply what the name implies, a Supplement.
So, our bucks went into the Rut with very little in the way of body fat. Combine that with high temps and lots of competition for breeding rights and you get what we have......skinny, run-down, beat-up bucks!

Our bucks was in pretty good shape. There were 6 bucks killed over the last two weeks and ALL had quite a bit of fat. We didn't see "the chasing" this year but saw several following or cruising.