What I’m getting is we need to shoot all the young bucks. That will leave nothing but old ones

and i understand . deer gonna fight if pretty much in the same shape . just because its older dont off hand make it dominant. if you only have younger deer you will still have bucks that are more dominant than others .


if what i read is right as a buck gets older they breed less and less . younger deer are breeding more and more till they start getting older .


i dont see where the health of the herd would differ

no you kill all the young ones you have neither young or old

I don’t understand, it seems you’re stressing your younger bucks more if they are the ones competing for the most does during the peak rut than beginning and end rut where there are fewer does in estrous. Please excuse my lack of understanding

less breeding stress = better individual and herd health.

try it this way . you take out the older deer (smaller group) you shift the breeding to younger deer (larger group) which i think would cause less breeding stress .

in not a good way i guess is what im getting at .

You joke about it, if you want to, but give it a minute till someone says that for real! Lol

During the “peak” of the doe estrous curve there isnt nearly as much competing going on because there’s a lot of does in estrous… If you and I walk into a club and there’s 20 hot women and only 10 men then there isnt a lot of competition and reason for fighting..…..The competing comes more on the front and back end when there’s only a handful of hot does on the landscape….especially on the back end.

Most older bucks in prime breeding shape are gonna breed about 3 does during the first rut ……They get one on the front, one in the middle, and one on the end…….Ideally most of your younger bucks would just breed one in the middle…. I know its not going to work out that cleanly across the board but that’s kinda the idea. Your young bucks may be running around looking but they arent aggressively fighting each other over the first and last hot does because the older ones are claiming them…..Most 6 year old bucks are just going to posture and snort wheeze at a 2-3 year old and send him on his way..... if it even comes to that....

If you’ll notice some areas have a lot of young bucks with broken up racks…..I think it likely comes from there being a lack of older bucks present....

Well we already know that doesnt work. Alabama hunters have been trying their dead level best to shoot pretty much every buck they've seen, regardless of age, ever since the herd got back to a huntable population.

I think what he is saying is, they are only competing for the 6 days in the peak of the rut. Their bodies can handle that. The old bucks are competing the full 18 days. The younger bucks can’t take the rigors of competing the full 18 days. So if they only breed the “leftovers” that the mature bucks can’t get to during the peak, it’s actually less stress.

Kinda……they arent really competing during those middle 6 days…..In a lot of situations there’s actually more does in heat during this time period than there are bucks to breed them…..this is how you get a second estrous cycle aka second rut a month later……If you only have young bucks in the population then they are going to go through this competition period AGAIN and cause them even more undue stress when it should be the older bucks. Younger bucks should play a minor role in the breeding process…..Keep in mind like I said before that of course it doesn’t always work out as cleanly as what we’re describing it …..This is just for general explanation purposes.

Here’s something to ponder over…….What would our bucks look like if they didn’t have to spend their youth fighting abd breeding?....We talked about in the thread on feeding how bucks arent able to reach their potential the following year when they come out of the rut heavily run down…..How is a young buck going to reach any kind of potential if he is heavily breeding and competing every year as a 1,2, and 3 year old?

CNC i dont agree what youre saying . what your saying is great for the hunter as in more trophy bucks .. but as is breeding stress and herd health i dont see where age is more important than numbers of bucks .

older bucks are stressed because ,,,, there fewer of them . if there are more bucks breeding,, the does get bred faster durning peak rut . . like i imply its a numbers game ,,,, not age . i dont understand how stress would be different between 6 , 3 1/2 year old and 6 ,, 6 1/2 year old breeding the same amount of does .


as for fighting ,,,, sure there be more fighting if you have more bucks in the same age range .

Maybe Matt can explain it better.......

so less older bucks means less stress ,,, more older bucks means more stress ????

Think about it like this. Body development wise, Think middle schoolers or 9th graders having to play and compete with 5th yr college seniors and NFL players. A 3.5 yr old is like an 18 yr old kid. He’s almost grown from a skeletal standpoint but he’s still got a ton of muscle and growth to put on before he’s ready for big time.

i understand . but if there are no older bucks that wont happen . we're talking two different thing . but you right younger bucks dont fight outside their weight range but they still compete with each other just like older deer with each other .

as i said before my argument is really useless in the scheme of things . but we're seeking the very thing im talking about . the goal seems to be kill only deer of older age and replace them with younger deer . that would give us in the end more bucks at older age ,,,, less stress. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, its a numbers game not age .

I think it is both. If we can increase the number of bucks on the landscape, more will reach an older age class and that will equate to less stress overall during the rut.