Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum no fawns or yearlings

I’m not seeing quite the recruitment I’d like to see this year either, and I can’t explain it with anything. We had about as ideal of a spring and summer as you could ask for here, with excellent habitat. Still seeing a lot of adult does with no fawns.

I’m still going with a change in coyote dynamics of some kind but it could be a larger landscape change in the coyote population due to the cycles of some other food source. etc……Whatever changed with these other predator/prey relationships could have resulted in more coyotes or it could have resulted in more utilization of fawns as a food source…….Something likely changed to effect the number of fawns that got eaten

This would probably be a good time to shoot a bunch of does iffin you're wanting to lower the population

Another possibility along those same lines could be a wet fawn theory......I can say from tracking that wet and dry play huge factors on scenting conditions.....Also, I watch my lab routinely wind deer from 50 yards away and have seen her on practice tracks pick up on a leg and hotdog from 75-100......There's no telling how far scent flows at night under the right conditions.....There's no doubt that this scenting dynamic plays a big factor in fawn survival......Coyotes are just nature's tracking dogs

Another one of those serious questions for Matt…….Fayette Co averages killing about 3500 does per season……..With a situation like what you're describing where really low fawn recruitment may have occurred…….What would it look like next year if Fayette Co hunters decided to shoot an extra 50% and shot 5300 does this season??....How would population dynamics react on a landscape level to replacing all of those does and the voids left on the landscape without any recruitment occurring??......

Its coyotes

Purely anecdotal and on a single farm, but I hired a professional trapper and we caught 8 yotes in March. I’ve only seen a single doe without a fawn. It does seem I have nearly as many coyotes now in Dec as I did before but I believe we created a temporary void.