Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Stress versus age and nutrition

The effects on a buck and antler expression
Just curious if studies in this side of things. I ember it was being discussed on forums way back when and I don’t see any mention these days

Stress is indicative of many things.

I saw a spike trying to breed a doe last season. He about killed himself to get it. Probably died from a heart attack latter. Stress is bad on these deer during rut.

when Skinny moved the site a while back & restored it, we lost a bunch of threads - i forget the cutoff date

I bet there’s a chart or graph somewhere

Bucks under 4 years old arent really supposed to breed in a true natural herd.....or at least very few

Spikes seem to be doing most of it in my area. That’s what we see anyway. Whether the spikes are raming home is debatable.

One and two year olds breeding regularly is indicative of really poor herd structure

As far as stress, it seems like it comes at deer from a lot of angles. Poor nutrition from drought years or lack of habitat management obviously, then areas with too many does causing extended rutting, areas with too few does causing very high buck competition and fighting, properties with very high hunting pressure, etc. I’m fascinated by the stress factor but have no idea of the impacts to potential antler expression. Is it 10% or 50%?

Maybe Brock will give his opinion on ranking the stress factors.

Is there some kind of barrier for ages 1-3 that prevents them from breeding? Their hormones, noses and peckers work just like "mature" bucks' do.

Obviously, a dominant buck will whip a subordinate. But that doesn't mean the subordinate -- the 1-3 year old -- won't be chasing and nailing 'tang when possible.

I have very little control of it.

In a true natural herd like on some of those large Texas and Mexico ranches the barrier to young bucks breeding is the number of 4-9+ year old bucks in the population……Your three year old bucks should have really nice racks on them from being able to grow without the stresses of breeding

It’s not that they are not capable. In a good herd age structure with proper numbers in all age classes, their opportunities would be slim. Btw, this exists almost no where in Alabama.

Oh, I understand. I don’t either. I watched a doe almost stand for a 2 year old forkhorn and it made me want to shoot them both out of frustration

Several stress factors lead to a decrease in development. The primary stress is stress on the doe from conception to birth. Her fitness and health determines which epigenetic triggers flip for the life of the offspring. Healthy does drop fawns genetically programmed for higher gene expression. If they’ve grown up in a suppressed environment their gene expression is suppressed.

Relatively even sex ratios reduce stress in the buck segment, primarily those in the younger age classes, so they aren’t using resources breeding, but rather observers, leading to better post rut recovery. This increased in fitness in the earlier years leads to better fitness at maturity.

Poor fitness/health AND uneven ratios is what most of AL gets to experience unfortunately. I’ve got properties being managed with different objectives and different habitat quality within miles of each other, that yield deer herds that are as different as night and day.

That MSU study showing how doe health/nutrition not only impacts the genetic expression of her offspring, but also her grandchildren is fascinating to me. “Genetically inferior” piney woods deer from South MS were even with or outproducing Delta bucks in body weight and antlers when given the same food and environment, but only after both their grandmother and mother were born in the nutritious healthy environment. Mothers living in poor conditions program their offspring for 2 generations to limit their size/weight/antlers in order to reduce their calorie and nutritional needs, and therefore their likelihood of survival in what will likely be a poor environment for them as well.

The same effect is seen in humans. South Korean women today are 8 inches taller on average than the early 1900’s. British Americans living in the colonies became increasingly taller than their British counterparts. Same genetics, but multiple generations of improved nutrition and environment.

Yep. I tell my clients it’s a minimum of 5 years before they’ll see any noticeable gains once I start working with them. It’s the fawns born into better conditions that show the change, and then, their offspring. Each generation shows improvement, but it takes drastic changes in habitat and herd structure. Nothing happens as quickly as people want it to.

I’m curious how you overcome the challenge of yearling buck dispersal? If I have 1,000 acres of near perfect habitat, I am growing amazing does who are birthing full genetic potential bucks who will permanently leave my farm in a year, while almost all my bucks are coming from neighboring farms. I can provide for those bucks to express as good as they can, but if they were born on a sub-optimal farm, I can’t ever achieve the multi-generational benefits found in the MSU study.

Is the goal to “play the odds” and focus on those 25% or so of yearling bucks that won’t disperse or don’t disperse very far?

It’s a legit problem and I see it everywhere. I try to shoot a few does with large healthy buck fawns toward the end of season. Do they all stay? No. But their chance of staying is higher according to some studies. I’ll say this, I can certainly tell a difference in the ones born on some of my properties and the ones that disperse to my properties. I’ve got some 120#+ one year olds with 8 or more points regularly, on the same properties I have 75 lb 1” spikes. Those spikes came from surrounding poor quality areas. The best thing that seems to work is forming cooperatives over large acreages. Obviously, it’s futile for small landowners to expect changes. Getting many smaller landowners together accomplishing the same thing works.

Yearling buck dispersal is a huge handicap to a single good manager in a broader poor neighborhood. I’ve said before, I spend money and time just to export a high quality buck fawn and import a poor one born to a doe living on pine needles. I can only hope there’s an outlier in that small percentage that stay. I also take a couple old does out if they are with a fat button head

It’s just become an understanding that must be accepted, that if you pour resources into managing a place, you’re doing so at your neighbors benefit, just as much as your own. 😂🤷🏼‍♂️