Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum More on old doe behavior…….

Didnt see that one coming did you??

Diamond Dave was the baddest in the park.

No says I

So in the spirit of this being a group idea……

Back when we were still talking about doe management I had broken out the crayons and made a little sketch…..I was thinking about a scenario where you had a couple thousand acres being intensely managed for high outputs of high end groceries and cover…..What would be the most ideal way we could all manage the doe population on a landscape scale as a group??.....Because even if we go conservative and only consider doe dispersal coming from 2 miles away and less……that’s over 16,000 acres of potential immigrant producing land that surrounds our 2,000 acres……How this plays out and the pressure our 2,000 acres is subjected to is highly dependent on other factors surrounding us……..

You remember that scene from the movie with Russell Crowe where he plays John Nash the math professor…….and they’re in the bar trying to pick up girl’s and he suddenly comes to the realization that “John Smith needs revision!!.....The best outcome for the individual occurs when the individual does what it best for the individual and the group”……or something of that nature……That’s the situation we have here with doe management……If we could set up the most ideal scenario for everyone in the area it would be for the high-end food properties to shoot a few young does while the other low end properties surrounding them shoot a bunch……This would do two things……1) It would reduce potential immigrant pressure for the high end property……and 2) It would help insure the high end property is only exporting young dispersing does (emigrants)………

That ^^^^^ would be how we as a group produce the highest potential buck offspring for everyone in the area to potentially benefit from……All of the high end properties on the landscape with great food need to retain the same old doe lineages over time……They need to retain a fairly constant number of does that's in line with however many the property can support without exploiting and diminishing resources over time and they need to keep recycling from the same doe lines……If we could accomplish that as a group then over time all of the high end properties would be kicking out high potential bucks to the whole landscape…..I suspect that this is actually what is happening in areas where folks claim to have “good genetics”…..Probably a lot of it is just occurring out of chance without folks knowingly doing it….. but I suspect you probably have some pockets where the same old doe lineages are recycling generationally on the same good nutrition and that's allowing higher end bucks to get kicked out to the landscape around them

Fixed it for you brother.

Ok you are right. I’m in. Let’s do it

In theoretical terms I think I am correct……I think that would likely be the most optimal “blue print”…….How to accomplish that though is another question altogether. For the most part I think you would have to change the narrative on shooting old does versus young and change the narrative on shooting does on food plots, etc…..Basically simplifying the means by which we reach the same ends… …..That would allow dominance to implement a lot of the idea on its own through structure

I’ll expand on it more in the morning but the way I think this may be occurring in some places revolves around the balance of food to cover being heavily weighted toward lots of food with minimal amounts of cover…..

So this could play out in a lot of places depending on habitat but a good example to use just to explain the concept would be some of the areas around the western side of the black belt…….Basically it’s the idea that with coyotes on the landscape as thick as we have them…..its gonna be tough for a deer population to grow any larger than the amount of fawning cover available……You could have thousands of acres of food but if you only have a hundred acres of cover then the population cant grow beyond the constraint of the limited fawning cover

So if we have a situation like over in the western blackbelt where we have hundreds or thousands of acres of the landscape in food sources less than knee high with only a smattering of cover here and there amongst it……then those deer would be overwhelmed with all the food resources they need without having to worry so much about exploiting them…….That means you could potentially have properties over there where guys arent shooting does but because of the scenario described above these doe herds are still getting optimal nutrition as well as capping out in older age structure……These are your doe herds that are kicking out the higher potential bucks that show up and have people talking about those “good genetics” ……Its not good genetics…..its good nutrition running through generations of the same isolated pockets of does

I will say this though about the “good genetics”……I still think there may be something about the northern genetics in Bankhead and a few other areas that’s retaining a different potential to be expressed when some of those does are subjected to the same generational nutrition concepts from above ^^^^……..I think it’s those northern does that find themselves in one of these pockets of good nutrition without any immigration occurring over time that are kicking out those few Bankhead freaks we occasionally see being produced that just don’t look like they came from Alabama……Keep in mind that these high potential bucks being produced from these pockets of high end does still have to live to get older to see those freak racks……So that’s why they tend to be almost anomalies

I’ve seen a video discussing actual research done in MS with captive deer sourced from both the middle Delta/AG region and lower coastal plain pine county which tracked weight and alter mass gains when placed into a situation with over abundance of highly nutritious food and no pressure over three generations. The gains from the delta deer were noticeable but the improvement to the lcp deer were phenomenal. Local genetics can still factor in regardless of nutrition, though. The deer in my area of Monroe county, overwhelmingly, display the same, consistent asymmetrical racks which favor the same side across generation. I have about 40 years of racks hanging around the camp that display the same wonky curve regardless of age or antler size.

Genetics are the difference between good and exceptional.

Without age and nutrition, neither will express their potential.

OK Pwyse..... I DON'T love you anymore.

You know what might actually be the culprit with those Bankhead does isnt actually “good genetics” but rather it’s a result of better timing with their pregnancy and birth……By moving pregnancy back two months you likely fall out much better in line with optimal plant growth in the spring and early summer when the most nutritious growing tips are available……plus you give those buck fawns an extra two month head start on the their first winter……The Jan rut that formed in southwest Alabama was never about adapting to nutrition…..It was most likely about adapting to midge hatchings

This concept ^^^^^ is why if you’re having to shoot chit loads of does just to keep the population from decimating the habitat…….then there’s likely an imbalance where you have way more cover than you have food resources……A good example would be the quail plantations around here where the biologists used to recommend that they kill 150+ does just to keep the habitat barely afloat…….The problem is that out of the 5000 acres of habitat……4800 of it is good fawning cover in late summer……Everything is waist high or taller and 50% native grass……Its the other end of the spectrum from the scenario quoted above......It would be better balanced if 2500 acres of the 5000 was always less than knee high……especially during fawning season…….or something to that effect……Having to shoot 150 does and still watch the others eat sweetgum is a symptom of an imbalanced habitat

I’ve already started. I shot 2 this morning from the tractor while spraying clover. Both really young. I mean really.

I’m not sure if my property is the good property surrounded by the crappy ones or if I got the crappy property on the edge of a good property. I ain’t one to sit around and think on it though. Once CNC wore me down I’m totally committed and taking action.

That’s exactly the conundrum I was envisioning when I wrote the statement below about just simplifying it for the majority….. If you just shoot the young ones and leave your food plots alone then that takes a lot of thinking out of the equation regardless of which side of the fence you’re on……assuming you don’t start capping a bunch of spikes and buttonheads....That seems to be happening anyways though

I’m all about implementing dominance.

Maybe lets go with our #1 target doe being a lone doe with a single fawn…….Those would be the most likely ones to be our 1-2 year old subordinate does……If that situation comes strolling through, take it out

I’ll say this too…….We spend an awful lot of time looking at trail cam photos to identify individual bucks that we want to target and take out……It wouldn’t be that difficult to do the same thing with target does when they show at feeders and such……When that 80-100 lb doe shows up on camera with a single fawn…..ease out there that afternoon and add +1 to the doe tally……We could actually use our trail cam photos to study the situation over a little and have some awareness of what’s playing out with our doe structure…….Big doe groups should be pretty easy to spot over and over and become known to you……Probably best to do any thinning early in the season and shut it down once the rut kicks in and doe groups break up