Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Cattle for deer habitat improvement

A taxidermist I know who sees a lot of volume swears that the biggest bucks brought to him every year tend to come off cattle farms.

I tried to find any university studies on the impact of cattle on deer habitat but all of them seem to be focused on western rangelands. One study in west Texas found that the largest bucks on land with cattle weighed an average of 20 pounds more than on land without cattle.

The consensus of the studies is that as long as cross-fencing and rotational grazing is used without overgrazing, cattle are a net positive. The cattle serve as a constant habitat “disturbance” similar to bushhogging, mulching, or burning which prevents grasses, briars, forbs, and woody species from reaching maturity where nutrition and digestibility is low. They primarily eat low desirability grasses which opens the pastures to sunlight where native forbs can germinate, compete, and grow, and their constant trampling of thickets and light browsing on woody/forb species on edge habitat causes constant tender fresh growth which is far more nutritious and preferable by deer. Deer also benefit from the liming, fertilization, and cool season clovers that tend to be mixed with pasture grasses by ranchers.

I’d love to know the opinions of others on here who hunt cattle land, as well as people like Matt Brock who study habitat, and CNC who has exposure to a lot of land through tracking. Is cattle farm land in Alabama actually better habitat than the average larger tracts of woods most of us tend to associate with better hunting?

After switching to primarily hunting cattle land myself the last several years, I am starting to think yes, as long as there is enough cover/bedding remaining in the creek bottoms, there is modern rotational grazing, and the cows aren’t overstocked.

There’s very little of it if any being managed the way you’re talking about with rotational grazing around here or at least I havent seen it....Cattle farms in the black belt see better bucks being killed right now simply because they are located in the black belt soil area where they’re exposed to vegetation growing on the properties around the cattle pastures……I'm sure there are some exceptions…….The biggest bodied deer I’ve ever recovered came from a cattle farm between Brundidge and Jack, AL where the farmer had several hundred acres of hay fields sowed in clover……Most cattle farms are just grazed down fields of grass…..but they often do tend to be in the higher productive soil areas and likely why the taxidermist sees better deer coming from those areas

I’m guessing CNC makes half the post on this thread. But in all seriousness, hunting is still great in the soil where pines don’t grow. In other words, high PH but not chalk. I regret selling my Faunsdale property. It’ll grow the heck out of Clover, cattle and deer with a small amount of fertilizer.

In my opinion the perfect storm is to have a mixture of row crop (beans and corn) and cattle farms. I have zero facts to back this up, other than a few deer that I killed over the years. I have killed 4 bucks from a similar setup. I didn't weigh one and the others were 207, 208 and 210 lbs on the hoof. In the same vicinity minus the row crops, I would guess they would average 190 lbs. Cameras appear to back it up with the deer that I have not seen in person, but that's pure speculation.

CNC, you would be surprised how much is being cross fenced into smaller blocks of 20-30 acres and rotationally grazed with cows moving every week or less. The universities have been heavily pushing rotational grazing the last 15 years or so and serious ranchers are implementing it.

Where I hunt, from a distance all you would see is bahia grass. But look closely and it is full of native forbs mixed in with fresh young blackberry on the field edges, and clovers mixed into the pastures during fall/winter/spring.

The cows have access to the timber and swamps which clears the understory and allows more sunlight to penetrate. The woods are a little more open than I would prefer for ideal bedding habitat, but the more palatable ground level vegetation and hunting access is a plus.

There’s one section of a 30 acre pine clearcut that was sprayed and then replanted. The first two years it was completely taken over by dog fennel that shaded out everything else. Then a small herd of cows was rotated on it when the trees got about 5ft high and they have stomped down about 75% of the dog fennel. Quality forbs are now everywhere.

Rotational grazing in the western states works very well at maintaining the type of understory/plant diversity many game species thrive in.
It will work in the southeast too. I’ve never seen a correlation between cattle and deer body weights. Deer weigh more where they have an abundance of resources and age. Do deer weigh more in the areas he’s checked due to more fertile ground(hence the pasture/cattle/ag), or perhaps the deer are killed on larger cattle ranges where hunters control more of what gets killed? Lot of factors to consider other than cows equal bigger deer. The highest body weights we record, on average, come from areas either very active understory management, regardless of soil type. You can grow very large bodied deer in the south in upland, sandy loams and shallow soils with the right herbaceous management and age.

Thanks Matt. This is on sandy loam soil in SE Alabama. 50/50 mix of pastures and swampy woods. I’m sure there’s ways in a perfect world where the land could be improved more without the cows than with them, but it would take a lot of money to replicate or exceed what a working cattle operation already provides. I think of it like getting 75% of the max habitat it could be with cows vs the average unmanaged Alabama timber property operating at probably 25% of its habitat potential.

That’s awesome…..Hopefully it will continue to catch on as more folks start implementing those practices……Maybe the Ag guys need to ease over to the Wildlife Biology building and let them guys know about it who are trying to fix the turkey problem

As far as weights go……I didn’t see that deer in the pic put on the scales but I recovered another one around that same time that I did see weighed that went 247 and the deer in the pic seemed bigger than that one……When it comes to soil, better quality plants grow in higher abundance on soil that is closer to neutral in pH with a clay or loam base that has high nutrient and water holding capacity as compared to sandy soil with a 5.0 pH or less that dries out quickly and has a low CEC……That has a lot to do with why the better soil areas produce better deer…..Cattle farms typically exist on soils with good forage production potential

Aside from what has been covered regarding habitat and browse quality, I wonder if deer in proximity to cattle do not benefit from crossover of gut bacteria. Both are ruminants. A quick google says cattle are more effective at digesting grasses and cellulose.
I remember a situation from Australia where the camels, once considered a pest on the western cattle lands, were found to actually benefit the cattle two ways. First, the camels ate weeds that competed with the grasses. Secondly, the cattle that shared water sources with camels were fatter than those which did not. This was due to the introduction of camel gut bacteria’s which more effectively broke down their forage.

What do cattle farms do with low Soil PH on Large acreages

For the ones running a lot of cattle and can afford to do it, broadcasting lime certainly helps the cattle and deer.

Totally agree. I feel like the hunting consensus is geared towards either hunting all row crop land or all big timber, with the cattle land forgotten in the equation. For all its benefits the main downside of row crop land is the deer cant completely rely on it for year round nutrition either prior to planting or often after harvest. There’s especially often a gap in early spring during crucial rut recovery and preparation for antler regrowth. Cattle farms with extensive clovers in the south, or alfalfa in the north, fill in this gap.

I know a lot of them up in north Alabama spread chicken litter on their fields which has a liming effect......

That stuff stinks.

I’m just not willing to take that chance with a rebounding turkey population.

I've hunted working cattle farms most of my hunting life. Do they produce bigger and better bucks, its hard to truly say. Some of the benefits are that it is open area and you can see and pattern deer as they move into and out of the pasture. Working cattle farms also have regular human activity which means you create less of an impact coming and going. Lots of pasture land has fence rows, scattered blocks of timber/thickets, low spots and pinch points and those are usually great travel corridors for deer and good places to watch from a distance.

Cattle can be hard on the habitat if they are not rotated or if the stock rate is near the capacity of the land to sustain itself. If hardwoods exist within the fence area, cows will eat every acorn in short order. If rotational grazing is done, the resting areas are great browse areas for deer. Best time to hunt a cow pasture in my opinion is mid January through the end of the season. Rut is on and if you get a few warm days, tender grasses and forbs begin growing and the deer will hit those areas.

Biggest deer I ever hunted was in an active cattle pasture. I was transitioning from one area of the pasture to another by walking through a catch pen. About 30 cows were in the pasture to my left. They begin bellowing and parting like the Red Sea. A doe came running through the middle of them the followed by huge 10 point and a four point. Rested my rifle on the wooden fence, got him in my scope and realized I could see about five cows behind him. Didn't pull the trigger. Saw him three different times in that pasture. Shot at him as he was cruising at 10:30 AM on the last day of the season. John Deere was plowing land 100 yards away and he was a calm as on old lady in a church pew. Never found any blood and he ran back through some timber and towards the row crop land and farmer never saw him cross. Deer like that is used to hiding close to humans.

That's a horse

He was a buck the farmer had a lot of history with and thought he was around 8 years old…..It’s still one of the wildest tracks I’ve been on too……He was originally shot just a few inches above the hoof…..We tracked him right at 1000 yards before getting him up out of his bed in a privet thicket……He didn’t run and just got up and squared off on the dog…..I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl into where I could get a shot and even then all I could see was his just a small section of his body……Just to make a long story short…..He took off and never would bay up where I had a good clean shot….. I think I ended up baying and shooting him 4 times with my 30-30 before he finally went down…..On the final shot he was standing about 40 yards away facing straight at me and when I fired he came charging at me and slid to a halt right at my feet like that buffalo did Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves…….That’ll get your heart rate up……

So who killed the deer?