Originally Posted by
J Pike
glew I have to disagree, I have been scrictly managing 3,250 acres and been part of a QDM co-op of over 8500 acres for 10 years now and have acheived a perfect buck to doe ratio, and have not noticed any decrease in inmature buck breeding activity even though during our first year we saw or got pics of only 6 bucks that were older than 1.5 years of age. In my opinion our in mature bucks participate in the rut just as much in year 10 as they did in year 1 even though we now have bucks dying of old age. The other thing that has shocked me is that the fawning period hasnt gotten any shorter in length over the years. Pike
Hmm, you raise good points and I can't argue with your observations. You would still think that the extent to which the yearlings are participating is less than it was prior, but maybe you're right. The fawning period remaining the same definitely surprises me, I'll pass the info along to my superiors, and let you know how they respond.
I'm going to attach a picture of Whitey as a 2.5, we would have scored in the low 80s. The other pictures will be several 2.5s that I have been watching this year. I can say this with certainty, my 2.5s are ALOT bigger then they were before. Could it be that they had better nutrition then Whitey...possibly. I still believe that in some way they were shielded from stress by Whitey and Jordan.
As a sidenote...Whitey turned into a 9pt grossing in the 130s by maturity. Imagine what these new 2.5s will look like if they make it to 4.5...they dwarf him as a 2.5.
Thanks for the response pike.