Originally Posted by
J Pike
glew in my opinion when you have a perfect buck to doe ratio and a higher % of your buck population in older age classes, breeding behavior dramaticly increases for every age class, stress from the rut increases for every age class, the intensity of the rut dramaticly increases and natural mortality due to breeding behavior increases for every age class. All you have to do is look at my trail cam pics to see how many of our bucks from every age class have broken racks, which has dramaticly increased over the years as our buck to doe ratio got closer together and the % of mature bucks in our buck population increased. Pike
The only part of your statement I would disagree with is that stress from the rut increases for every age class. Imagine having 10 doe and 1 buck; and having 10 doe and 10 bucks. 10 to 1 would result in a 2nd and possibly 3rd rut...a much longer window. I feel that there would be a lot more stress in that scenario that in the herd with 10 doe and 10 bucks, because the stress would be absorbed by a lot more individuals. Another factor at play is they increase in stress due to fighting with more bucks in a balanced herd. You would think that a lot of the dominance hierarchy would get sorted out through posturing and body language, but as you eluded to that does not seem to be the case. On of the 2.5s I posted broke a g1 on nov 29-30...I would think that fights ending up in broken points wouldn't be happening that late.