Dr. Randy DeYoung’s article in the October 2005 issue of Quality Whitetails explained this concept and documented through research that breeding is done by bucks of all age classes, irrespective of the herd’s age structure. Yearlings and 2½-year-olds even get in on the action on the King Ranch in Texas, where more than 50 percent of the bucks are 3½ years of age or older. Randy’s research also showed bucks that successfully breed do not sire many fawns. The most prolific buck in their studies only sired six fawns in a single year, and on one study site successful bucks averaged less than three fawns per year over an 11-year period. Anna Bess Sorin found similar results in a Michigan deer herd where 17 bucks sired 67 fawns for an average of 3.9 fawns per buck. Individual bucks sired anywhere from one to nine fawns in her study.

Dominant bucks don’t monopolize the breeding, and they don’t even sire all of the fawns from each doe they breed. Black bear biologists have known for years that a litter of cubs could easily have more than one father, but multiple paternity in whitetails is relatively new information. Randy and his colleagues were the first to report on this. Their study of captive deer revealed multiple paternity occurred in about 24 percent of compound litters. Approximately one in four sets of twins or triplets had two fathers! This means does are breeding with multiple bucks, which further clarifies that individual whitetail bucks do not monopolize breeding.