Buck to doe ratio
 

How to you figure an accurate buck to doe ratio?
How long do you keep count?
Any tips on getting a handle of how many deer are on a certain property?:eek:

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

OTHER THAN HAVING A BIOLOGIST COME OUT THE BEST WAY IS TO BE ON THE GROUND EYEBALLING THE DEER FOR A WHILE. MY BUDDY LIVES ON THE PROPERTY I HUNT SO HE GETS TO SEE WHAT THE DEER ARE DOING ALL THE TIME AND CAN SEE WHAT THE RATIO IS APPROXIMATELY.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Down here we use alot of different methods in order to find out the sex ratio.

During the "off" months, we drive around the ranch doing a spot light survey. This involves 3 people, one is driving & recording the game spotted, the other 2 are each sitting back to back in the bed of the truck shining the spotlight looking and telling the driver to stop once they see an animal.

Another method that we use is trail cameras, but these tend to only take pictures of the same deer that visit the area.

The best method that we do, is a helicopter survey. We fly over the ranch a couple of times each year and take pictures of all the nice bucks we see, and count all the deer that we see. All bucks that we see are recorded and broken down into age classes. All does that we see are counted and so are the fawns. But in years that we get alot of rain, like in 2003 and 2004 so far, the brush gets very thick so it can be hard to see alot of the deer. Alot of the deer will also lay down when they hear the helicopter over head, and will refuse to run. Some times we will have to go into the brush with the helicopter above us, and force the deer to get up.

There is no such thing as a 100% correct way of finding the sex ratio. If you come within 10% of the actual number of deer, then go ahead and pat yourself on the back because you did one hell of a good job.

Every day that you are hunting, you should see a pretty even number of does and bucks. IF you see 10 does and not a single buck, then you know that your population is some what out of whack. But each day your in the woods make sure you count all the deer that you see, and break them down into different catagories, this will help you find the buck:doe ratio in the area that you hunt.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

I have no idea exactly how our deer biologists estimate it other than to guess that they use volunteers and possibly helicopters to make counts periodically throughout the year. Then they probably take an average for any given area.

Myself? As most others probably do I count when both spotlighting and scouting.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

I am no expert but common sense tells me this much:

You would need to count in late summer when the deer are coming to the fields. More deer will show themseves during daylight hours this way and the bucks are developing antlers so it should be easy to tell the sex. Next, disregard any fawn or yearling (just don't count them at all) because there is no way to tell what sex they are. Just count what you are sure of! Then you will have to do night surverys in the same manner. Again, I would think late summer would be the time for best results.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

[quote]ORIGINAL: silentassassin

Next, disregard any fawn or yearling (just don't count them at all) because there is no way to tell what sex they are. Just count what you are sure of!


Actually you are suppose to count yearlings as well. When you do a deer survey there are 3 basic groups that you put each deer into. The first one is the "buck group" the second is the "doe group" and the the third is the "unidentified group" which is what all the yearlings go under.

In a healthy deer herd, the yearlings make up a large percentage of the total number of deer. So if you leave out this large number of deer, then your not giving your self an accurate overall number of deer or buck:doe numbers.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Well what good is an unidentified group going to do in determining ratio? In most cases they are counted because there is usually a corresponding population survery. In a studio of buck doe ratio the information would be absolutely useless.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Couldnt you count the fawns and assume the ratio is 50/50 and be relatively accurate?

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

"The information would be absoluty useless"

Well actually it wouldnt be, because you are suppose to do what JoshKeller said. You take the total number of fawns, put halve in the buck group, and half in the doe group. These numbers wont always be right, but over a period of time they will balance out.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

That still woundn't effect the ratio, but obviously it would effect your total number in the herd.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

"that still wouldnt affect the ratio"

How is that?? Let's say that you see 40 fawns, you put 20 in the buck "catagory" and 20 in the doe "catagory". You have just increased the total number of bucks by 20 and the total number of does by 20. Now lets say that you have a 1:2 Buck:doe ratio, and that the total number of bucks is 50 and the total number of does is 100. If you add 20 deer to each catagory, then you are going to change the buck:doe ratio.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

txhighrack,

You may be right, but every article that I have ever read on the subject disagrees with you.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

[ I talked with our local biologist here and he said they fly areas to get a count of bucks and does. He also stated that its very difficult in this country to get an accurate count because of the habitat. He said they pretty much dont even worry about trying to count whitetails, instead they focus on the elk since they are easier to see from flying and that elk are the priority.

As for a fawn crop, it should be very close to 50/50 annually which is going to contribe greatly to a 1 to 1 ratio. I remember ALLOUTDOORS talking about his in one of his posts. Like he said the Buck to Doe ratio is probably better than a lot of folks believe.

Accurately estimating buck to doe ratios by watching deer feed in the summer time can be tricky, well at least here anyway. I can't speak for other areas of the USA in regards to how the bucks and does feed in the same areas and use areas during the summer.......but here I scout (June through August) and hunt areas in early archery season where I rarely see a doe, maybe 3-5 during the month of September. The only thing I see daily is the bucks that use these areas for bedding and feeding, Why because I am watching and hunting bacherlor groups of bucks or loner bucks that do not feed or hang out in the same areas as does. I can glass the valleys below, say a mile or so away and see large amounts of does, while the bucks are hanging much higher in elevation. I believe this is so here because deer are not concentrated and can pretty much live and feed for numerous miles in any direction. In the higher elevations the Buck #'s are much higher in numbers than doe #'s and this obviously misrepresents the true buck to doe ratio.

If I were to drop down in elevation say 1 to 3 thousand feet and hunt the doe core areas then I would see just the opposite, tons of does and very few mature bucks feeding, this would also give a false representation of bucks to doe ratio as well.

I try to combined the two, the buck hangouts and the doe core areas and come up with numbers this way. From what I count here our ratio is probably no worse than 3 doe to 1 buck..

Shed

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

While fawns may be born 50/50 male to female, their mortality rate will essentially parallel that of the general population. Fawns don't really participate in reproduction either (except the odd doe fawn that is bred). You can pretty much toss them out.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Does anyone have or know where there is any data to back up the notion that the birth ratio of whitetails is close to 50/50. I have always heard that it was more like 65/35 does/bucks.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Silent,

David Morris has research on it in his Books, "Hunting Trophy Whitetails" and "Advanced Stratagies for Hunting Trophy Whitetails"

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

You are right, I stand corrected. For some reason my brain was saying add to one take from the other, zero net effect. But now I see it does not work that way.

Sorry, I'm terrible with numbers, and I'm a CPA!!

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

I can still tell that if I were doing it I would just not count fawns. I would want to deal with concrete numbers not contrived numbers. Which is exactly what you would be doing if you counted fawns. You would be counting deer and dividing them by an arbitrary number that would almost positively be wrong.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Silent, until I had some hard scientific data stating 99% of the time the birth ratio is x to x, I am with you, why guess?

And if the fawns are not breeding, how do they effect a buck to doe ratio anyway?

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Our local biologist flies by helicopter for about a week in early January, before horns drop. He counts bucks, does, and fawns. Our western MT counts have typically run about 20:100:65 for the last couple years, I check each year, haven't called him yet this year.

On male:female ratios in deer, our local elk herd has run a 38:62 ratio of bull calves to cow calves for over a decade now. This situation is not at all unusual. The best scientific sourcebook I've seen is a book put out by the Wildlife Institute, called Whitetails something or other. I got it through interlibrary loan at my local library. This book weighs about 25 lbs. and has accessible-to-the-layman science on almost every aspect of whitetail ecology, biology, anatomy, etc. you could wish to see. On fawn buck:doe ratios, it makes it clear that disparities of 2 to 1 in the ratios do occur rather commonly. It seems that the general principle involved is that expanding herds produce more doe fawns, and overpopulated herds produce more bucks. The exact nuts and bolts of why this is so are still being worked out. Anyhow, with the new craze for QDM, one factor one might deal with is that as you whack does and drop herd density, while at the same time improving your habitat with crops planted for the deer, you may actually trigger your local deer to produce fawn ratios skewed heavily toward does. That last sentence is still theoretical, mind you, but I'll bet we'll start seeing some new science on that in the next decade.

RE: Buck to doe ratio
 

Remember, biologically, it is almost impossible for a buck-to-doe ratio to be greater than 1-to-5.;)