The bucks and does I have gutted don't seem to look that different on the inside, except for a few important details.

I let a decent 8pt walk a few weeks ago. I walked his back trail to see exactly which trail he was using, and found warm droppings just after he came off a milo field. It was basically 1/2 clump and 1/2 scattered. It wasn't a mystery as I had just seen him 60yds away, but what does it tell you? Nothing really, other than a deer had been by there recently.

I think it helps tell you travel routes and sizes can help tell you big deer versus small deer, and that would be it for absolutes.

--Jim

It is all in the taste, doe is vanilla and bucks are chocolate!

In reality it is determined by diet, when deer eat a lot of grass and the like it is clumpy, when they are eating dryer food such as acorns or the like it tends to be pelletized.

Look at cow manure, when they are eating dry hay there is still hay undigested, when they are just eating grass it is plops/runny.

The Tazman aka Martin Price
Founder and President of
Virginia Disabled Outdoorsmen Club

I wish I could quote the experts I've read but I think it was from material presented by Fred Bear years ago.

During the Spring and Summer deer are grazers and their scat will be in clumpy masses. During the Fall and Winter they are on browse and will be loose pellets that are so familiar. Elk will be similar but are more grazers than browsers.

Size of the droppings to my way of thinking are less important that the size of the pile of scat dropped. I'll leave the sex judgment ot others.

Dick

Tifford saw the same article I did. I think it was in Deer and Deer Hunting and they said a buck would have at least 75 pellets in his feces.

Dick Cress hit the nail on the head. It is strictly diet that influences the appearance of the fecal matter. He was 100% correct with his browser/grazer theory. End of discussion, although I too grew up with the impression that clumps meant bucks.

Heres one for ya..
took my dog up to the mountains this weekend and all he wanted to do was walk around the blue ridge parkway and eat big clumps of deer crap like the one you described...whats up with that? then he puked in the truck on the way home!

SMELL................
huh........
SMELL.................
sniff sniff.......
SMELL LIKE BUCK POOP?????????
yup smell like buck poop
TASTE.........
huh????????????
TASTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you taste it<img src=icon_smile_evil.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_evil.gif border=0 align=middle>

IF IT IS TO BE......
IT IS UP TO ME......

According to the article in this months Field an Stream by the leading whitetail biologist in the country there is no difference between the two it all has to do with what they are eating at the time.

Read this and believe what you want to
http://www.tracker-outdoors.com/deersign.htm