Friends, I' ve been hunting deer for about 20 something years. I get a deer every year I have time to spend hunting. That doesn' t make me a good deer hunter, or even knowledgable about deer. It means I' m helping the herd by eliminating the stupid deer from the gene pool.
Well, now I' m going to show just how little I know about deer.

Why would we want a ratio of 1to 1, buck to doe???????
If a good, healthy buck can breed several does, why on earth would the question of 1 to 1 even come up.

Please help me with this one. I' m stumped. I must be missing something.
Thank you all in advance.


critch

Everything that I have seen or read sayes that with a 1:1 ratio or the closer you can get to it will grow bigger and better deer cause there is much more competition between the bucks and therefore the bigger, more dominant bucks will breed the majority of the does instead of the smaller more inferior bucks.

If you have 100 does and 5 bucks they are all going to breed does. If you have 100 does and 50 - 100 bucks then the dominant bucks will not let the smaller bucks breed until they can whoop the big boys.

I think the real reason is that, ultimately, you' d have more bucks. Since an area of land will support a limited number of deer, from some hunters' prospective, it' s better to have half of them bucks than 20% bucks.

There are a lot of reasons, including the above mentioned ones. I tend to think that wingbone' s is why most do it. If your area will support 100 deer, would you rather know that there are only 10 bucks in the area or 40-50?. Also, a higher buck/doe ratio ultimately gives you better bucks to shoot. To maintain a healthy herd, with a chance at taking a mature buck, you probably shouldn' t shoot more than 15-20% of the bucks each year. With 10 bucks, that means only 2 bucks can be taken. With 50 bucks, you can take 10 bucks/year. Which place would you rather hunt on?

To expand on what bigbulls said, you will actually see more rutting activity as a hunter when there are more bucks, because there are less does to go around. Again, which would you chose: having most of the rutting at night, or seeing several bucks chase does during hunting hours?

Lastly, it is closer to nature, and there must be a reason for that. A deer population that is unhunted, I believe will stabalize at around 1 buck for each 1.5 does.

These are some laymans answers, why don' t you ask T R Michaels on the other forum?

I knew I would get good info here. Thank you.


critch

I am posting a similar question on T R tips section. Let see what he says.

I would like to add one more thing, If there is a smaller ratio like 1 buck for every 2-3 doe the buck will not have to use up so much energy every year. This in turn will help the buck live longer and do a better job of breeding.
Just my 2 cents..................

like someone said it will make the rut more evident and hit harder.. another thing it will bring it earlier in the year.. Here in alabama our rut is not until January.. but our doe/buck ratio is like 13-15/1 ... I read an article this past season (dont remember the magaize) but they said that a mature doe will produce twin yearlings every year.. they also said that more of those yearlings will be male until the ratio is evenly proportioned.. I dont know how the deer' s genitalia know this but thats what the study said.. here we are allowed (everyday of the season)to take 2 does a day or 1doe/1 buck a day..

I think a given area can only support a certain number or animals; you can control that by giving the deer plenty of food( food plots with lots of protein).Everyone would like to hunt where half or more of the deer are bucks. On my farm , 10 years ago we had a lot of does; we spent several seasons thinning does, because we arent allowed many deer in MO it took awhile. I dont know the ratio now but last season I saw more bucks than does and got more buck pictures than does on my trail camera. The bucks were bigger and responded to rattling better than before. It was a good season but i dont know why it is that way, only a mile or two away there are many more does. Maybe they dont my place.