Answer: First, let me say that the feeding of any wild animal by people should be considered purely supplemental. White-tailed deer should be no different. First, there are many arguments surrounding the feeding of whitetail deer, whether in rural hunting woods or in suburban areas such as the greenbelt around your house.

Whitetail are really neat critters that all sorts of people like for many different reasons. However, deer are fairly simple animals that require food, cover, water, and space. The food part is what we are talking about today.

It is true that soybeans are better than corn, but I don’t suggest you use either. I do not recommend any type of feeding, even protein pellets, in suburban settings, primarily because deer can exceed the carrying capacity of the habitat through the addition of supplemental foods.

I have seen and read about plant communities in housing developments and greenbelts destroyed by over-abundant deer herds time and time again. In almost every case it’s because of the addition of supplemental feed.

In nature, everything is about balance. Animal populations only grow when there is food to consume. However, any time food is artificially added to wildlife populations, particularly in the absence of active management, then problems can and will arise.

Deer populations are naturally limited by food availability. A whitetail population will continue to grow until it reaches the carrying capacity of the area, at which point it will reproduction will go to 0 because of a lack of nutrition. Population die-off will occur.

The addition of foods, even low quality foods such as corn, can cause deer populations to grow way beyond the ability of the natural environment to support them. As the population of deer grows so must the volume of supplemental food to support the increased number of animals. It turns into a nasty cycle and everyone, including the deer, suffer.

Answer: First, everyone always emphasizes the importance of providing optimum nutrition throughout the year. This is important so that the bucks in your area can reach their genetic potential. However, there is much more to whitetail management than nutrition, and there is more to whitetail hunting than just pulling the triger. It’s true that hunters make a number of important decisions with their trigger fingers, so what you shoot and what you pass up has a big affect on future hunting.

You face a common question: Which bucks do I shoot and which ones do I let go? Most hunters make that decision based on antler size (as in the biggest), but this is typically a bad decision. Using this technique, the best bucks tend to get shot first, leaving the inferior bucks to sire the rest of the herd. WRONG.

A buck can not be considered mature until is is at least is 4 1/2 years old. It is at this age that a deer manager can really see the kind of antlers and body size he is capable of producing. Getting bucks to this age is not always easy because they are much easier to kill when they are a year younger and right on the verge of becoming great trophies. This is the age (3 1/2) when most hunters simply can’t pass up a “trophy” buck. Little do they know that the buck they just shot would have been a real monster a couple of years down the road.

When a hunter starts making management decisions based on age rather than antler size, you get a good idea of what bucks look like. When a lot of hunters head out hunting, they see a buck and shoot it—never really studying the deer they see. Instead of learning of the buck’s body characteristics that help them to age the deer, the simply shoot it. DONE.

Next time you shoot a buck, look at it before you pull the trigger. Study the jawline, the neck, and the relationship of the front shoulders to the belly to the hindquarters. Then, once the animal is harvested, remove the jaw and age the deer deer using the teeth. This will give you a better understanding of the relationship between the physical characteristics that you see and the actual age of the deer when you’re out whitetail hunting.

Once you begin to manage and harvest bucks by age, you will become very proficient and aging deer on the hoof. This ability, of course, is critical for managing bucks by age. In closing, to keep a good age structure of bucks on your property, I would recommend that you and your fellow hunters harvest no more than 20% of the bucks off the property in any single year. This includes culls at all age classes as well as trophy bucks. NOW YOU”RE TALKING!

Answer: Do it! I’m always surprised at how hesitant many folks are to seek professional advice when it comes to managing their property for native habitat and wildlife. It’s almost as if people think that because managing land has to do with whitetail and trees and wildlife food that they it should be easy to figure out.

If you have never assessed and managed wildlife habitat before, there’s no reason why you should know anything about deer habitat management, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. You, of course, bring the local knowledge about how deer use or don’t use your property, and your knowledge about hunting, deer behavior and deer habitat requirements are invaluable.

However, the first thing you should always do prior to implementing any type of habitat management practice is to determine what your goals are and then set objectives, which are linked to results within a given amount of time.

Even if you have been managing your land for years, almost every landowner will benefit from having a professional wildlife biologist on their property. Most everyone finds it useful to hear someone else’s ideas about how their property could be managed. In fact, a trained biologist may very well suggest management approaches you may never have considered—or knew about, for that matter—and they could really improve your whitetail hunting.

Before you dial up the first private biologist in the phone book, keep in mind that most states already have biolgist on staff that are paid by by your hunting and fishing license sales. They can help you free of charge!

In addition, they can also inform you about financial assistance programs to help you pay for your management activities. Not all wildlife management activities qualify for free money, but it never hurts to ask because there are many federal and state cost-share programs available to help fund habitat management projects on private land.

Lastly, a biolgist can assist you in writing and implementing a wildlife management plan for your property. This plan will serve as a formal guide for the long term management of your property to achieve your goals and objectives. Keep in mind that before you see improve whitetail hunting you will likely have to create better habitat for them to live.

Answer: Interesting. Someone else also emailed me today about their 9 year old son doing a similar project on antler growth in whitetail. You can use these photos showing antler growth in deer from this site that show the stages of antler development.

Answer: Genes are funny things and they can recombine during conception to form either normal looking fawns or piebald fawns. It all depends on the buck and his gene composition. However, since the doe is piebald, my guess is that there is about 25% chance her fawns will be piebald right out of the gate.

If the whitetail buck carries piebald genes (even if he’s not piebald in color) then the odds go way up. Looks like you are just going to have to wait and see! Let me know what happens.

Answer: Record Rack is fine choice for adding supplemental nutrition to whitetail diets. If you are interested in other options, I would compare the mineral and vitamin percentages with Purina or other brands. Many feed stores will mix their own pelleted deer feed, but make sure you check the nutritional content for a head-to-head comparison of products.

Protein is necessary for keeping deer in great shape, but additional nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, and other trace minerals are important for optimal antler and bone growth. When comparing mineral content from brand to brand, understand that additional minerals help, but I don’t know at what point additional minerals just become additional costs.

If overall deer feeds are comprable with regards to protetin and mineral and vitamin composition, then I’d go with the least expensive. Good luck with your supplemental feeding program, whitetail hunting, and deer herd improvement.

The overall age structure of a white-tailed deer population is younger than most people think. There are some states where the average harvested deer’s age is 1 1/2 years old. It has often been thought that antler and body size can indicate a deer’s age, but physical characteristics can often be quite misleading.

Before we start you must first understand that the number of antler points in no way corresponds to the age of a deer. Even if it did work that way, it would not help wildlife professionals in aging does. Antler size in bucks and physical development in both genders is greatly affected by diet and genetics, which may account for differences between animals of the same age taken from different locations.

The only true way to measure age in whitetail is by a deer’s teeth. The science of aging deer is based on tooth development and wear. Like humans, deer replace their baby teeth with permanent teeth at a relatively set rate. A buck will be in the process of losing its third premolar at 1 1/2 years of age. By the time a deer is 2 1/2 years old, all permanent teeth are in.

After a deer reaches 2 1/2 years old, age estimation is based largely on the rate of tooth wear. Diet and soil types may accelerate tooth wear, or not. However, estimating the age of adult deer follows a routine pattern until they are about 5 1/2 years of age. Once extreme tooth wear takes place, aging deer accurately based on tooth wear becomes less reliable. Of course, very few deer older than 5 1/2 are examined on an annual basis.

Subject matter may include progress reports, preliminary results, or research results intended for future publication. However, since the abstract is the only record of the presentation, evaluation will be based on abstract content and quality rather than what the authors intend to have prepared by the meeting. Presentations (including a question and answer period) will be limited to 20 minutes in length. A laptop computer and projector will be provided for Power Point presentations.

Each year the Southeast Deer Study Group presents a cash award and plaque for the best student presentation and a cash award to the second best student presentation. To qualify as a student presenter, the senior author must be a graduate or undergraduate student, or in their first year of employment post-schooling. Presentations are to be about the presenter’s graduate research, senior thesis, or similar project that they were involved with while in school. The presenter must be the primary person involved in data collection, analysis, and presentation preparation.

Authors wishing to compete for this award must check the box on the abstract submission form. Student abstracts will be subjected to the same review process as the other abstracts, and only those selected for inclusion in the meeting program will be eligible for the award. Award selection is based entirely on scientific relevance and presentation quality.

Abstracts should be no more than 250 words, typewritten, double-spaced, and formatted for 8.5” x 11” paper. All distances, areas, weights, etc. must be presented in English units (feet, acres, etc.). Do not use metric units (meters, hectares, etc). Do not include the author(s) on the abstract. The name(s), affiliation(s), and address(es) of the authors should appear only on the abstract submission form.

Abstract submissions must be emailed to Alan Cain at alan.cain@att.net. Please use Microsoft Word only.
Abstracts must be received by November 25, 2009.

The format of the abstract should be as follows:

• Please, include Poster Session or Technical Session in the upper left Margin of the abstract.
• Title (should be 15 words or less)
• The word ABSTRACT followed immediately by the text of the abstract.

The abstract should describe:

• What you studied and why – place the research in perspective by explaining the reason for the work.
• How you did the research – briefly explain your methods.
• What you found – summarize your results.
• What does it mean – state your conclusions and management implications.
• Remember – English measurement units only.

POSTERS:

• Poste size limit is 42” wide x 32” tall in landscape orientation.
• Presenters should bring posters ready to display.
• Posters will be displayed on a backing material provided.
• 4.All posters should be taken down and removed by 5:00pm on March 1st.

Answer: Yes, the buck antler restrictions are working, and no I’m not being biased. I live and hunt in one of the first counties that were experimental. Yes, it took a few years to see the difference, but the regs did have an impact it on the buck age and antler quality. Before the antler regs, you could not find a buck with antlers no more than the size of your hand with both thumbs overlapping.

However, once implemented, we were still a 1 buck county as the other 5 counties and hunters were not going to use that tag on anything other than either a buck with 6 points on one side, a buck with a 13 inch inside spread or greater, or an unbranched antler (spike) on at least one side. The 6 point on one side was thrown out after the first year or two.

Sure, deer hunters saw numerous whitetail bucks that could have been shot the previous years, and the majority of those were 1.5 to 2.5 yrs old, but as time went on for 2 or 3 seasons, residents and hunters in those original counties were seeing bucks that had better antler growth, better body mass, and older due to letting them walk (because of the regs). Antler restrictions worked in my part of Texas, but it will take some time for them to work.

Answer: It will take a little practice using a seed drill, but using your drill will become very easy over time and really help you get your food plots in fast. First, planting seeds in tilled ground is much easier to see where you’ve been and probably the best way to learn. Start out by making the first pass along the outside edge of the plot. Once you’re at the end, just raise the drill, make a sharp turn and start planting again right beside the first pass, you should be able to see where the last “row” is. Just get it as close as you can without overlapping or leaving a gap of unseeded ground.

Most drills are equipped with a seed metering system, which controls the seed drop rate. Once you determine what seed you’re planting and how many pounds per acre, look either on the drill or owners manual for which gear or gearbox setting needed to achieve that rate with that particular seed. Using a drill involves a learning curve, but it’s well worth the trouble for a good food plot that provides valuable supplemental food. Good luck with your plot and your deer management.