Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Ooooh… The Bucks Are Growing
I’ve spent several days recently inventorying the deer on my 1,000 acres, and oooh ... some of the bucks are really impressive.
One thing about spring bucks: what you first start seeing is only the first impression of what the final rack will look like. Deer in velvet are genuine works of nature’s art.
If a person can see one particular buck today, and look at it again tomorrow and the next day, it’s possible to see minute changes in antler growth. Each day it seems the knobs that will become antler tines will grow, and the spread starts to widen, and before long it’s possible to tell what the basic rack will soon look like.
Some racks grow straight up into the air, widen out, and begin to thicken. Others grow out with shorter tines. This is a time when young antlers are very tender and a bump against a tree limb or trunk is damaging, and the damage can be modest or severe to the growing antlers.
The velvet is engorged with blood, but it continues to grow, and by August or September, most bucks will be shredding small or large trees to remove the velvet from their antlers.
Deer can only breed when their antlers are hard. Most bucks seem very aware of their headgear, and take great pains to avoid damaging them while they are velvet covered.
I saw one buck earlier today that already looks like it has an 18-inch spread, and there is plenty of growth going up into the air. The buck, standing alone in an open field, was most impressive.
We are seeing plenty of fawns even though we reduced the doe numbers last fall. Many deer ranches, and large spreads in Texas, hope to get their buck-to-doe ratio down to two does per buck. Some feel a buck-to-doe ratio of one-to-one is ideal.
Last fall our buck-doe ratio was tilted heavily in favor of the bucks, and it appears that again this spring, the bucks far out-number the does. Is this good or what?
It took me several years to determine that we didn’t need a large number of does. Our bucks often grow for four or five years before they are taken, and as a rule, the biggest bucks breed the biggest does. This manner of breeding ensures that the strongest animals of both sexes are involved in breeding activity, which usually results in superior fawns and faster growth.
If, for example, we had more does than bucks, the smaller bucks would breed some of the does. Normally, breeding rights are reserved for the largest bucks, but if Big Boy is breeding one doe, a youngster can and occasionally will breed an estrus doe if she will stand for him.
Reducing doe numbers also reduces the number of fawns that would be born each spring. Weather and other factors will eliminate some of the smaller fawns as well.
It’s the bucks that are most important to us. We try to identify the largest bucks on the property early, keep a close watch on them and their antler development, and we try to maintain a solid idea on which part of the ranch they choose to call home.
Studying big bucks—whether in velvet or with hardened antlers—is a major summer pastime around here. Sure, our 3-D archery course attracts some shooters, but my primary enjoyment comes from watching these animals as their antler and body size grows.
We’re always on the lookout for those smaller bucks that are easily recognizable, and watch to see how their antlers grow. Some, for whatever reason, fail to develop into anything of size. Those animals are usually taken early in the season if they are 2 1/2 years old, and still haven’t shown any major growth.
But for now, watching the bucks is still what I enjoy most. I’m continuing to look for some of the biggest bucks that were not taken last fall, and we know they are still alive and moving around the ranch.
It’s just a matter of time until we spot one of these animals. And then, we mutter “ooh, look at that guy.” And, each time we discover another big buck, it’s the same thing all over again.
Spring and early summer is truly a magical time, and it’s when we learn about the beauty of a whitetail buck’s antlers.