This question is for those of you who have experience managing/raising both Axis and Whitetails on the same high fenced property....

We own 125 acres in Huntsville....and our original plan was to just high fence it and raise Axis for a small family hunting place. The reason we did not plan to manage for Whitetails is because it would be difficult to do on that amount of acreage.

However....

Some things are happening, and there is a possibility of us being able to purchase some neighboring property....which will bring our total to 250-300 acres.

We are now thinking about fencing the entire 250-300 acres, with a main goal of intensively managing our Whitetails....and not worry about managing a breeding herd of Axis.

Which brings me to my question....

If we have a highly managed whitetail herd (let's just say 75-100 animals)....do you believe that introducing 4-6 young Axis bucks (2 yrs old) per year will have a significant impact on our Whitetail quality?

After a few years, the introduction of Axis will result in a total population of around 15-20 Axis bucks on the property with no female Axis. The reason for doing this would be to have some off-season hunting on the property. Do you believe this will negatively affect our Whitetail quality? (whether it is from competition for food, fighting, bedding competition, etc...) Keep in mind that there will be no less than one free-choice protein feeder per 50 acres, as well as approximately 10% of the property (20-30 acres) being irrigated food plots.

I love Axis deer, and I know they would be interesting and fun to manage on a place....but Whitetail hunting/management is my TRUE passion, and is much more important to me than managing a breeding herd of Axis.

Any theories on this would be great to hear....as well as any advice from those of you who have managed something similar.

They compete quite a bit when it comes to a feeder or feed location as a food plot you won't have as much as a probLem and on that small of a property I don't see it working well with that amount of animals when I have more time I will give more explanation on this but we own a ranch a bit bigger than your talking about and had wt and axis on it also and the axis allways seem to run off the whitetail from the feeders

To me, and this is just opinion, that sounds like way too many animals for amount of acreage. I used to have only 3 sika in a fair sized pen & it's amazing how crowded they become. Too many & stress and disease show up. Limit your numbers, go for quality, and you will be much happier.

I know many of you have the opinion that it's too many animals....but it's just that, an opinion. Having 75-100 Whitetail on a place that is 250-300 acres is completely fine with all the supplemental feed, water, and food plots that will be available to them year-round....especially in East Texas, where rainfall is at least double that of the Hill Country.

Please stick to the topic everyone....I'm not interested in hearing people's opinions on the carrying capacity of our land. I just want info on Axis/Whitetail competition.

Wade, We have close to same amount of land as you will have once you purchase the 2nd property. Something we did is split the property into 2 pastures...one exotic...one whitetail. We do feed an awful lot of protein year around but it's well worth it as you have seen from our exotic pics. I honestly think that with a smaller herd of axis you shouldn't run into to many problems. If it were me I'd just be sure to set up a few extra feed stations and that will help the problem. We have way more animals on our place than you will have and have not had a problem yet as far as producing some excellent animals year after year. If you have any questions just hit me up on here or on Facebook. I'd be happy to possibly meet up with you at the ranch as I am in College Station and look at it with you as well to help come up with a game plan. Good luck bud!

Thanks CP....I sent you a PM.

All i know is that axis eat a lot and are compition for WTs

dude......quit posting on topics you have no knowledge of

wade,

one problem you are going to run into, is with that many animals they are going to be more or less strictly dependant on supplemental feed.

if you ran one feeder per 50 acres( 5-6 protien feeders) and had some irrigated foodplots, then 4-6, heck, even 10 axis woudn't be an issue for the whitetail herd in and of itself if you kept the numbers low.

what is going to bother the whitetail is, because of the sheer number of animals, any natural forage would be virtually non-existant, and when the axis get aggressive at the feeders, the deer that are going to be run off, have to eat somewhere. animal displacement is going to be a bit issue running that many animals.

Maybe if you planted some haygrazer or other type of grass that the axis will eat and the whitetails won't, might be the solution

Lol wow so mean lol

Ok we have a place that's about 450 acres and a small place we keep our elk now on the larger property we have a lot of wt and a decent (15) amount of axis deer mainly bucks but we have 6 protein feeders and a lot of food plots etc across the property now from what I've seen the axis does stay back from the wt but the axis bucks will come in and push everything off of them but again we don't run a lot of animals due to natural forage and feeding issues we probably have around 40-50 whitetail with the axis and we also would agree with a fence in the middle so they can be separated as it would be more benificial for the animals in my opinion to keep them more feeder friendly and active on protein if you will. With that being said I wouldn't say not to do it just start with smaller numbers and work up to where you want to be to see how they react and if you think the property is capable of handling it. our places are in buffalo if you ever want to meet up and have a steak in Leona shoot me pm and we can talk more about all this and have a beer

Well it's like, damn, do you have to comment on everything?

Thanks for the input and the invite....I might just have to take you up on that.

Better yet maybe we can all meet up that when he comes to hunt an axis with us and we all can discuss this over a Leona Steak and crown and coke?

Did you say STEAK?!? Yes those Leona steaks are bad ace!

Leona Steaks........... now i'm interested!!!

yeah now I'm hungry thanks guys lol we will have to make the steak trip soon

Carrying capacity has an enormous impact on competition, so I don't understand why you don't like to here opinions that bring it up. Even if you have enough to feed the numbers your talking about there will still be side effects of high density, especially during the breeding season. You also can't count on the rain totals "where rainfall is at least double that of the Hill Country". We just had one of the worst droughts on record and East Texas was hit just like the every other part of the state. Under the perfect scenario you might get the results you want, but your herd could be stressed bad when those conditions aren't available.

Thank you for the lesson in meteorology....

The weather really doesn't affect this situation much anyway (other than the native browse obviously being less in a time of drought) because the food plots will be fully irrigated and fenced off from the animals during the growing process.

There are ranches all over the state that have equal, or even much higher, animal densities that do quite well.

I love hearing all the "management gospel" that comes from people who have wildlife management degrees....ESPECIALLY the TPWD jokers!! They use the same 30 year old arguments and refuse to consider modern studies and management practices. The ones preaching about only having one deer per 20 acres are usually the same "experts" that insist on shooting ALL SPIKES, regardless of age.

Thanks fellas.

Carrying capacity on a small property is like seeing a guy take a fat woman on a date in his camry and $10 in pocket. It's not in his best interest but it can be done!

Just an observation: for a guy who comes to a board like this and asks for opinions, you get pretty defensive pretty quick. And I can't imagine that denigrating the opinions of professionals with smart aleck responses will help your "consulting" business. (No, I'm not a game biologist)

One thing you also have to consider is that when the food plots are fenced off, that will put more pressure on supp. Feeding stations.

Not going to give my opinion, just what I have seen firsthand.

Are you planning on bringing the whitetail in it just manipulating what you've got?.

The majority of the whitetail will be brought in.