You all know i enjoy reading about research (though i despise doing it), i know some of you don’t, and thats ok. I will try to make applicable points for all hunters whether they want to dig into the numbers or just want what works for an individual hunter

Research was done in prime deer country, Faith ranch and some combined with Commanche ranch.

Point 1: supplemental feed is a big factor in growing big deer. Supplemental feed alone was responsible for a near 20% increase in average buck antler size in a herd that was simply left to nature and one that had supplemental feed at a rate of 1 feed station per approx 100 acres. This was free choice full time feed. I think we would all expect that. But the interesting thing was the number of 180+” bucks was dramatic between the two groups. In the unfed native deer herd the percent of 180+” bucks was 0.5% of the herd. In the fed but otherwise native herd (these were not from the DMP pen side) the percent of 180+” bucks was 13%. This shows the power of supplemental fee choice feed.

Point 2: deer age well and don’t die often from natural causes. Average buck fawn to 10.5yo survivability in multiple pastures was near 66%. Thats impressive to me. The biggest death rate was from birth to 1.5yo, and then after that survivability was near 95% for each successive age class. Meaning a deer seen one year is very likely to survive to the next, minus hunting pressure. The big caveat here is this was done in south texas where weather isn’t a huge factor. Up north this data is not going to be the same.

Point 3: maybe the most impressive data collection to speak of was the data about antler points at any given age and eventual maximal antler score. The question brought up is “does shooting spikes hurt your herd” and what happens to those spike as they get older. The research showed overwhelmingly that shooting spike bucks is not hurting anything as very few of those bucks will produce big antlers over 160”. In a HF situation even shooting 3 pt yearlings is not risky of hurting a future 160+” buck. The cut off for 2.5yo bucks showed shooting a buck with less than 8 pts was low risk, while shooting a 3.5yo with less than 9 pts was low risk of having those bucks develop into a 160+” buck.
These findings are applicable to HF ranches but can be extrapolated to high deer density situations where supplemental feed is in play. The number of bucks shot has to correlate to the overall age structure and deer numbers, but if doe numbers are good and you need to start “culling” bucks to keep numbers in check, the inferior phenotypic bucks are just not going to bloom late in life “most of the time”. However, we have to remember inferior phenotype does not mean inferior genotype, and allowing these bucks to move along and breed, specifically in a native herd where numbers are good and nutrition is maximized, is not hurting anything (at leas based on the current data). Future dna analysis may change that last statement, and that is something that will be looked at.

Boy, I hate to even go here but I will just a little.
Did the survivability numbers apply to just protein fed?
The smaller younger deer that may not develop into many 160+ bucks does not mean they wont be "Trophies" to many. And lots of fun hunting the type buck that many would consider a big management buck. Personally, Im all in on wanting a super big trophy but many are more than happy hunting a good solid mature buck and if thats the case then i say "quit shooting young bucks" regardless of antler size.
Lots of good threads going right now and I think they would be better suited for the offseason cause I dont have much time and others likely dont either. Time to hunt and not read about it. But, thanks for posting.

Nothing in your data appears out of line to me. However, I suspect bucks are far more likely to die of old age if they can make it to six or seven when many if not most will go fully nocturnal.

The answer to the first question was the survivability data was on the unhunted eat and west yana pastures that were given free choice protein. So maximizing nutrition played a role in this for sure. But taking hinting pressure away, showed great survivability to old age.

Second, the recommendations on shooting spikes and or other inferior phenotype bucks really only applies to HF situations or LF where size is so large you do not have to worry about neighbor hunting pressure. For the majority of texas hunters shooting doe is all we can handle to keep numbers in line. Some places have enough control they can take some bucks woth their doe kill to manage numbers. The thought also assumes protein free choice.the researchers said this does not apply to unfed herds, as the data swing from fed to unfed was so large the data can not be used in that unfed situation. So, for majority of hunters, keeping bucks around for management shooting or just letting them get old is good idea. Only in carefully controlled management situations would anyone consider taking bucks at younger age, and majority of that is HF situations.

As mentioned above, the survivability data came from an unhunted HF. The year to year survivability didnt drop significantly (95%ish down to around 80%ish) until past 8.5yo. There was a smaller drop from 95% down to 87% from 7.5 to 8.5, and then 8.5 to 9.5 was 80%.

While this was in a HF unhunted area, there were significant numbers of old deer on these pastures and in 2017 the buck density of 180+” class deer was 1/42 acres in one of the pastures, so deer pressure and specifically buck fighting would have been strong for these deer. That pasture with the higher big buck density did have a slightly lower survivability than the other pasture, but it wasn’t significant enough to make any more than a few percentage point difference in the year to year survivability rates.

This data did not speak to deer going nocturnal or doing anything other than what a deer does. Sonce the pastures were unhunted, i assume there were some deer more nocturnal and some not, but human pressure would have little affect on that…but that’s an assumption.

And again, the survival data applies to south texas, might not even be applicable to north texas and most likely not the panhandle. But, from this we can say deer survive really well in the wild

One would think the fact the deer never experienced any impact from hunting would create at least some skewing in those survivability numbers. In fact, the study would seem more akin to something focusing on raising livestock.

Texas dan, for sure it does. That is why i keep stating its in unhunted pastures. That is immensely important.

However, unless you are a terrible hunter, the amount of stress put on a deer herd during hinting season should be minimal to nothing. I try hard to make sure deer dont know i am there at all.

So unless i pull the trigger, there is no added stress from me hunting than a normal non-hunting day for the deer. Obviously when one pulls the trigger it makes a single point of stress, but that fades quickly and depending on the herd, deer may act completely normal the same day.

You have to realize deer are not self aware in the sense they dont recognize a gunshot from a bolt of thunder and they dont realize that sound knocked down their travel partner anymore than the snap of a branch in the woods by a squirrel.

So don’t overthink human hunting pressure on deer survival anymore than it is, a single buck getting killed. In a 1100 acre pasture with over 200 bucks, shooting 5 bucks (1buck per 200 acres) a year is tantamount to 97.5% survivability for the remaining bucks. What this study showed is in the absence of that hunting impact, deer do a great job surviving if given good nutrition.

No wild animal dies of old age.

I wouldn't have guessed that feed could increase antler size by 20%...that's impressive. I'm assuming it is a typical protein feed?

Also, 180" deer go from 1 out of 200 to 1 out of 8. That's amazing. That would show that having HF deer with supplemental feed increases your odds of having 180" deer by 25x. That really puts it in perspective how much of a difference it makes.

I'm impressed! But I have a question....was the antler size calculated by inches/age or just total bucks that have a 180+? I love data pertaining to deer...keep it coming. My next question is you have 200 bucks / 1100 acres? Did ya have a mixture of does with the bucks? If ya have a ratio of 1:1.2 ratio you would calculate out to 240 does and over 200 bucks gives ya a density of 2.5 which a lot. The deer were probably eating mostly high protein and not much pasture...is that right? Still is impressive to me. I don't ever feed protein just corn. If I feed corn at the same rate as your protein how would the numbers come out?

Once again. lol

Deleted just for you Mr. T. Now go load up on supplemental feed and get to feeding. Keep us posted when those 180” deer every 44 acres kicks in your free range deer herd. That is 22.7 180” deer per 1,000 acres annually.

Fishbait and dochorton, i wasnt part of this research, but looked at some studies and data that was forwarded to me. It was interesting but really applicable only to a HF situation., except for the supplemental feed part as that can apply to any situation.

There were several aspects that make most of the information apply to only a HF, first and foremost these pastures were not hunted at all except to shoot off doe to control numbers. Bucks were simply allowed to age and they were all tagged and tracked from birth to death. Doe were as well, but that data is just being looked at now. The researchers plan to make dna family trees and see if there is any sense to it all. Back to the point, most of the data points in this research do not apply where hunters can shoot a lot of bucks, so the smaller the place or the more small neighbors you have shooting up bucks, the less this data applies.

Second, the pasture with the massive amount of 180+” bucks was from introduced breeder bucks. The doe were taken from surrounding pastures and bred with breeder bucks. While the overall “average” buck that came down the line from that process was around 10% bigger than the average buck in the control pasture, the bell curve was very skewed toward the higher end compared to control. This was done by measuring each buck every year and they used the maximal mature (5.5yo or older) antler score in the data for both groups. So if a deer was 190” at 6.5 but dropped to less than 170 for the rest of its life, that deer was recorded at 190”.

The percent of bucks that ever reached 180” in the control group was 13%, which as was mentioned above was a 26x increase over non fed non hunted native deer of the same genetics (just a different pasture used in the supplemental feed study). The number of deer that reached 180” or more in the treatment group (the breeder buck group) was 27%, double the control, and the numbers that hit 150-180 were also nearly double. So as i mentioned, the wntire bell circe was shifted in this treatment group to bigger deer.

The same type of shift, though not as dramatic was seen in the supplemental feed study. The entire bell curve was shofted toward the bigger side and the peak was moved from 130” in the unfed group to 155 in the fed group and over 50% of the bell curve was 150” or above and 13% was above the 180” mark. Contrast that with the unfed geoup that had only 20% from 140-160” and only 0.5% at 180” or above. Huge difference.

again, this is based on maximal mature size, so a deer may have gone into that high end one year and dropped back later in life is still counted as a high end deer. This doesn’t help us as much as hunters since we want to know what a deer is going to do next year…but it is helpful from a management standpoint.

Good info. Just to clarify....the pasture with the large number of 180" deer had introduced breeder bucks, but the other pasture was all natural genetics? Or both pastures had breeder bucks?

Doc, the one with the larger amount of big bucks was the only one with introduced genetics. They cleaned out the 1100 HF of all deer and then set up two DMP pens where they used a 170+ typical and a 220+ non-typical to breed 15 doe each and then let the progeny go into the 1100 acre pasture and breed as normal from there.
The other 1100 acre HF had all native genetics and were just fed. Both pastures had protein feeders at 1/100 acres with water trough, available free choice.

The “average” maximal size between the two sides was not as striking 155” to 163”, but the shift in the bell curve was the striking factor here. As mentioned above, the bell curve clearly showed with time, money and effort, re-stocking a HF pasture can work and provide for bigger bucks. No shocker there.

I know that some deer that age of 8 is not the deer it was at 4 to 7 years . I had a white deer at age 31/2 and bigger at 4 & 5 by the horns. At age 4 the buck was 17" and at age of 8 was 13" and the hind quarters was thin but still a big buck. He lived in a tight circle around my blind for I guess 5 years. He was easy to spot with a brush background. He was the boss of the area with three doe that stayed with him all the times. I kept him around for good luck.

Ill just add one thing about the feeding. This big increase from feeding wasnt just a one year thing. This research was done over 15 or so years. When a deer and then the offspring grow up entirely on heavy supplemental feed is when you get the big antler gains. Also the density of the feed stations was much more than most hunters would do. And they fed YEAR ROUND and Ill bet they rarely ran out between fills.
Im trying to say you cant expect results anywhere near this by throwing up a couple protein feeders on 1000 acres and fill em a couple times and expect much results the next year.
Most of these studies are not done to mimick natural conditions that would be applicable to every day hunters. They are testing under extreme and specific conditions in order to isolate specific things that they can apply to whatever it is they are after.
Pavlov never suggested you should do specifically what he did to your dog.

What free said above is so true. There are epigenetic changes that take years to show in a maximal nutrition situation. Most studies show this effect takes around 7-10 years to express maximally but you will see some incremental improvements within a few years.

Also, these deer were native genetics from one of the best places in texas to grow big deer. The question of whether these same effects could he seen in other areas is completely unknown. While i would expect to see similar reaponses to proper deer management in any sotuation, your specific situation may not allow for such tight management decisions (i.e. if you are on a small, sub 500 acre place).

This research is great to know, but trying to apply it in the incorrect setting can be detrimental and cost a lot of money for no gains. Not to mention the time factor.