GIANT Whitetail......

First of all, I don't want this to turn into an argument regarding pen raised deer vs. wild deer. We all know pen raised deer get bigger than any wild deer can get. However, I still think it is interesting to see just what mother nature can do given the absolute PERFECT conditions (nutrition, genetics, etc....)

This is, as far as I know, the largest whitetail alive. It's hard to stomach this number, but this buck (named "Free Agent") scores roughly 522" @ age 2. I know.....ridiculous. I put deer breeding in the same category as porn.....it's fun to look at, but if you start trying to apply it to real-life you'll probably just be disappointed. It's just not realistic in real life.

Battle Ridge Whitetails

how would you even score those that has to be a pain to score with all the mass it is pretty amazing what you can do with genetics and lots of supplement

those deer look hideous. i would't take one and turn it loose on my ranch if i was given it for free.

check out texaswhitetailbreeders.com or jerry johnsons stock if you wanna see some pretty bucks

Only thing is this not mother nature in perfect conditions and I would call BS on genetics. I would be willing to bet this buck is a man made deer in that he was manipulated and altered. They probably sawed his antlers as a yearling to stimiulate blood flow and have fed him feed additives to stimiulate the extra growth. Not to say he had some great genetics and that he is not a great deer but there is more to this that what you see. I am not opposed to pen breeding of deer but when man starts to feed things to a deer that are not natural and to manipulate his antlers to stimulate growth to gain financially then I have a problem.

Agreed.....I never said he was pretty.....just friggin BIG!! lol

Although, if it was free.....I'd probably let him run around and breed his butt off on my ranch.

Do you have any proof of this going on in the deer industry? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me, but I would like to see it investigated before someone (or someone's deer) is condemned publicly.

Just start looking at some of the deer in the ads of some of the breeders out there and pay close attention the big non-typical bucks (especially the younger ones) and really study them hard. The lights will come on after a while.

Oh Yeah!

Just wait till next year when I start selling my genetically altered Mallards. I cross bred some Drakes with Ostriches.

They barely fly and they look like a B25 Mitchell bomber when flying over. It takes a 10 gauge with #OO Buck to bring them down.

And when they hit the ground, you got another pit blind to stand in.

I will post pics later. LOL!

That deer is fugly.

hey

hey you ever hear of Oxy-Pop?

No but Oxy-rack I have heard of.

Very well said!

probably the same thing.


oxy pop, feed it to them as yearlings, they will throw all kinds of crazy kickers and sticker points.

I am betting they are doing more than feed this to the yearling to get them to grow those extra points. Look closely at the pictures of those yearling and then other ones on another ranch that are normal yearling and you will see the difference I would bet.

X2 Bleeecchhh!

no i'm not referring to those partucular deer, but penned deer in general.

here is my cup of tea when it comes to breeder deer:

Nah, thin horned, short G2s and all air space(spread) and no real estate(mass).

it is a damn shame

now that you mention it, his G-2's are a little weak

at least he does not look like some Borg experiment on Star Trek!

Otherwise known as Fulica Americana

Yeah I know and he is a Texas born deer so I should not talk to bad about him. He did the best they could do for him.

Looks like a million BUCKS to me!!

Wonder how he holds his head up???

I don't know anything about deer raised like that, but I was wondering how long do they live? Do their antlers get larger every year? What would happen if you suddenly turned him out with no supplemental feeding? Could he top a doe with a heavy head like that or is all A. I.?

might have a lot of inches, but that deer isn't attractive to me at all. some of the guys I know in the deer business are moving away from that non typical type deer.

I know of a place that is making a well defined effort to raise breeders that only have 1% of their total gross score in abnormal points.

now those are some nice looking breeders.

That thing at the top looks like the monstrous by-product of a failed science experiment. Hopefully they will not escape and spread like feral pigs and Axis deer.

There length of life going to be determined on how much extra "stuff" was added into their feed that their kidneys cannot handle. Most of them get larger antlers from the 1st year to the 2nd year but not to much after that and some will get bigger every year by a little bit. If he was turned out into native pasture he would revert back to looking like a native deer with a funky set of nontypical antlers, but considerably smaller in antlers. Most bucks like that are used as A.I. sires and a few for breeding. Almost everyone is going to cut the antlers off so that the buck can move more freely. A deer like that this is tranquilized can not hold his head for many hours after he is reversed from the drugs due to the sheer mass and weight of the rack, so that is why the saw the antlers off most of the time when drawing semen. The skeletal structure and muscle mass in a bucks neck was not designed to hold up that much weight. Those 2 factors will also limit his length of life and how big his rack gets also.

Thanks ranchman. Is there that big a market for deer like that?

The whole thing is sad really. I remember when a 200" deer was a monster. Now we hear about 350"-500" deer and its like "No big Deal"! You look at that deer and he looks deformed in his face on his right side like that dude on The Goonies. I'm all for feeding your deer to help the over all health of the herd but.....thats taking the whole thing way too far. I hope for the day when the deer breeding business ends up like the bucking bull business or the ostrich/emu business.

I have a friend who used to be in the whitetail breeding business and he knew of other breeders who would take razor blades and knick the velvet antlers during the early stages of antler growth while they had the deer tranquilized for vaccinations.

He also told me of some breeders who would run their deer out of the loading shoots and have strands of barb wire hanging down to knick the deers antlers. With that said, have I witnessed this on properties of whitetail breeders? No. But my buddy has no reason to lie to me about it. His deer never had those grotesque looking bulbs all over the antlers. If it was scorable, it came to a point and looked alot more natural then what some of these freak deer do. I still think the most beautiful deer to ever walk is the Milo Hansen Buck.

Some interesting reading here. I agree with the Hanson buck comment.

To me there is no market for that type of deer but to someone only it in for the money then there is your answer, money is the driving force. If it is good for the deer then I am for it. This in my mind is not good for the deer only the person who is profiting from it.

I can remember in the late 80's or maybe early 90's where the largest deer killed in the state that was reported was in the upper 160's! To a few it is all about the money and not about the deer. Sad like you say, really sad.

a 160 still IS a big deer....

there are bigger deer out there, but put your hands on a 160 or 170, and it's still impressive.

I'm all for selective management, and some forms of breeding, but when you get so far out of the realm of what a whitetail was ever meant, it just doesn't make sense.

Fugly buck. As far as deer porn, to each his own but not for me.

That's a cull buck if I ever saw one.

To me it depends on what part of the stand I am standing in when I call a deer a trophy. I still think a 150 class deer it a great deer. But if I am standing the middle of the Hill Country north of SA then it might be a 140 is a trophy also. I am with you in that I am all for what the TPW deems legal to do on your piece of property you hunt on. But it comes to man tinkering with a deer to manufacture a bigger buck for money then I am not for it. The only one that can make sense of it is the guy putting the coins in his pocket and that is what matters to him. It is not about the well being of the animal at that point.

uHHH, Mother Nature didn't do that.


Nor did she do this..


"IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE" !!!

It's not Parkay, It's Chifon

Just out of curiousity. How much is a deer like that worth?

I think it is ugly as all getout but I wouldn't mind owning him lol

I will just keep on chasing native low fence farm country bucks.

Those deer don't even look good to me. That's far beyond ridiculous.

What is this Oxy Rack stuff? This thread is the first time I have heard of it. Does it improve antler growth? Does it harm the deer physically? How is it fed or is it only for pen raised deer?

Google and check into it. It claims the be the best thing since sliced bread. It is a gimmick just like Buck Crack. Makes great claims what it CAN do for you and no way for you disprove them once you bought it and tried it. The only thing I can guarantee you it will do is make the guy selling it much richer. Don't waste your time with. You can not feed genetics out of a bag nor is it on any feed label. Either a deer has it or he does not have the genetics to grow great antlers. Won't harm deer. Can be fed to any deer you can afford to feed it to and it is very expensive.

Pretty much bleh...

Not my taste in deer...

Just goes to show that some people will pay anything for a trophy. I think it's ridiculous, but to each his own.

X2 You dont mess wtih Mother Nature...

there should be a new typical breeder-buck record here pretty soon too...

I wonder how many pounds that rack weighs?

Not sure if any one could answer that since it is its heaviest in the velvet growing stages when it is full of blood also. I do not think someone is going to cut it off and weigh it at that stage. The sheds could be weighed but still no idea what they would weigh. I have seen sheds that weighed close to 6 or 7 lbs per side from deer.

not that I think this deer isn't ridiculous....

but for the "don't mess with mother nature" comments, I guess I'll just have to remember who you are, when some of you start talking about "cull bucks"....

nice piece of livestock

Why are all the pictures of big breeders taken in velvet? Is it because they look bigger or do they cut the antlers off when they harden?

Yes, they usually cut them off as soon as the velvet is shed.

Found my new sig...thanks Bill!

Depends on the ranch some do and some don't. Those that do have an agenda for why they do.

Which is usually to keep the bucks from killing each other in the pens.....

Also, it is so facility owners can get scores of their breeders before it's breeding time. And for the guy who asked what a deer like this is worth... estimated value of a "world record" breeder buck is around $1.5 million.

How many bucks are in one pen of does? One the last time I checked.

Its not for me!

The deer or mrs. silicone herself

Well there are lots of places that don't use much (if any) natural breeding.....and they have pens FULL of bucks with the does being in separate pens.

I visited a place that had 198 bucks in one pen of about 40 acres.

Is it just me or did the "semen available" badge make anyone else laugh their butt off. I should make that into a pin you can wear amd challenge my friends to walk around town with it on. I would be too chicken to wear it myself. LOL

Anyway, those deer are ugly. I'd perfer to kill a monster 8 or 10 pointer. Although Free Agent's antler's were massive, he looked to be small bodied to me. That may just be because his rack is so unnaturally big.