Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Pics from the farm

Four years ago we fenced several hundred acres in Bama with an objective of enjoying whitetail deer. This is NOT a hunting preserve, but obviously we have to take out deer. Call it a necessary evil, not hunting, as its the most egregious part of the process. Much joy has been granted us by these deer, they are amazing creatures to observe.

We started with several does, native to the area, along with a few bucks to take care of their duty. The crop of fawns dropped the first year are now three years old. There's five bucks in the bunch.

These deer are not tame, but we're out there enough that they tolerate our presence. Now is the time to get pictures. They will start breaking each other up soon. Also, with a hint of rut in the air, they forget about the camera man, and I can get closer to them than normal.

Here's one of the five three year olds.

Damn, that's a 3 year old. When he's 5 he's gonna be a real monster. Beautiful Buck. I would like to see what his Daddy looks like.

Very nice buck. Edk

Holy Shiet!!!

Wow

Did you bring in breeder bucks?

I would bet that answer is yes. Alabama has some nice deer. I hunted there for 4 years. But I have never seen anything close to the head gear that Buck has on a local 3 year old Buck. Jmo.

Hanco, yes we had several breeder bucks. They are no more. All bucks now are what were born on the place. The five now will carry the load. There is a good two year old crop too.

The buck in the above pics was feeling things other than caution and was an easy target. I have pics of the others but not of the same quality. I will post up the better pics I have as of now.

A fella could hunt his whole life and never even see a buck like that, much less take one. Breathtaking buck for sure.

John

On the hoof, in person, this is the crowd favorite. His body size and antler main frame size is easily underestimated until up close and personal.

Beautiful bucks but I agree that 2nd one is a super buck!! Curious if many of the other bucks you have, have the forked points similar to a mule deers points? I don't see that a lot on whitetails but seeing it on both of these bucks, IMHO makes them even more impressive!!

Nice bucks for sure!

Thanks guys. Its been very enjoyable.

Here's another. Only good pic I have of him.

What do they have to eat? Deer gotta be 5 at least here typically to sport that size rack.

We have one feeding station on the place that is kept in constant supply of FRM (Deer 20) pellets. No other supplemental feeding. There is a perennial peanut field for the summer, a few clover fields for the winter. Other than that, its all natural browse, which is abundant.

Make no mistake, the deer pellets are the difference maker. The genetics must be there but the pellets maximize the potential.

The way I've got it figured, our deer are eating 2.0 - 2.5 lbs of pellets per day on average for the year. So one deer will eat a little less than 1000 lbs per year, just call it 1000. Keep in mind our deer are conditioned to the pellets and hit it much harder than a wild deer. The pellets are currently $480/ton. So $200-$250 per year to feed one deer, conditioned to the feed, but with plenty of natural browse, and a few food plots.

Factor in a tractor, fuel, seed, fertilizer, lime, time, etc., pellets are way cheaper than planting, and more effective.

Great bucks, but you lost me at fenced it off.

Sorry to hear that. You're welcome anytime. A cruise around the place and my money is on you changing your mind.

Great stuff Clint. Good to know how much fun and enjoyment they have brought you guys, and those who've been part of it. Thanks for posting up the pics of those most awesome bucks.

Thanks Johnny. Good to hear from you. Hope all is well.

And another one, he's good.

He had matching drops but has already broken one off. It was much more impressive when symmetrical. That said, we're going for a clean look and I wish he didn't have them at all. But whos complaining?

Yes, he's taking a leak in the first pic. Lighting caught it just right.

Ok how many thousand did it cost to get the seed bucks?

Not nearly as much as you would think. Less than it would cost to go "hunt" one. Just got to have the right hook up.

There are many places that have large high fence deer pens, they put 15-20 Does in the pen and then put a big high scoring Buck in the pen, usually in the late fall before the rut, Buck will breed all the Does, then they will open the gates in April or early May, and let everything leave at will, before they drop their Fawns.

In the wild a White Tail Buck will average breeding 1.4 Does per year, the pen will greatly increase the production of big Bucks, hopefully increasing the size of the bucks on the place, and producing better over all quality Does. Some places bring in Bucks and Does, some capture nice Bucks and Does on their places.

They are not pen raising Deer, but are pen Breeding Deer under controlled conditions, with good supplemental food, and good habitat and water. the last thing they want is tame Deer.

I'm not saying ya or nay, just explaining what's happening in our area and other places from coast to coast. Rio7

This deer needs to be shot! Pissing on your private property is simply unacceptable lol

The caveat to this is that one must have a breeder's license to do as described. A breeder's license is extremely cumbersome and we have no interest in it. Totally would take the fun out of it and make it too much like work. We handle the deer in no manner. We simply constructed a fence, bought a few deer (legally, properly), and turned them loose in the fence.

ctsmith, I understand, their are many people doing pen breeding for profit,AKA selling hunts on their property, their are many people doing pen breeding for the pleasure and fun of it. licensing is a State to State thing not all are the same. Rio7

Rio, true, and I bet texas is much more liberal with it than other states. In Bama, its a real PITA. Thats how we got into this. A local breeder said to heck with it. Too much harassment from Game and Fish. They don't bother high fences in general, but strongly discourage breeders.

Awesome specimens. But no one can deny it's a different way to hunt than true free range hunting..
And there is different classifications for such now in Pope and young and Boone and Crockett correct?

I'm happy for you, not my cup of tea.

Not knocking what you're doing but I guess my hesitation would be with controlling diseases over time.

That's the only way to produce a 3 year old Buck that looks like that. Under those conditions they will blow after 4 1/2 years old and really be impressive.

No interest Sorry

ldholton, concur, 100%. I thought I made it clear that this is NOT a hunting preserve, and we don't "hunt" it.

EHD is the killer down here. Our strategy was a hardy herd over freaky, non native 300" bucks. The more native, the more hardy. So far the herd has been extremely hardy. Knock on wood, because your concern is real.

Case in point will be the fifth and final buck. When you see him its obvious he is the farthest from native. He almost died this year, EHD most likely. Nothing but bones. Every rib, hip bone, and spine shown. It was a sad sight. I said he had no chance of living. To our surprise, he appears to be making a recovery, acting normal again and putting weight back on. He's still puny, but 30 lbs minimum heavier than he was 45 days ago. Our objective is clean, typical bucks, but dang it, this fellow now has me pulling for him.

A point of note.

The fence is to keep other deer and critters out, not the fenced deer in. If you were to force these deer out they would walk the fence until you let them back in. Guarantee it.

Some of those bucks are stunningly beautiful....

Greg, come on, these deer are like my kids, they are ALL stunningly beautiful. FWIW, my daughters said I never took such nice pictures of them. LOL

Very nice Clint. Just amazing the bone growth your bucks you have. Miss the cigar smokin pics.👊🏻

Your photography skeelz have escalated too. Fishin invite is still open.

That’s fine, he’s not promoting killin/huntin them, but rather sharing a beautiful amazing animal most of us love. I appreciate em👊🏻

That's fine, I didn't say he was promoting killin/hunting them, did I? Yes, a beautiful, engineered animal in a fence.

Jud, thanks! You know hunting critters and fish don't fire me up anymore like good off roading on two wheels. Lots of good trails out your way in WA. Dirt bikes are making me drop the lbs too. About to be under 200 for the first time in a long while. Feeling good.



Dave, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I respect that. I've got opinions too. LOL. A cool autumn afternoon, with a hot cup of coffee, watching deer be deer, without me thinking I got to kill one or worry about someone else doing it, is about as good as it gets to me.

To those who think deer don't eat privet, check out the browse line in the background of the above pic. And they are way cooler than goats.

Repost for a better view of the hammered privet.

No kidding! Some incredible bucks.

REALLY cool!

So no breeding to enhance overall area genetics because you keep them in a high fence permanently. And you’re not gonna hunt them or try to make a profit off them? What’s the point?

We enjoy them more alive than dead, thats the point.

On another note, you can't insert enough deer or cull enough deer to make a meaningful genetic difference in the wild, not in a lifetime anyway. You make a difference in the wild with nutrition and age.

I was referring to rios method he mentioned. If I misunderstood that, my fault.

10-4. All good.

alwaysoutdoors, not my method, my explanation. Rio7

Hell ya your down to fightin weight!!👊🏻

Yes lotsa great riding, Pards go over to some desert race in central Wa, over by Mattawa, guess it’s a hellava time! I’d love to get another bike, my huntin, and just ordered a sled, “river boat”, and the boy over Montana I just ain’t got the time. Maybe it’ll change someday, but right now it’ll be salmon/steelhead/crab slaying 👊🏻

Grats on the weight loss lil buddy. Be careful on those bikes, you are gettin old!! 😂👍

Some beautiful livestock there.

Thanks for the pics.

ctsmith, What ever you are doing, you are doing it right. I have never seen 3 year old Bucks look like that. Weather you agree or not with deer that are fenced in. To each his own. Everyone has the right to their opinion. But this is not a high fence hunting operation. And these Bucks are not hunted. That being said, Even with good genetics and excellent feed/proteins. These Bucks are exceptional for there age. Beautiful animals.

Cool

What method do you use to control the population? You mentioned taking them out is a necessary evil in your first post. How do you do that? Do you shoot them or trap them and then sell them or give them away ? Do you primarily take out does? Too many big bucks could be a problem too because you’re going to have a lot of fighting during the rut and some mortality among your prime bucks. Seems to be something you’d have to really stay on top of because deer can reproduce fast and could over populate your several hundred acres pretty quick.

GAG, we shoot them to control population, all within game laws, same as a free range herd. As previously mentioned, if there is any handling of the deer, a breeder license is required, and thats a no go, zero interest. The objective is a 50/50 ratio, and the bucks started way behind, so only killing culls. The current oldest class, the three year olds pictured above, have two more bucks not pictured. There is actually seven in the class, I just didn't elaborate earlier. We will cull the two this year. Had to hit the does pretty hard last year, the objective of which is to keep the reproducing doe number stagnant, we feel the doe population is about right.


The two year old class is currently eight strong. A few of those will probably be culled.


When the bucks catch up to the does, what will we do? Can't say for sure, we'll cross that bridge when it gets here.

Sound a lot like hunting

Killing, not hunting.

Sounds a lot like fun to me. It's outdoors, marveling and admiring God's creation, how can it get much better?

Are you successful in finding their sheds each spring? I would imagine they would be close to your feeder area. I can only imagine what kind of damage one of those sheds could do to a tractor tire.

Precisely, not to mention a lot of good venison, pellets make good eats.

We found every single shed last year, not including the yearlings. Half were easy. 30% not too bad. 20% took many hours. Gave up with one missing (one as in one side, not the pair), just so happens it was from the first deer pictured in this thread. The cutter blade later found it.

An interesting point is that it was rare, if ever, that we found a pair in close proximity. That was surprising to me.

Interesting to me too as I hardly ever, I mean ever, find matching sheds close to each other, within hundreds of yards in the wild, coues and mulies..

So all the instagram pics of matching sheds lying there together are fake. Go figure.

Clint,

I’d like to suggest with your high quality bucks and excellent photography skills. A calendar would be cool that showcases your accomplishments each year.


🦫

Clint, thanks for the thread. Can I ask how many acres you have fenced and what your target population is? Are you at your target population and just tuning the doe to buck ratio?

Kingston, finally the million dollar question. The target population is mostly based on two factors: food supply and objective.

Food supply - Alabama has long growing season and lots of rain. According to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the ideal cattle stocking rate for a pasture is 2-4 cows per acre, average in our state (yes thats correct, cows per acre, not acres per cow). Our grass and forage freaking grows, the natural density is high in this area. With herbicides the forage composition can be manipulated to your advantage. Kill the grass and scrub. With supplemental feeding, you can run basically as many deer as you want, think cattle stock yard. So how much do you want to spend?

Objective - Do you want it to look like a cattle stock yard?

Our target is one mature deer (defined as 2 years old plus) per five acres. This does (does as in the verb, not the critter, stupid English) not include fawns and yearlings (though yearlings can breed). So 10 bucks and 10 does per 100 acres. Its hard to keep track of the does, and not scientific, just a guideline we theoretically try to maintain. For reference, the free range density in our area is a thick, 45+ per square mile in the last data I've seen, call it one deer per 12 acres outside the fence.

I have found pellet consumption the best measuring stick.

Theoretically, once the balance is achieved, the crop of bucks birthed in a given year, adjusted for die offs, is the number of bucks that require harvest.

Photos skills aren't required. More than you want to spend on a lens is required.

Full sun also helps, but these deer are still deer, and their exposure to full sun is rare.

Outstanding specimens and photos too. If you yourself aren't into subjects for a trophy deer calendar, lots of folks are. I just got my Bill Kinney's Trophy Whitetail Deer Calendar for 2023 in the mail yesterday and I'm sure that a guy like that would be interested in using some of your photos.

I'm kind of ambivalent about the deer shows, pens, articles, videos, calendars, scoring and mounts that show these gargantuan trophy bucks. Though we can all dream, that isn't the real world for the vast majority of the hunting public. I see these wide eyed 12 year old kids wandering around at a deer show and wonder how they'll react to the spike or fork horn that they are most likely to see out in the woods?

It is true that I had the same concerns. What we have found is the opposite, a visit to the property stokes the fire. When a kid leaves, he's ready to go hunting. The inch counting crowd is a lot smaller than we think. Of course our local buddies give us hard time. One came with his son to harvest a doe. The boy had peanut butter on the end of his barrel. Thats what friends are for. The boy later limited out on bucks (3) at their hunting lease, much to the father's chagrin, as they werent all "shooters" according the club rules. But the kid's rules were different. I've been coues deer hunting twice since the fence was constructed, and a 100" coues is BIG. I personally am not a trophy hunter and this has not changed my opinion on that subject one bit.

I have always had buck fever. It has cured that, which could be argued to be both good and bad.

I am not a shed hunter, and hardly go out of my way to pick one up if I happen to trip over one, though even I realized this was a rare site.

Too bad they were chalked up a bit. They were not chewed on though.

Cool! Just how I envisioned it.

Mr Smith; thank you so much for an interesting and informative post and wonderful photographs. I congratulate you for finding and following a passion with such clear focus.

I find the deer density you quoted for Alabama mind blowing.

As best I can recall or find quickly to hand, our prairie WMUs (Wildlife Management Unit) run somewhere in the range of .7-.8 combined mule deer and whitetailed deer / km2 (2 to 2.2 / mile2) those are deer only numbers elk and moose would increase those numbers somewhat. The parkland WMUs should have higher deer density due to increased shelter and food probably in the 1.3 - 2.0 / km2 (3.6-5.5 / mi2) again deer numbers only, moose and elk would be additional. The foothills / big timber WMUs should be lower than the prairies.

Of course there is significant error in these numbers as they are from aerial surveys and there is of course some level of massaging necessary to get zone wide statistics. Of certain numbers within a zone vary significantly.

The difference long growing seasons, milder winters and abundance of rainfall can make is pretty clear with your density in Alabama.

Thanks again for your photos, details and comments.

T_Inman: cool picture with a cool rifle.

Don’t eat privet? I don’t know anything about inside a fence,but they hit it pretty hard,at times,outside of one in SE Bama.Those are some outstanding bucks you have there…

Amazing property and looks like a lot of fun

I’m curious as to what kind of natural mortality you experience? If I’m reading the data correctly you’ve got a very high deer density. I’m curious if that makes it worse. But more curious about how your mortality rates translate to an unfenced area. Assume you have no predators in the area? This is very interesting and I’ve got tons of questions but I’m more focused on that old deer that you know survives the season that you never see again

In my grandfathers time local rancher imported a couple of big mule deer bucks into the San Diego county backcountry. Our little 135 lb dressed out bucks grew bigger bodies & huge forks.

He & my uncle killed 4 bucks that dressed out over 200lbs. With nice 4x4 racks. About 75-100 years later the mountain our family place has been on since 1885 still has larger bodies & more mass than neighboring mountains. The biggest issue we have is mountain lion overpopulation since the popular vote years ago that makes them protected. This despite them being way too numerous.

Shortmag, our natural mortality is very low, knock on wood. It has to be lower than in the wild. Deer just aren't dying. Its not uncommon to find dead fawns, but I can count on one hand mature deer that have been found dead in four years. I attribute it to a thick native gene, the lack of stress, and the lack of predators.

The fence is buttoned down tight. We were very particular in the construction of the water crossing as it relates to predator proofing. The standing fence has "predator wire" which is nothing more than a 48" fence laid flat on the ground and wired to the standing fence. Grass grows through it and you dont even know its there, the grass also locks it down tight. A determined coyote will aways find a way in, but there's yet to be any signs of a determined coyote.

We currently are getting one'ish fawn per breeding doe, that survives the first year. Much higher than in the wild.

The most unnatural part of our arrangement is the feeding station and deer's conditioning to it. So far there has been no shy buck that has avoided the feed station. All that is required for a good inventory is holding feed back for several days. That is by design, we could make smaller feeding stations dispersed around the property but as of now we have chosen one central location so that it is easier to keep track of the deer.

What an awesome, unusual & interesting thread !!

Thank you for posting.

I must have missed it. What do you do with them then?

I have hunted my whole life and never seen a buck like that! Outstanding for sure.

You need a better highlighter

Thanks for the reply. Fascinating.

Tell me more about your feeding station. I currently have 350 acres that’s part of a 1500 acre co-op. On my property I have 7 pretty evenly /strategically placed corn feeders for hunting. I have a couple of large trough feeders not being used and am thinking about starting protein after this season along with my neighbors. How many acres can a ingle feed station support given food plots and browse elsewhere. How much protein will the deer go thru? I’ve heard they will eat you out of house and home. We have pretty high deer density - not unusual for 4-6 deer to be waiting at each corn feeder for them to go off - that translates to something north of 60 deer per square mile

I will see about getting one.

Shortmag, you will need gravity feeders or else the coons will wipe you out. A high spout is good too. The fawns cant reach ours but there is enough spill for them to clean up. Trophy Feeders is what we use. They have been excellent. The stand can be easily made to your desired height, the body is plastic so no problems with rust or paint, they can be shipped easily (if you build your own stand), and are easy to move around. Most importantly, the design is coon proof, and I can vouch for it.
https://www.trophyfeeders.com/design/

We buy pellets in one ton supersacks, and have a dedicated lift at the farm for filling the feeders. Lift the supersack, open the spout on the bag, and it pours directly into the feeder. One man operation and no manual labor, but it does require a lift. If the feeder had to be filled manually, I'd reconsider the entire operation. We have three feeders. They hold about 1000 lbs of pellets each. One supersack can fit into two feeders, but barely, so three is required for times when feeding and the feeder isn't empty.

There is a post above where I gave details on feed consumption.

Regarding how many acres per station, Auburn's biologist that manages the university's deer research facility told me one station per 200 acres.

Since they're in an enclosure do you need to give them antibiotics at all? Or isn't that concern?

tzone, no antibiotics, no medications of any kind. Again, the only thing these deer get are standard feed pellets, which is not unusual for even wild deer, as folks around here do a lot of feeding. Our deer just get more of it most likely.

Very interesting, I've been thinking about doing the same thing here. I've came to the conclusion you have to fence the deer out to see any kind antler improvement. Why didn't you stick with your local genetics? I'd want to see what our local deer can grow into with the proper nutrition and age.

TrueGrit, a few factors that affected our decision regarding "breeder" bucks.

We had so much work going on at the property that most of the deer left. They had previously been hunted hard and would not tolerate the activity. The numbers just were not there.

Auburn University's deer research facility is all native. They also provide plenty of nutrition. We had a very good idea what to expect, and wanted more.

We had a golden opportunity to purchase the breeders. A friend in the breeder business was selling his property and moving on. His operation was only 25 miles from our property . The closer the better for survival rate. With each mile, the survival rate goes down, not due to transportation (which is also a factor) but immunity to parasites and disease. It was a great situation.

Here's a link to info on Auburn's facility. Note that they try to maintain 100 adult deer on 430 acres, which is where we came up with our balance.

https://wp.auburn.edu/deerlab/captive-facility/

Labor of love.
I always enjoy the picts!

Very interesting and cool. Thanks for sharing it!

WOW!!!

Bump in light of the current high fence thread.

started out with native deer and comes to this, you must have a secret, or a fence jumper

texken, we did NOT start with deer native to the property itself.

I'd probably do the same thing if I had the means. Hard to tell from pictures but I'd expect some huge bodied deer eating that much protein. What do they weigh?

Some are heavy some aren't, just depends on genetics and health. Though they are not native to the property, the genetics are highly diverse. The imports were from a local breeder who ran the local native gene thick in his breeding plan, for durability purposes.

This has been a great thread, kind of forgot about it so thanks for kicking it back up to the top. Just read back through the whole thing, some really interesting info posted.

Oh and I had asked in an earlier post but I realize you got bombed with questions but still curious on the genetics of the bucks you used. It appears you have a strong non-typical gene in the mix with several bucks having forks like a mule deer. They are beautiful bucks but just curious if the younger crop shows the same antler configuration as the older bucks??

And thanks again, been a really fun read.