A thanksgiving day surprise

[EddieWalker]

Robert,

Great story about the antler in your leg. I read someplace that more people are killed by whitetailed deer then black bears in this country. They are almost always pets or deer that are used to people. Then during the rut, or while establishing dominance before the rut, the treat people as other deer and will put an antler in a persons gut without any malice. It's just deer being deer.

How about more details on the deer? How many acres are fences and how many deer do you keep at a time? Do you seperate the bucks and does into seperate pastures for breeding? What do you feed them?

My goal is to put an 8ft deer fence on 8 acres in the middle of my land and have it as a focul point of the RV Park. Inside it, I'll put an elk, some fallow and axis deer and a few zebra. The zebra are expansive, but the others are just a few hundred dollars each when bought at a year old.

I'm sure you know that Texas is the capital of game ranches and we have just about every animal in existance available here. As long as it's not a native species to Texas, it's considered livestock just like a cow or a horse.

Of course, George Washington was the first person to bring exotics to the country when he let European Fallow Deer loose on Mt. Vernon.

Eddie

 

[WayneB]

Hi Eddie, I remember the Axis deer when I was down in Texas, back in 1970. I was on the 4/5 army rifle team and we did our interservcie match training down near austin and there were many of them roaming the ranges.

No one ever shot one, but we all locked in on them, daily.

Wayne

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Eddie, I have had some run ins with another buck that we hand raised. He got so mean that we ended up having to send him to a hunting preserve. I was attacked by him twice (no damage either time as his rack was wide enough to just go around me and I rode his head into the dirt where he has no power). The first time I was at fault because I was stupid. The second time we were removing young bucks from the pen he was in and this was early summer while in velvet. For some reason he walked by me like he didn't care I was there until he got to my blind side and charged. After that incident is when we sent him off. Hand raised bucks can be big babies or demons so we no longer hand raise them unless they are abandoned by their mothers. We have a couple bucks still that have tempers and their time here is short. We changed our pens so we can feed them without having to go inside if they are near the shed.

Our pastures are spread out all over. We have 5 acres at my grandfathers, two half acre pens and the fawn pens at the house and about 10 acres of buck pens out back split up into half acre and 4 acre pens. We have the post in for one more pen but hope to never have to put the wire up as we don't want to expand anymore. I think we have around 34 deer right now but I am not positive.

We have a custom pellet made up that is 18% protein. We put enough in their sheds so that we don't have to worry about them running out. They can eat as much as they want. We do not use much hay at all during the summer and maybe 40 small square bales during the winter.

New York requires us to have a license to raise whitetail deer but they are still considered livestock and are managed by our ag and markets division. Ever since CWD became a widespread fear they have been making and changing the rules and regulations on a regular basis. It is very hard to keep up with them now.

I would not hesitate to put up a small pen like you want. I always wanted to put up a pen and have a couple caribou just because I always thought they were wonderful looking animals and it would be fun to watch them grow. In New York we can mix non-native species of animals in a pen but we can not put anything not native to New York in a pen with Whitetails as they fear of diseases being spread.

We try to maintain our pens populations so any new fawns are removed each year and put in holding pens when they are old enough, the Doe are kept in a holding pen at my grandfathers and the bucks go to the holding pens behind our house. We try to keep the amount of bucks per pen to a small number as if you have too many bucks then you have a lot of fights, injuries and deaths.

One thing I do know is to never run away from a buck that is charging you. Humans can not out run them and running only gives them an easy target to stick their tines. Another local farmer tried to outrun a buck and got to stay in the hospital with bandages on his rear quarter. If you face them you can protect yourself better, always lean your weight on their head and hold on as when their nose is in the dirt they lose a lot of their power. By holding on they will get scared and try to back away so you need to hold on tight and ride their head. Eventually the fear sets in and when you let go you can usually back out of the pen with the deer just posturing. I am not an expert but I do have a little experience fighting with mature 4 year old bucks as well as yearlings (yearlings love to spar but they only play and don't take the fight seriously). And so far the only bucks we have ever had problems with were the dominant buck in the pen. The sub-ordinate bucks usually keep their distance when a fight starts. Now with Elk you might need to put on a little weight if you try to ride their head into the ground

Now that I have wrote a book hopefully I answered most of your questions but please feel free to ask more as I don't have much else to do these days.

And everyone who has asked, my rehab is going well. I am walking much better now. I still feel like one of those robot exo-skeletons in the last matrix movie as I walk kind of ackward. But I am walking over a half mile now when I go for my walks out back. Each time I walk a little further but the weather turned nasty today so I didn't make it out. I am hoping to make it to the buck pens out back which will be close to a mile round trip. My daughter usually walks with me and she keeps wanting to walk to the buck pens as she likes to climb the fence.

I am able to do most everything on my own now and do not have a lot of pain. I really can't complain as I feel lucky to be doing as well as I am. I still can't pick my daughter up or take care of her as well as I should be able to so until I can take care of her I have to stay with my parents and they have been great with helping to raise Ava.

 

[MossRoad]

Of course, George Washington was the first person to bring exotics to the country when he let European Fallow Deer loose on Mt. Vernon. Eddie

Horses, hogs, and earthworms, although not considered exotic, were not native to this country and were brought over well before Washinton's time. Of course, it wasn't this country, then.

 

[EddieWalker]

Horses, hogs, and earthworms, although not considered exotic, were not native to this country and were brought over well before Washinton's time. Of course, it wasn't this country, then.

I never heard about the earthworms? I know the Spanish brought the horses over and the Russians get allot of credit for the hogs, but just about everybody who came here, lost hogs. From what I've seen on my land, I think new ones are still getting lose as I've seen some with almost no hair and curly tails. Both are signs of being domestic.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Robert,

Thanks for all the details. I didn't realize you had that many runins with the bucks, but find it easy to believe. It fits with what I've heard from others, except that you've only been hurt one time. Poeple don't realize how dangerous deer can be.

One of my fears is how to deal with them when I get to that point. I don't want any interaction and will not breed them, so that might help. No females to make the males stupid is my basic idea. I'm also thinking about having a water cannon on the tractor or whatever goes into the pasture and blast anything that comes close so there will be a natural desire on the animals part to stay away. I know it works on cats, so maybe an 800 pound elk? hahaha

I really can't think of a better place or way to spend your time resting up!!

Eddie

 

[BruceR]

Robert,
Thanks for the photos and information. Good luck on a speedy recovery.

When I lived in Upstate NY the deer and wild turkeys would always be in our front yard. Legend held that there was a natural salt lick there but I could never see any evidence of it. We had about three acres cleared for the front yard on top of a mountain and would sometimes have flocks of Canadian Geese stop by.

I did some work for a fellow down here who had ranches in Van Zandt and Rains Counties and raised Whitetails commercialy. He was saying that an exceptional buck would draw $100K or more at the auctions just for breeding purposes. I didn't figure I could afford to stock my freezer at those prices.

Bruce

 

[billbill1]

Robert, nice pictures, on Tuesday I was heading in from cutting firewood and spooked up about 30 turkeys with the tractor. What a nice sight!! A good friends son raises white tails in Meriden, Ks. He paid $2000 for a buck fawn that is from very large antlered stock. The Asian folks buy the sheds for a good price and used them for vitamins (I understand) and I think he has a market for selling the adult aminals to hunting preserves. He has raised a buck from bottle fed and you can call him to you by saying his name, at least the last time I visited them about a year ago. Wild white tails mingle around his animals from the opposite side of the fence.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Eddie, you do not need a female to make the males stupid. I just had a TBN member stop in to see the deer and the one idiot buck in the buck pens was in full idiot mode. Ears pinned back, fur all fluffed up, walking sideways, snort/wheezing, raking his antlers against the fence and more or less just being himself. The only does are wild deer that might come around the fence but I have only ever seen yearling bucks come up to the fence. The rest of the deer don't really pay the fenced in deer much nevermind.

I would not spray water on the animals and if you don't want friendly animals then buy stock that was raised by its birth mother so it has the insticts of fearing humans. And if you are still nervous, always carry a pistol while in the pen. Depending on what we are doing in the pens I carry my Glock. If the buck is real wound up though firing the gun in the ground won't stop them so you don't have very many options

Bruce, it is not uncommon for a superior buck to sell for around the $100k mark. There was Goliath who was worth around $150k and was stolen in PA a while back. We bought some deer from the guy who owned Goliath (before they bought him as a fawn though), they had some nice deer though and had a beautiful white-whitetail buck that they were offered either $20 or $40k for and declined. Selling straws of semen now is a big thing for a lot of the large farms. I don't know all of the specifics about artifical insemination and the prices they are charging but they are making more money selling straws then they will selling the deer.

Bill, these turkeys are resident turkeys. We never had turkeys in this area between Rt 20 and the I 90. About 10 years ago we released 5 turkeys we raised after they hatched in the wild. Now we have a nice tom turkey population and this flock of 10 hens and youngsters that landed in the pen. Each year the population grows a little more and it has been great to watch.

There are some spots we deer hunt at and it is not uncommon to find 20 turkeys walk thru where you are sitting. Of course they are scratching for food the entire time and clucking so it is quite noisy but a lot of fun to watch.

The bottle fed deer are all different. We have some that will run over if you call for them. We have others who are like cats and you have to go to them. Today when Hazen was visiting, the buck fawns we raised this year walked over while we were looking at the mature bucks and Hazen ended up petting one of them.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Frank, here are some pics of a few of our bucks this year. These are recent pics of these two.