In your opinion: Best overall plants for deer health?

[Jason Broom]

How acorns help is that the deer leave winter in much better shape so they can put more resources into antler growth instead of going the damage control route...

When you understand the science of how and why deer grow larger antlers, the above statement makes a ton of sense. With all due respect to Baker, because I know that HE already knows this, the clover deer are eating as they grow antlers is not what determines the relative growth thereof. Think about it; if all a deer needed to grow really big antlers was perfect nutrition while they were growing, every yearling buck on quality range would grow the biggest antlers of his life. Why is it they don't grow their biggest antlers until later in life? It's because they are balancing the requirements of body growth and antler growth, when they are younger. It isn't until a buck has reached full maturity in his physical frame that he can afford to divert huge amounts of calcium from his skeletal system to growing out-sized headgear. During that time, the protein, calcium and other nutrients needed to grow antlers is quickly recovered by an optimum diet.

To put it in simpler terms; Baker sees bucks growing large antlers on his managed property because they have everything their bodies need to grow, from the moment they are conceived. They grow those antlers because their bodies are in optimum condition during the process; they replace the lost nutrients from optimum nutrition during the antler-growing period. It's important to understand that body condition created by optimum nutrition is the cause of larger antlers, not the food consumed during the time antlers grow. This is why you frequently see larger-racked bucks the year after a very good acorn crop; those bucks had better body condition the following spring with which to grow bigger antlers.

Achieving the same thing in a free range herd, particularly one with a significant winter stress period, would not be so easy. Even if the deer were in a large enclosure, fed an optimal diet all year long, the simple requirement of burning calories to keep warm instead of growing a larger body size would mean smaller antlers (relative to body size) would be grown the following year.

This is where woody browse (as found in the young shoots of early successional growth) can be so valuable to northern deer. It is the handful of calories in each bud nipped off that keeps deer from suffering the body mass reduction that accompanies starvation, or limits those effects. This results in larger, healthier fetuses, and the potential for bucks with larger body mass that can contribute to bigger antlers. Personally, I am focused on healthy fawns and large-bodied deer. If that results in bucks with more substantial headgear, that's not an unwelcome fringe benefit.

 

[catscratch]

I believe native is the way to go (even though I'm hooked on plots) for the OP's original question. But to be more specific; natives on GREAT soil is the way to go. I live in a place with huge amounts of diversity in soil composition. A short drive and you can find clay, loam, rocky, deep and black, pure sand, etc... we have it all. There is one place in particular that has great fertility and an incredible amount of minerals in it. Buckdeer1 will know what I'm talking about, it's called the "salt marsh". I studied this place when I was in college. I've never seen an area with a higher concentration of big bodied and massive antlered deer than this place. It shows in the vegetation, animals, and soil testing. I think if you really want to make a difference you need to look at the soil. Not just minerals, but microbes and fungus also. Natives are the only way to maintain those populations and balances. Dgallow has a great understanding of this topic. I'm learning a lot from him but it's complex. The premise is simple but the knowledge of indicators and what they mean is vast.

 

[Crimson n' Camo]

In my opinion, the absolute pinnacle of deer management would be a combination of both…..what Baker is describing along with what Broom is describing. You’re gonna have to be ready to throw some serious jack at it though to make those kinds of food plots happen.



A lot of the land around me is managed just like y’all are describing with the native vegetation maxed out. There’s tens of thousands of acres of land that get full sunlight and routine burning…..just an ideal native understory situation. The deer population gets so high in that scenario though, that in order to food plot in a manner like Baker is describing in conjunction with that type of habitat management…..you’re gonna have to go BIGGGGG….I’ve seen 2 acre winter cereal grain plots on some of this land that looked like nothing but dirt and deer tracks.


I get to blood track on some pretty primo land in Alabama….and I don’t see anyone even trying to attempt it like what I’m talking about.... We’re gonna have to talk about fields in terms of 20-40+ acres and not 2-4. I think most of these folks are probably content with what the native management is producing. At some point I suppose you gotta weigh the cost/benefit of plotting in those conditions. Don’t get me wrong though…..I’d love to try and see what happened……I’m just short a few million.

 

[Baker]

I enjoy these discussions. Its raining and I'm stuck inside. So I will pontificate.

I perceive the original question to be what plant is best for deer health. Short answer; there is no one plant/food across all whitetail range that is the best . My thought, which I am sticking with, is that it is a class of plants...legumes. Deer can get abundant carbohydrates in essentially all the whitetail range essentially all year. It is protein that becomes the volatile variable. Hence legumes.

That said I see nothing written so far I disagree with.So now some random thoughts. I do notice a couple of qualifiers slipping in; Deer mgt. and economics. Add those to the equation and the rules change.

First, I agree completely that acorns help deer health by helping deer come out of winter in better shape thus bridging the gap to spring green up and on to better health thus better antlers. Great when it works. And if acorns are all a deer have then they are the best food. This is typical of big woods environments with no ag available.

It appears we all also agree that the cheapest [imposing economics ] option for providing quality deer food is habitat enhancement. No argument that native habitat well managed can provide high quality highly preferred forages. To some degree, and in some ranges this can be year round though not everywhere and the quality can diminish dramatically becoming quite substandard in some regions at some times of the year...read winter or deep summer...or deep drought. However a point I still make is that acre for acre you can grow more forage tonnage in a food plot than you can in native habitat. And if your deer are eating up all the food in a plot [ imposing management ] the problem is exacerbated in natural habitat environments.

Jason makes some interesting points about antler growth . I think the deer you see today are a reflection of both short term nutrition and long term nutrition. In the short term I believe a bucks antler growth in any specific year is a result of the body condition he was in when antler growth started as well as the nutritional plane he is on while growing his antlers. True, antler growth starts from the skeleton system but nutrition during the growth period does directly effect that years antler growth.The easiest example of that is to observe bucks in the brush country of South Tx. and Northern Mexico. Down there you have big ranches with those that feed protein pellets year round and those that don't. You can have a great wet winter with the bucks coming out of the rut in good condition but let a drought kick in from spring thru summer as is very common and antler growth drops precipitously on ranches that don't feed. Yet well fed ranches will still see good to excellent growth. With an extensive feeding program on our ranch we have essentially taken the rain variable somewhat out of the equation .

Long term generational antler growth is a fascinating and complex subject.To greatly oversimplify I believe it works like this. The bell curve of antler sizes in mature deer a herd has now is a reflection of the long term generational nutritional plane the deer have been on. The overall bell curve shifts pro or con over time as a response to the maternal effect which is defined by the nutritional environment. If a doe is on a high nutritional plane year round her whole life then a fawn born to that doe has a literal epigenetic response to the environment which is reflected in its body size and yes antler growth. Parlay this over generations and you can see shifts in the bell curve. Thus within only a couple of generations ...~10 yrs...an entire deer herd can see material improvements [ or diminishment ] as a response to nutrition and the environment...something managers can impact. If you think about it this explains a lot of the differences in herds around the country on a macro scale and even why smaller pockets of properties may have bigger [ or smaller ] deer. And to a large degree it all start with the soil! { Though even that can be compensated for if one is so willing }

Rain has stopped, off to the farm

 

[catscratch]

The OP asked a simple question and it's going to turn into; generational management, epigenetics, population control, soil management, and macro-molecular supplements. Cool!

 

[Chipdasqrrl]

Lots of great information on here, thanks to everyone for sharing and feel free to keep going.
Going back to my original question, If I could have a 10 acre field of anything it would be soybeans.
Now to add to the native habitat discussion, I believe that the easiest way that we can improve it is to control the deer population. I used to have way too many does using my property, so from 2011-2014 a lot of does were harvested by my hunting group and on surrounding properties. Throw in a couple droughts and brutal winters, and I now have about 8 does frequenting my 80 acres. These deer are the healthiest and biggest that I've ever had around, and when I plant food plots, they won't get eaten to the ground anymore. Not only because there's less deer competing for the plots, but because there's much more food available outside of the plots now.


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[Jason Broom]

I perceive the original question to be what plant is best for deer health. Short answer; there is no one plant/food across all whitetail range that is the best . My thought, which I am sticking with, is that it is a class of plants...legumes. Deer can get abundant carbohydrates in essentially all the whitetail range essentially all year. It is protein that becomes the volatile variable. Hence legumes.

That said I see nothing written so far I disagree with.So now some random thoughts. I do notice a couple of qualifiers slipping in; Deer mgt. and economics. Add those to the equation and the rules change.

First, I agree completely that acorns help deer health by helping deer come out of winter in better shape thus bridging the gap to spring green up and on to better health thus better antlers. Great when it works. And if acorns are all a deer have then they are the best food. This is typical of big woods environments with no ag available.

It appears we all also agree that the cheapest [imposing economics ] option for providing quality deer food is habitat enhancement. No argument that native habitat well managed can provide high quality highly preferred forages. To some degree, and in some ranges this can be year round though not everywhere and the quality can diminish dramatically becoming quite substandard in some regions at some times of the year...read winter or deep summer...or deep drought. However a point I still make is that acre for acre you can grow more forage tonnage in a food plot than you can in native habitat. And if your deer are eating up all the food in a plot [ imposing management ] the problem is exacerbated in natural habitat environments.

Jason makes some interesting points about antler growth . I think the deer you see today are a reflection of both short term nutrition and long term nutrition. In the short term I believe a bucks antler growth in any specific year is a result of the body condition he was in when antler growth started as well as the nutritional plane he is on while growing his antlers. True, antler growth starts from the skeleton system but nutrition during the growth period does directly effect that years antler growth.The easiest example of that is to observe bucks in the brush country of South Tx. and Northern Mexico. Down there you have big ranches with those that feed protein pellets year round and those that don't. You can have a great wet winter with the bucks coming out of the rut in good condition but let a drought kick in from spring thru summer as is very common and antler growth drops precipitously on ranches that don't feed. Yet well fed ranches will still see good to excellent growth. With an extensive feeding program on our ranch we have essentially taken the rain variable somewhat out of the equation .

Long term generational antler growth is a fascinating and complex subject.To greatly oversimplify I believe it works like this. The bell curve of antler sizes in mature deer a herd has now is a reflection of the long term generational nutritional plane the deer have been on. The overall bell curve shifts pro or con over time as a response to the maternal effect which is defined by the nutritional environment. If a doe is on a high nutritional plane year round her whole life then a fawn born to that doe has a literal epigenetic response to the environment which is reflected in its body size and yes antler growth. Parlay this over generations and you can see shifts in the bell curve. Thus within only a couple of generations ...~10 yrs...an entire deer herd can see material improvements [ or diminishment ] as a response to nutrition and the environment...something managers can impact. If you think about it this explains a lot of the differences in herds around the country on a macro scale and even why smaller pockets of properties may have bigger [ or smaller ] deer. And to a large degree it all start with the soil! { Though even that can be compensated for if one is so willing }

Rain has stopped, off to the farm

Superb comments and observations, save the one in bold. Throughout a good portion of the whitetail's range, there are significant periods of time when access to sufficient carbohydrates is a limiting factor in optimum deer health and condition. The largest sub-species of whitetail, in terms of body size, distribution, and perhaps even overall numbers, is v. borealis. Throughout the range of this sub-species a winter stress period, complete with carbohydrate deficiency, is consistently observed. The larger body size is a direct result of the nutritional challenge winter presents, in accordance with Bergmann's rule.

I think the observations in South Texas and Mexico are astute and one might go so far as to state that having a stress period during the hottest part of the year, while antlers are growing, has a more profound impact on their growth during that season than whitetails living in colder climates. Either way, the preponderance of our management efforts should be focused on easing the impacts of that stress period and improving the health and condition of does during periods of gestation and lactation. To your main point, above, (which I agree with, wholeheartedly!) long-term expression of genetic potential, vis a vis antler growth, is predicated on the generational health of does. Bucks with the best antlers come from does that experienced optimal conditions throughout their lifespan, even during their own gestation. Several studies have documented the importance of long term doe health in the relative size of both body and antlers, in the male deer that she casts.

I wish I lived closer to my properties!

 

[Baker]

Here we go cat scratch , I'm gonna wander of the reservation again.

Starting with carbohydrate availability, I will yield to your point. Excepting for skiing I've lost all interest in snow especially for hunting , driving, working, walking, shoveling, camping etc Suppose I was being too general as I no longer deer hunt up north.

Jason, you mention Bergmanns rule which I have a decent redneck understanding of. Appreciate I'm just a deep south La. boy unencumbered by the scientific method. In theory the rule makes since and indeed there are plenty of valid examples. However, at least in the world of whitetails, there are enough exceptions to limit the rule to a generality more than a law.

Examples: I think generational nutrition trumps the rule in many places. Pre rut bucks here on my farm can range from 250-275 lbs. An exception might be 300 lbs. Historically in some of the major river drainages of the south there are recorded incidences of 350-400 lb deer. Not the norm but over large bodies are not the exception either.

IN the hill country of central Tx. the deer bodies are small with 120lbs normal. East Tx may be 200-250 with some larger. Yet on my ranch across the river from deep south Tx. pre rut weights range from 220-250. I've weighed a bunch of them. I have a hunch if you moved much farther north to say the ozarks body size would be smaller. I guess my point is that body weights just don't neatly follow the Bergmann concept very well. Again, I think generational nutrition has more influence in size.

Some would argue that the reason southern deer get so big is because they are from Wisconsin stock trapped years ago. But that idea holds no water as DNA studies have proven the transplanted genetics have essentially vanished. I know the sub specie we have in Mexico is as pure as they come as there has never been any transplanting either way. Pretty cool really.

Just consider all this curiosity and jibber jabber from someone not wanting to watch tv with the wife.

And yes, living on the farm is a privileged blessing I'm appreciative of every day I wake up!

 

[catscratch]

Lol, keep jabbering. Most of my Internet time comes during re-runs of Friends with the wife.

So... given the exact same nutrition per body wt, will a herd of 100 Canadian whitetails weigh the same as a herd of 100 Texas whitetails (within a reasonable time frame, say the program lasts from birth to 7yrs old)?

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[Jason Broom]

Rules are meant to be broken, and Bergmann's is certainly not hard and fast. Nutrition absolutely plays a role in body size of just about any critter, as does genetics, to a much smaller extent. Deer density on a given range also plays a role, with predation and natural mortality factoring in significantly. The impact of winter kill north of the 45th parallel is reduced competition for food, affording the relatively low number of remaining deer ample food supply to put on the body mass required to survive the next winter. I suspect the body size of Virginia whitetails, currently, is a reflection of the loss of the American chestnut, which once supplied a very reliable and substantial amount of carbohydrates in the early fall. If the AC is restored to even small pockets of the Ozark and Appalachian ranges, I am positive you will see localized populations of larger-bodied and larger-racked deer, substantiating your point about nutrition.

With all of that said, the live weights mentioned above are just as common dressed weights for bigger bucks in the far north. The 8-pt I took last year in northern MI was no older than 3.5 and dressed out close to 200 pounds. This is a wild, free-ranging deer. The one my cousin took on another one of our properties was slightly larger in body size, with an even more impressive rack, for whatever that's worth. While there are pockets of high quality land in the south where the deer are larger, the general trend in body size that Bergmann observed is consistent enough that the idea stuck. Given the simple biological imperatives of heat retention and heat dissipation, respectively, how could it be otherwise?

 

[JFH]

Rules are meant to be broken, and Bergmann's is certainly not hard and fast. Nutrition absolutely plays a role in body size of just about any critter, as does genetics, to a much smaller extent. Deer density on a given range also plays a role, with predation and natural mortality factoring in significantly. The impact of winter kill north of the 45th parallel is reduced competition for food, affording the relatively low number of remaining deer ample food supply to put on the body mass required to survive the next winter. I suspect the body size of Virginia whitetails, currently, is a reflection of the loss of the American chestnut, which once supplied a very reliable and substantial amount of carbohydrates in the early fall. If the AC is restored to even small pockets of the Ozark and Appalachian ranges, I am positive you will see localized populations of larger-bodied and larger-racked deer, substantiating your point about nutrition.

With all of that said, the live weights mentioned above are just as common dressed weights for bigger bucks in the far north. The 8-pt I took last year in northern MI was no older than 3.5 and dressed out close to 200 pounds. This is a wild, free-ranging deer. The one my cousin took on another one of our properties was slightly larger in body size, with an even more impressive rack, for whatever that's worth. While there are pockets of high quality land in the south where the deer are larger, the general trend in body size that Bergmann observed is consistent enough that the idea stuck. Given the simple biological imperatives of heat retention and heat dissipation, respectively, how could it be otherwise?

Facinating. That would explain the Boone and Crocket all-time record Saskatchewan buck!

 

[JFH]

Facinating. That would explain the Boone and Crocket all-time record Saskatchewan buck!