Creating bedding

[Chainsaw]

Great point Buckdeer1, Six years or so ago I hinge cut Every non-Apple tree in a 3 to 4 acre area. Cut them about knee high. The deer pretty much avoided that mess until now that those trees are breaking down and becoming level with the ground.
Conversely these days I hinge poplars @ about shoulder height in areas of 1/8 of an acre areas and the deer take to them quickly. Note; As mentioned in other posts, cutting that high and especially with poplar is not a safe maneuver. I do it by cutting only halfway thru and letting the next wind storm finish the job.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I quit with the hinge cutting. I don't have many hinge-able species, and the ones that did, all that happened was the stump sprouts started 3-4' high and grew right outta reach. All the cover was ten feet up in the air too. Now I take everything completely off and right at the ground.

 

[THE LLC]

I live in heavy ag country and believe I should focus more on holding deer than feeding them (which we have concentrated on primarily before with trees, food plots etc). The food will still stay but I am curious as to the best way to create our small parcels of woods surrounding our age fields into deer holding habitat. Is hinging cutting the best/only option......what else has worked for you? Thanks for any suggestions

Also, if you know of any podcasts or YouTube videos that have helped you in this aspect please link if you don't mind

Clearcut them and let them regen. Trust me. Then stay out of them. You should see my aunt’s old farm in Colquitt County

 

[dawghall]

Clearcut them and let them regen. Trust me. Then stay out of them. You should see my aunt’s old farm in Colquitt County

Thanks Mr. Tommy!

 

[j-bird]

I too live in big ag country. My entire county is 70% corn and soybean fields. Wooded cover is mostly hardwoods in small wood lots and along streams and creeks and areas to wet or too steep to be farmed. We have very little pasture or forage crops here. We also seem to have something against fence rows here. The days of the brushy fence row here is long gone! It's not uncommon to be able to see across filed for a mile or more here. When I first got control of my place I jumped into the plots and realized how dumb I was being. I did 2 things to bolster the cover on my place.....CRP field buffer programs to add switchgrass and other native plants and then what little woods I did have I did 2 selective cuts to remove the larger trees. The cover increased (I am a firm believer in stem count) and so did the ground level browse as well. Hinge cutting works IF you have the right trees and can do enough to get the hinged trees enough sunlight to stay alive. I have a neighbor that is getting his wood lot logged and I am looking forward to that....it will create a bedding area that is right next to my place that nobody will be allowed to hunt..... Other things I have done is I had a small 3 to 5 acre spot that was once fescue that I have allowed to grow up as well. The cover aspect helps even if the trees and the like in there are of now real value. The CRP buffers themselves do not hold the deer, but they do increase the depth of cover to make the strips of timber and the small woodlots feel more secure and thus increase bedding.

 

[Mennoniteman]

The key ingredient to deer bedding that everyone is trying to attain is shorter "unobstructed line of sight" (LOS) distances during all 4 seasons of the year, by plantings or cuttings and under story growth. LOS is what determines whether deer will bed in a particular area, and this whitetail deer trait of wanting to hide can readily be observed in the wild and in deer pens. Deer will bed right beside a highway or building if they have cover so that they can't be seen, and are rarely observed bedded down, other than from a hunting location. Planting or manipulating a species that grows well in your area, that grows thick, and is not invasive will achieve those goals if it allows the deer to lie down without being seen from a distance away. For one area it might be switchgrass, another area might be norway spruce or cedars (don't do cedars if CAR is a problem) or MG grass, egyptian wheat, or just hingecutting trees. In an AG crop area this might mean working with fencerows and field corners. But LOS is the key and needs to be the first goal if successful bedding is to be created.

 

[Paradise725]

The Land and Legacy podcast is a great podcast related to habitat improvement. They would tell you to clearcut rather than hinge. Possibly do some edge feathering as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mennoniteman]

The Land and Legacy podcast is a great podcast related to habitat improvement. They would tell you to clearcut rather than hinge. Possibly do some edge feathering as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like to do a combination of everything. The first step is to inventory what's already there, and what likes to grow there, then develop a plan that works using as much of the existing conditions as possible to make more bedding cover. Dogghr's random clusters might describe my style best, I will hinge some and cut some, spray certain non deer food species dead, and leave some for stump sprouts. My favorite method is to get into a bedding area with a CTL (compact track loader) and make some paths throughout while pushing stuff on random piles. The advantage of this is a quick regrowth of briars and other various forbs, turning up a little soil will bring regen growth twice as fast and thick as walking through on foot with a chainsaw, and is way easier and safer.