How do deer react to cattle?

[Brushpile]

It's been my observation that deer switch location to avoid cattle, but then I have a neighbor that insists that his cattle have been attacked by deer and are driven from pastures by aggressive bucks. I was told that there must be a big buck on his place because his cattle are being driven away from a pasture that borders his woods???

 

[Dennis Duffy]

usually i have seen deer in the same pasture with my cattle and no one chases anyone.....

 

[boot]

From what 'Ive seen the two don't seem to notice each others existence, the deer just pass on through and the cows just keep on eating. I have a real hard believing a buck would run out or even attack a 1,000-2,000+ lbs. cow but crazier things have happened

 

[dogdoc]

I used to hunt property that had cattle. Rarely saw deer in the same field when the cattle were around but I have never seen deer run off cattle.

 

[Btaylor]

We have cattle on the farm I hunt and have never seen the deer or cattle run from or at each other. They don't co mingle but certainly don't seemed bothered by each other.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Cattle and deer dont mix where I am at. I think it has more to the commotion caused by the cattle. My favorite hunting places go cold when the cattle show up for the winter.

 

[Baker]

I see cattle in deer in the same pasture all the time. We have some pastures where we intensively rotate the cattle and I've noticed the deer tend to follow behind the cattle in the vacated pastures. I think this has more to do with fresh regrowth though. Otherwise the two co habitat easily.

 

[OkieKubota]

When I was a kid growing up my folks raised cattle on the 50 acres. I cannot recall ever seeing a deer on the property my entire growing up life even though the 40 acres behind us was loaded with deer. My dad got rid of the cattle when I was a bout 25 and raised horses and mules from there on out and he divided the property into 5 sections to move them around because he learned from the cattle deal...Once he did that the deer started showing up in the areas the horses were fenced out of. When we moved out there dad used my 10 for 2 horses and we saw no deer on it. He moved the horses out in about the year 2000 and since then our 10 has been a deer mecca...Dad passed away but 3 pasture plugs still roam around basically unattended or cared for on the 20 acres they still had. My mom doesn't want them hauled off because they eat the grass she said but now my mother has moved a way from the property as well but the horses are still around...

My North Neighbor has 230 acres and cattle and very few deer because the cattle chase acorns harder than the deer and take care of any that drop on his property so the deer mainly stay to the areas with no cattle in our part of the country...

Never seen a cow/bull chase deer but have witnessed horses do it many times. As far as a deer running a cow or deer off I am pretty sure that is not NORMAL deer activity...

 

[dogghr]

Best 3 places I have permission to hunt have 150-200 head. Deer were always there but stay in fields different from cattle. I do know when you have 200000+ pounds of steaks under your stand, the deer tend to not show up. And I often sat on the stand on a busted hunt wondering how long it takes one to die if arrowed but fig the farmer wouldn't be so happy.

 

[OkieKubota]

Best 3 places I have permission to hunt have 150-200 head. Deer were always there but stay in fields different from cattle. I do know when you have 200000+ pounds of steaks under your stand, the deer tend to not show up. And I often sat on the stand on a busted hunt wondering how long it takes one to die if arrowed but fig the farmer wouldn't be so happy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[E_308]

Great OK now we will never get DGallow to start posting!

 

[Brushpile]

I used to hunt property that had cattle. Rarely saw deer in the same field when the cattle were around but I have never seen deer run off cattle.

That's what I've noticed, and I've never seen a deer run off a cow, but I have a neighbor who insists that he's seen it happen repeatedly with his cows, and not just with bucks, but also does!

As cows are rotated, I move to avoid cattle.

 

[Brushpile]

Cattle and deer dont mix where I am at. I think it has more to the commotion caused by the cattle. My favorite hunting places go cold when the cattle show up for the winter.

Exactly!

 

[OkieKubota]

Great OK now we will never get DGallow to start posting!

They're all going to be killed anyway for food purposes. If shooting one with a bow or rifle gets it to the slaughterhouse so be it...

Having said that I have had to on 2 different occasions shoot one of my cattle at my old homeplace and then winch them onto a trailer and haul them to a slaughterhouse. I had a bull one time I absolutely could not get loaded and I hired a couple cowboys who worked cattle for a living come try and after seeing those guys being drug through the brush by him I finally just shot him in the head just like they do at the slaughterhouse I once worked at...

 

[Dennis Duffy]

wow here in PA slaughter houses are not allowed to except animals that can not walk off a trailer on there own. no dead animals excepted.

 

[Turkey Creek]

I have nothing against cattle... they taste great! I would never say that cattle and deer cant co-exist on the same land, just not on a small area at the same time. More than once I have thought about arrowing one of my BIL's cows that was running lose and he couldnt seem to get put back where it belonged. They are alot bigger target standing under your tree stand and I would bet they cant duck an arrow even when staring at you!

 

[Turkey Creek]

wow here in PA slaughter houses are not allowed to except animals that can not walk off a trailer on there own. no dead animals excepted.

I think that is the same law here, though I have seen some that definitely needed some assistance to "walk" into the slaughter house.

 

[Baker]

Taking a slightly different slant on this question I would offer that the pastures where we intensively rotate cows are some of our best. Certainly the deer mingle with the cows some but the real benefit comes from the effect on the pastures. The Savory rotation system creates high quality grazing for both deer and cattle.

 

[Steve Bartylla]

Taking a slightly different slant on this question I would offer that the pastures where we intensively rotate cows are some of our best. Certainly the deer mingle with the cows some but the real benefit comes from the effect on the pastures. The Savory rotation system creates high quality grazing for both deer and cattle.

Since you guys are scaring Doug away with your talk of shooting cattle I'll do my best to take his place.

I think Baker is nailing it with his post about using cattle to improve the habitat. It took me way too long to figure this out, particularly considering I grew up working dairy farms. I always would look at the pastured woods and shake my head at the waste of what could be quality cover, and there's a lot of truth to that. However, there's also a lot of truth to the fact that you can use rotational grazing in a way to actually reboots the plant's growth cycles (keeping them in tender, immature states), help control weeds that the deer don't like, while fertilizing the soil, all at the same time.

I've only been messing around with stuff like that on a couple properties over the last 5ish years. So, I'm not going to claim to have it all completely figured out yet, but I have seen enough to shift my mind set from cattle being the enemy to being a friend, if one approaches rotational grazing as a way to help, not hurt our deer/habitat management efforts.

 

[OkieKubota]

Devil's advocate... our deer lease is also a working cattle ranch. Cattle are kept out of our section until right about October when guys who have the paid more for the premier fall hunting areas want them out of their areas. So they "dump" the herd on our 1500 acres. Deer sightings go to near zero where the cows are which is one reason I hunt the ridge tops and solid woods areas but even then by mid November the cattle have worked their way into these areas chasing acorns. When that happens I may as well load up and go home and have on many occasions. A cow herd over 300 strong will definitely interrupt your hunt in the woods....when cattle are in the timber the chance of seeing a deer with that much activity going on is exactly zero...