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FROM
BUTTONS TO BOONE
& CROCKETT
There’s a lot more than meets the eye to getting a white-tailed
buck to grow from
buttons to B&C antlers.
In fact, for most bucks roaming North America, it’s an
impossible or, at best, nearly impossible mission. *Text and
photos by Charles J. Alsheimer
The
Quality Deer Management movement has the attention of deer hunters
everywhere. Wherever I go,
people want to talk about it. If
you were to hear their questions, you would think there’s a magic
formula for producing record-class bucks. ’m
amazed at the number of people who believe big bucks can be raised from a
bag of minerals or clover seed. I’m
equally amazed by the number of times I’ve heard hunters say that age is
all it takes to grow a buck of Boone and Crockett standards.
In fact, getting a whitetail from the “button buck” stage to
the B&C category is a mystical journey that includes complex
variables.
As a teen, I believed age and quality food sources were the magical
ingredients to producing a 170-inch buck.
As I increased my reading, also realized there was far more to the
equation is defined, it doesn’t guarantee a buck will grow B&C
antlers.
In 1995, my son and I built a deer research facility on our farm.
Since then, I’ve worked with some of the most knowledgeable
whitetail people in North America to learn more about the growth potential
of bucks. Their insights, and the results from my research, shed new
light on this topic. What It Takes
It takes four basic ingredients to produce a buck with a 170-inch
rack. In order of importance,
these ingredients are genetics, habitat, herd management and age. Despite
the explosion of deer knowledge, many hunters still wonder why their areas
can’t produce record-class bucks. In
reality, the environment required to produce high numbers of B&C bucks
doesn’t exist. Furthermore,
even if an area provides the four ingredients, those components must align
flawlessly to produce several record-class bucks.
Even perfect conditions do not guarantee B&C bucks.
To see how tough it is to raise a whitetail from a fawn to a Booner,
let’s look at two scenarios – the real world and a controlled
environment – to see how various factors affect antler growth.
The real world is any place in North America with free-roaming
whitetails. These deer must
cope with everything nature and man throw at them.
The stress heaped on them often borders the absurd, and in turn,
suppresses antler growth.
I believe stress on free-ranging deer is cumulative, and antler
growth is suppressed in varying degrees depending on how many stress
factors are placed on a herd. Environment Whitetails
still deal with environmental stress factors even when human activity is
removed from an area. For
example, in remote Southern locations, extreme heat and parasites heavily
burden deer herds.
In Northern climates, whitetails have an added problem: brutal
winters with deep snow and bitter cold temperatures.
Winter’s stress can severely suppress antler growth, especially
when it produces severe over browsing of deer range by foraging herds.
No matter where it occurs, drought is a major suppressant of antler
growth, especially if it occurs during the critical antler-growing season
of April through July. Whitetails
need large quantities of lush nutritional food to produce full-potential
antlers.
Insects are another environmental stressor.
Swarms of insects not only kill domestic animals, but they also
kill deer. Food
Habitat, and its ability to support a variety of crops and browse
species, is another key to antler growth.
Bucks grow impressive antlers when they receive a variety of foods.
However, these food sources disappear quickly when too many deer
are on a property. Therefore,
bucks living on overpopulated range won’t always grow large racks.
Unfortunately, the food equation cannot be solved by simply
planting crops. For example,
soil is often overlooked. It’s
no coincidence that some of the biggest bucks come from fertile-soil
regions. For example, the
Midwest’s “Grain Belt” contains some of the most productive soil in
North America. With this in
mind, it’s easy to understand why the Midwest has produced 61.6 percent
of white-tailed bucks entered in the B&C record book through 1993. Population
A region’s deer population is as important as food availability in
allowing a buck to reach maximum antler potential. Antler growth suffers when populations exceed the land’s
carrying capacity.
Dave Griffith and his brother Rick operate a
state-of-the-art deer genetic/semen collection operation in Huntingdon,
PA. After years of observing
antler growth in their breeder bucks, the Griffiths have made some
interesting conclusions.
“Whitetails are very sensitive to overpopulation and do poorly if
there are too many deer,” Dave Griffith said.
“We’ve found that if we leave a breeder buck with a group of
does from breeding time to fawning time the buck’s antlers are almost
always smaller the next year. When
we remove the buck from the does right after the breeding is over, antler
growth doesn’t suffer. Bucks
– especially top-end bucks – do better when they can be alone or in
bachelor groups.
“We know that if bucks are forced to be around too many
deer, they’ll seldom reach their full antler potential.” Doe-to-Buck Ratio
For example, antler growth suffers in areas that have more than
three adult does for every antlered buck.
When herds exceed this ration, the rut stretches to a danger point
for bucks, especially mature bucks. A
2-to-1 ratio isn’t bad, but, for maximum growth potential, an area
should have only one adult doe for every antlered buck.
The rut lasts about 45 days on range with balanced ratios.
However, when the doe-to-buck ratio exceeds three does for every
antlered buck, the rut can last 90 days.
That’s dangerous, because in the North, that means the rut will
stretch into the winter months. In
turn, rutting bucks enter this critical period so worn down they can’t
recover before their antlers begin to grow in April.
In such instances it’s not uncommon for mature bucks to die from
additional winter stress.
Tom Morgan is a deer breeder from Union City, PA.
Over the years, Morgan has studied how stress affects deer herds.
“Everyone knows that the rut drives a white-tailed buck crazy,
and it doesn’t matter if the buck is behind a high fence or roaming in
the wild,” Morgan said. “We’ve
discovered that if you let a buck breed more then 10 does there is a high
probability that his body cannot recover before he begins to grow another
set of antlers. And, if
he’s physically behind in April, his antlers will be smaller than the
previous year.” Dave
Griffith agreed. “Allowing
a buck access to too many does is not the way to go if maximum antler
growth is your goal. A buck
cannot control himself during the rut, and too many does will drain a buck
of everything he has in him,” Griffith said.
“When a doe comes into heat she takes a buck on a 24-hour ride he
can’t control. Because he
doesn’t know when enough is enough, he gets himself into all kinds of
trouble – often trouble he can’t recover from.” |
