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Genetics Question...

bowhuntr311

bowhuntr311

IowaWhitetail Addict
A big buck is half buck and half doe genectics. Right?

You need a good doe as much as good buck. I know nutrition has alot to do with rack size as well, but on the genectics end is what Im wondeirng about.

A neighbor shot a little 4pt last year with the bow around Christmas last year. I helped him unload it and get it hung in his oak tree. We decided it was 2.5 and after some ribbing about shooting the little fellow he kinda bulled up and said well he wasnt going to be anything anyways. I aggreed to calm him down a bit but it got me thinking how would one know for sure what this little guy could have been.

A deer has the same genectics from birth to death. Right?
Now say you take the best buck in the area and breed the best doe in the area. You have the best potential for a big buck but with out the correct nutrition you dont have a decent buck. So this buck is born and goes through life and he breeds as a 1.5year old dink buck, and he happens to breed to a good genectics doe. Wouldnt that fawn (buck) have a great chance of being a biggun(genectics)?

Now if genectics are the same through life, and a buck has an injury causing a misformed non-typical rack, he is still going to have typical racked offspring?

Dean
 
On the half rack thing, I was worried I had a half rack gene in my timber since I had seen two this year that looked about 1 year apart. My wife shot the older of the two and he did, as many IW people told me he would, have and injury on his opposite side. So I believe they would still pass on good genetics if they are half racked due to an injury. Only thing is, I am guess they probably do not breed as much as other bucks without injuries!

It is really tough to tell what a 2 yr old could become, so the best thing IMO is to let them walk! You just never know! But I am probably a bad on to talk about this though since many people disagree, but I shoot spikes every chance I get! Which I am sure I am going to get blasted for saying that on here!! But it is just my opinion!!

I would rather see a bout of young 4 and 6s than spikes!!
 
You are right that genetics is a shared resource from the Buck and Doe. Although most bioligist will tell you it's 50/50, I tend to lean on the doe providing more influence then the buck. Either way, think of it like this. The buck and the doe provide full potential of what the genetics will allow, nutrition dictates whether that off spring will maximize the potential or not. The 4 ptr your buddy took, could have been the next world record, but you will never know at 2.5 yrs old.

We did a study on domestic elk (cervid family same as deer), Using DNA to compare like for like genetics, and placing them in different nutritional environments, there was a 15-20% growth increase in those with the better nutrition.

The tough part about constant reduction in does, is that we as hunters eliminate way more great genetic potential animals shooting does over 4pt bucks. I'm not arguing the doe reduction consempt, just making a point.

Hope this helps.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: midwestfoodplots</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
The tough part about constant reduction in does, is that we as hunters eliminate way more great genetic potential animals shooting does over 4pt bucks. I'm not arguing the doe reduction consempt, just making a point.

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I've heard this as well from a biologist. His thoughts on big buck management is to shoot the most mature does, and let the 2.5 year old and younger pass.
 
I'll state first off that I don't know much, so these questions are truly just questions...

On the above statements, is the logic behind shooting just older does and letting the younger ones pass that they will throw better fawns as younger deer?

In my experience, it is very hard to tell any doe from another unless she's got some unique identifying characteristic. I've always thought that shooting any age class of doe was the same. Is that wrong?

How would one know the genetic potential of a doe? It is much easier to see the genetic potential of a buck when he has reached 3.5 y/o, but what if shooting the mature does is going to diminish the genetics in the herd? Is this just a giant lottery on how the genetic make up of the doe that happens to present you a shot?

Cool post, thanks for the replies so far. I still have a lot to learn about this stuff. However, we don't have the rights to really manage the property that I hunt, so we just kill does to keep the numbers down and make the landowners happy...but it would be nice to know if some of this actually worked because we could be a little more selective with the does that we choose to shoot.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The tough part about constant reduction in does, is that we as hunters eliminate way more great genetic potential animals shooting does over 4pt bucks. </div></div>

But since we have no way to tell the antler genetics of a doe wouldn't we be shooting good antler genetics does in the same proportion to their proportion of the total doe population?

I would think so, and in that case it really doesn't make a difference does it?
 
Great Post!!!

Definately some thougth provoking ideas going around here....

I beieve the easiest way to determine Doe Genetices is by body size, however, if there is plenty of nutritious food availible, then doe body size can fool the hunter on which one to opt to shoot.
my thoughts are shoot the mature does as they have had more opportunity to spread their genetics around, and are more likely to have twins/trips as fawns, therefore, eliminating more opportunity to over produce the herd.

in my opinion, Spikes are not genetically inferrior deer, they are late born fawns that did not get the nutritional input they needed to produce a basket rack their first antlered year. rather the nutrition that would normally go to produce the rack was used to catch the body size up as the cooler weather approaches.
However,
since the buck had spikes it's first antlered year, he is now behind the deer of the same age class, thus making him inferrior, he will be to his potential as a 5.5, or 6.5 Y/O buck, rather than being "trophy" caliber at 4.5 and up.
so could a spike, or fork buck be a world record???
i believe he can, but nature, hunting pressure, availible nutrition etc all play a role in the life span of that deer. if he lives in controlled conditions where hunting pressure is low and nutrition is readily avilible, he COULD grow into a world class whitetail.

but with blocker/pusher drives and the amount of "shoot anything" type hunters, the liklyhood of a fork making it to 5.5, or 6.5 Years old are pretty slim....

this is just my opinion with no scientific data collected, i simply took knowledge i have gained as a reader/hunter, implemented a little commonsense and that is why i feel the way i do.

by no means do i know this for sure, but i feel im pretty close to the reality of this situation.

Pass the younger bucks, shoot the smaller inferior bucks at 3.5, so you can better judge his potential, and never pass on a mature animal that has had an opportunity to spread his genetics......

another thought, the older a buck gets passed 3.5, the fewer does he will breed, as he "locks down" with a doe till she is willing, then on to the next one, while younger type bucks, 2.5 3.5 will almost kill themselves in the hunt for receptive does.....
its almost like the older bucks work smarter not harder.....

but back to the main question, shoot the older does as they have been around longer.....it is like a lottery, but the older does have produced more offspring, thus having more of an opportunity to reproduce fawns that are healthy, and with the potential to carry good genetics......

IMO
 
I'll add a couple more points of interest. Keep in mind these are facts based on the same study we did with Domestic Elk.

Doe Size: We found that the cow size in elk was not always an indicator of off-spring potential. Some of our best trophy bull producers came from what we would call smaller then normal cows. This can also be seen in whitetails as, not all of the trophy bucks have large bodies. It is common, but obviously not a true science.

inferrior bucks: THA4 is right that spikes are not genetically inferrior. There could be several contributors to this, late fawning, or even a troubled birth, and in most cases they would not recover from this until they were 2.5. You may even see a smaller rack size in 2.5 and 3.5 yr old bucks that may be caused by rut activity. If a buck burns a subtantial amount of energy during rut with little nutrition to replace it, it has significant impact on spring antler developement. Again not a genetic defeciency, but also not one you and I could identify.

Superior Does: If only it was easy to identify the superior genetics in does. By no means was I implying I could detect this and if someone figures it out they will be very sought after.
 
Great thread!!

I recently read somewhere on the web, written by some Montana Wildlife biologist, that the "alpha doe" of the herd is the one passing the best genetics. I think you would have to know your deer herd well to be able to identify her. But this girl in my opinion, is a big old long nosed gray doe. She usually breeds with the best buck in the area. She supposedly never has late fawns.

He also said that alot of spike bucks won't have the potential. Most are late births that will, in the growing process, will always be behind.

I don't know what I think about what he said, but I thought it was interesting.
 
I had heard somewhere or read that a late buck fawn will take until 3.5 before he reaches the same rack size another buck fawn born a month or more earlier.

With that being said that would be a large contributer to not shoot 2.5s and under for "potential" reasons.

Dean
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bowhuntr311</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I had heard somewhere or read that a late buck fawn will take until 3.5 before he reaches the same rack size another buck fawn born a month or more earlier.

With that being said that would be a large contributer to not shoot 2.5s and under for "potential" reasons.

Dean

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Yeah if you want to waste your tag on a 2.5 year old buck. I think the foolproof trick is just keeping your doe numbers down and having food readily available on your property, whether that be corn, beans, clover, turnips, etc. We've done a lot of doe harvest on our ground since about 2000 and we're starting to see some giants. We try to grow mass, not tines, so seeing a heavy 5.5 8 point is great to us. I just think it gets too tricky when trying to pinpoint does to harvest. Just my 2 cents.
 
IMO

as far as genetics of a doe, it is a crap shoot. there is vitually no way for us as hunters to be able to tell that a doe will have good genes. when gun hunting i shoot the biggest doe outta the pack,

A. there is a lot slimmer chance it is not a button buck that i failed to pick out

B. a lot more meat...which isn't that the real reason behind hunting?

As far as the how much genetics each deer sends it is all a matter of their make up of dominate and reccessive genes. or so i would figure....think about children and their parents...

for an example i would like to correlate rack genetics with height of people. a tall person being an example of a buck with large rack genetics.

think of these things,

two short people have a tall child.-two wrongs could make a right

a tall woman and a short man have a tall child-the female contributes the better genes

a short woman and a tall man have a short kid-female contributes worse genes

a short woman and a tall man have a tall kid-the male contributes better genes

two tall people have a short kid-both had good genes they just didn't mesh well.

there are many other combination of things that go into this but you get my general point.

Granted i know not wether the same genetic principals apply to deer as they do humans (dominant and recessive type stuff) if they do wouldn't the whole thing just be a crap shoot?

as for the body size of a doe mattering, one would think it would contribute to the body size of the buck, but we have all seen a 110 class deer that has a horse of a body. there are also some large racked deer that do not have that large of a body. But i do think that a buck with a larger rack tends to have a larger body.

i guess just my .02...outta what i learned in biology.

as far as the spike bucks, the way i would figure it is that if the next year he has 6 inch spikes, you might be on to a bad apple! but if he is a year behind then what do you really do, treat him like a regular fork buck, or "take care of him"????

there is truly only one way to determine genetics of any deer and that is dna tests, so i'm gonna start watching deer cross barb wire and collecting hair samples.
 
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