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No More Cattle

jeezticals

jeezticals

Next Year
This last summer I met and spoke with a guy that owns a deer farm. Grows monsters and sells to high fence operations. I asked him what is the secrete to growing 300 inch deer and his response was "what happens when you sit on the couch and eat potato chips all day every day?" They are on a high protein diet, but he claims the lack of stress year round other than the only event in a deer's life you can't remove, that being the rut. That is why they grow massive racks. Don't know if all that is true, but I can see it being a huge factor. That leads me to my situation.

This next year, 2017, the farmer that rents a few hundred acres of timber and pasture that I hunt will not be putting his cow herd on the grass until after he weans the calves. That would be in August. My question is this: will my deer quality increase due to not having cattle in their stomping grounds. Or do cows really not bother the deer, is it just the farmer that checks them daily that causes the most stress? My train of thought is less stress during their antler growing season will only be beneficial. And no I don't expect to see flyers and drop tines everywhere, just maybe a healthier herd.

Opinions are welcome.
 
I have noticed that deer use pasture more in IA than they do in states like mine-MN.

That being said, I prefer no cattle on the farms I hunt, and actually I like farms that border pasture. Seems like the deer will use your farm as bedding and feeding, but will stroll through, chase or maybe bed in pasture much less.
 
The farms I hunt my family has 300-500 head of cattle. As soon as the cows hit the fields once they're picked and start wading through the timber the deer disappear. I dont think quality will improve, but your numbers on your trail cameras might improve. My opinion.
 
Personal opinion... not science based... you won't see any difference in quality but will see a lot more quantity. Anything the deer have been lacking in the pasture they are likely getting nearby at other properties. I think across the board you do see better deer "growing" years than others based on plant production and moisture but that's a whole different discussion.

As for the cows, yes deer will co-exist, but it is not preferred especially to mature bucks. My guess, you will see a marked decrease in deer numbers when the cows are turned loose in August. With all due respect to beef producers because I do love a good steak, I HATE cows (for hunting reasons only). For example: one of my leases has been absolute garbage until this year. Cows were in there after the crops were cut the first two years. This year they were not. Opening day of muzzleloader I saw 100 deer in the cut corn field. Years prior I might have seen a dozen. That is 100% related to the cows, or lack thereof.
 
Agree with above. Little change in quality, increased quantity (until the cows show up). Deer won't bed where cows are wandering about.
 
I talked to a guy (years ago) that raises huge deer and he basically said the same thing. He said while his captive bucks are growing antlers they only have one guy that feeds them, no visitors, and try to keep disturbances to a minimum. He said it not the feed, it is just a good quality feed, that it is just genetics and keeping the stress levels down that he focus on to grow big deer.

That being said, I don't know how well that reverberates to a wild deer herd. Not having cattle on the farm always helps the hunting, but don't think it would be noticeable as far as quality goes.
 
Not saying this is true everywhere, but I hunt one piece that had cattle every year from late spring/early summer into early fall. Mix of open pasture and timber, no crops. The past few years it hasn't been pastured, but has had some of the open mowed for grass hay. I typically have seen about the same number of deer while hunting in the years that it was not pastured as I did when it was pastured. Granted, the cows were never there when I have hunted it. Never a lot of deer in pasture years or non-pasture years, but good bucks have been seen on the property in both.
 
By August the racks are pretty well done growing so no difference there. Without the cattle you will see have more deer and they may be bigger bodied.
 
I don't like cows for some of these reasons and some others....
Cows destroy habitat and destroy beneficial browse for deer to eat. An ecosystem of nutrition on cow pasture is extremely poor imo. They also destroy timber by many ways: soil compaction, eating good quality tree seedlings (and not eating bad trees- say locust). Eat all browse to dirt. Piss all over which is very hard on trees on top of stomping roots, etc. Cows devalue future timber income on a forested farm by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars as well depending on how much timber & starting quality.
I don't like cows as there's plenty of info I've heard on relation to EHD in deer. In short summary- the more cows nearby- the more ehd to deer. Facts & reasons behind that.

Beyond making timber far less desirable for deer - I always had my hunts degraded to some degree (everything from no deer sightings when .5 mile away I'd see 20 deer) to lower deer sightings. I've had numerous times with cows camped under my stand and after an hour or 2 of them not leaving - I simply left.

I hate em so I'm extremely biased. Detest them. Hate what they do to habitat, timber, hunting, pollution in water, how dumb they are and what a cattle farm looks like to the eye. Hate em. My fam & friends have them so we can have fun disagreeing about cows. We usually have our disagreements while eating a steak dinner so I'm a hypocrite. Not on my land though!! ;).
 
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