Rack Buck Bits
Volume 3, Issue 1
February 2000
Happy 2000!!!
Welcome and happy new century. I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday
season. I hope the new century brings you
much joy and prosperity (and a few Boone & Crockett bucks.)
I want to welcome a terrific new addition to our Rack Buck Bits newsletter —
Ben Koerth from the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research. Ben and Dr.
James C. Kroll have done fantastic, and much needed, research on nutritional requirements
and management of whitetail deer.
Ben has written an excellent article on the backside that you won’t want to
miss. Dr. Kroll and Ben also have a marvelous
selection of books on management of food plots and producing and harvesting trophy
whitetails as well.
You can either call 800-403-3793 or visit their website at
http://www.sfasu.edu/forestry/faculty/kroll/deer.html . You can also get there from the link on our own
web site at www.rackbuck.com.
We appreciate all the email we have been receiving.
If you appreciate Ben’s great article, please let him know. His email address
is bkoerth@sfasu.edu.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to call Don, Mike
or Jeff. We look forward to hearing from you!
Reorder
Super Juice™!
If you haven’t already
done so, please check your inventory of Super Juice™.
Spring will be here soon. Your
systems need the added punch from the Super Juice™ so that they can provide the bucks
with much needed protein. The quicker they
get enough protein and nutrients to recover from the rut, the quicker they can apply the
additional protein to their growing antlers. Your
unborn fawns will thank you too, when their mothers are feeding on the nutrient-rich
honeysuckle!
Look for us in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania at the World’s Largest Outdoor Show — the Eastern Sports and
Outdoor Show. The show begins February 5 and
runs through the 13th.
We will be at Booth 3619.
The show is well worth the
trip, but be sure to plan for more than one day, because you can’t see it all in one!
Stop by and see us. We would love to
visit with you and answer any questions you may have.
“Growing
trophy deer doesn’t happen overnight; however, with a little patience, we are sure
you will be pleased with the success you will achieve from the Rack Buck Deer Management,
Inc.
Complete System.™
Mail Order Kits
When the kit arrives, it
will contain a pre-addressed postcard for obtaining plants free of charge. The plants will be shipped directly from the
nursery when you are ready for them. So, even
if you can’t get your system installed for a few days, you won’t have to worry
about keeping plants alive. Install the
system, water the system, and have the plants delivered later. You can then plant the young honeysuckle and you
are ready to go!
Make sure you order several
kits. The kits are 10’ long. You can install them individually or hook two
together. Each kit will include the postcard
that will get you six honeysuckle plants from the nursery.
These plants are specially selected for quick growth and vigor.
You MUST cover the system
with some sort of cage. We have experimented
with several different options over the years. We’ve
seen what works and what doesn’t. The
best thing we can recommend is the cage that was designed exactly for these systems. Because of shipping weight, we cannot ship wire to
you, but we can ship the frame which is the most important part. You can then buy 2 x 4 wire at most any hardware
or farm store. These frames will come with
instructions on how to cut the wire and assemble the entire cage.
You can print an order form
off our web site at www.rackbuck.com/purchasing.htm, or give us a call and we’ll send you one in the
mail.
We are truly excited about
what this kit will do for your deer management goals.
Order your today!
A Dead Horse
When you find yourself sitting astride a dead horse, your first course of action
should be to get off. It does no good to blame the person who sold you the horse, or
appoint a committee to study if the horse is really dead. If he's dead, get off! The same
can be said for deer management where you hunt. If you’re trying to ride a dead
horse, your forward progress is going to be severely challenged.
If you’re not paying close attention to the nutritional quality of your deer
habitat, your deer management will be like riding a dead horse. Remember where you read
it. The three keys to growing bigger deer are: 1. nutrition, 2. Nutrition, 3. NUTRITION!
Whitetails normally experience two nutritional stress periods during the year. The
first stress period most people recognize is late winter. It’s cold, deciduous trees
have lost their leaves, acorns are depleted, and spring greenup is yet to occur. In other
words, there is sparingly little for deer to eat. The
second, though less recognized, stress period is the hot, dry part of summer.
Unfortunately, during that time we are all too often concentrating on other things. The
kids are on vacation from school, water sports are in and hunting season is in the distant
future. Outside of daydreaming about big bucks each month when the magazines hit the
mailbox, maybe the last thing you think about is deer nutrition. However, for the serious deer hunter and manager,
this is exactly the time to be concerned.
Summer is the time when most native plants have ceased growing in response to high
temperatures, low rainfall and because of their normal growth habit. Basically, there are
two types of plant growth habits. These are
called determinant and indeterminant. The most common growth form is determinant where
there is a distinct growing season, usually in the spring concurrent with adequate
rainfall. After the initial growth phase, the plants quickly mature and become less
palatable. As the fiber content of these plants increase with maturity, they become less
nutritious. Thus, deer will use them less.
A few plants, Japanese honeysuckle for example, have what is called an
indeterminant growth form. This type of plant puts on new growth throughout the growing
season whenever there are favorable weather and rainfall conditions. These types of plants
are ideal for deer management because high quality forage can be produced throughout the
year.
What makes summer so nutritionally stressful? Just think about what is going on
with the deer. Not only is summer the growing season for plants, this is the growing
season for deer. Fawns are growing and being weaned and does are having to produce milk to
raise the fawns in addition to meeting their own dietary needs. This places an incredible
nutritional demand on the does.
Weaned fawns have the highest nutritional requirement of all. Fawns exhibit a
cyclic growth pattern with the most rapid increase in weight and size during their first
summer. This peak in nutritional requirement coincides with late summer, a time that is
typically nutritionally deficit.
On the other hand, older bucks probably have the easiest time in summer. There are
no lactation demands and body growth is limited. However, don’t be misled into
believing high quality nutrition is less meaningful. An important aspect of summer is
bucks are growing the antlers we covet so much later in the year. We know that antler
growth is secondary to body growth. This means if nutrients are in short supply, antler
growth will be compromised. Adequate nutrition to produce quality headgear must be
available during the entire growing season.
Despite the ad copy you may read, there are no magic beans! Habitat management and
planting food plots is plain hard work with little glory involved. Don’t expect great
results with little input. However, providing high quality nutrition on a sustained basis
is the cornerstone of deer management and the results can be well worth the work involved.
--
Ben
Koerth
Research
Associate
Institute
for White-tailed Deer Management and Research
409-468-2088