Successful Deer Management Starts With Large Healthy Fawns: Social Factors By John J Ozoga   Even with unlimited nutrition, social stress can impact deer welfare – just as readily as malnutrition. Since whitetail does exhibit territorial behavior, and aggressively defend their established fawning grounds, young subordinate does are relegated the poorest habitat when deer density is high. When crowded, young does breed late and give birth later than adult does.…

Finding the Perfect Fit By Steve Bartylla  Habitat projects It was one of the easiest 60 acre properties I’d ever worked on. This Wisconsin property offered great access from three sides. Creating food plots along the edges would provide easy, very low impact access to stand sites. With the 40 being entirely wooded, the plot areas would need to be dozed in, but that provided the advantage of shaping them…

Taking Tree Stands to the Next Level So often, seemingly minor, easily addressed details can make the difference between close calls and releasing a well-placed arrow.   By Steve Bartylla   I’d barely climbed up my stand. In fact, I was still pulling the bow up when I heard the buck. He was coming in fast, head on, right down the point leading to my stand. I had to get…

Successful Deer Management Starts With Large Healthy Fawns: Fawns Achieving Puberty By John J Ozoga   Whether a fawn (male or female) reaches puberty and breeds in its first year might depend upon many poorly understood factors. Birth date, genetics, day length, nutrition, climate and social pressure are just a few factors likely involved in this poorly understood phenomenon. Even within the same population, the sexes seem to differ in…

Successful Deer Management Starts With Large Healthy Fawns: Summer and Fall Nutrition By John J Ozoga   Fawns born to malnourished does weigh as little as 2 pounds at birth, whereas healthy individuals can weigh as much as 12 pounds. Generally, single fawns weigh more than those from twins or triplet litters. However, few fawns weighing less than 5 pounds survive more than a few days, because they are too…