Average shooter prices

Amen to that Rick!

washington said:

What I read were posts that ring of "everyone agrees there needs to be changes to the biz but no one is willing to make them". Breeders are an independant lot and seem to be willing to muddle along making ends meet with memories of past high end market days still in their minds hoping it will once again rebound to that point......that isn't going to happen without true change to the way the biz is run., ie. instead of 1 breeder buying a truck load of feed 5 buyers should buy a train car load of feed ..does that sound familar? kind of like Walmart logic?????? Like it or not your market has peaked everyone saw $$ in growing 200"+ deer to the point the market is flooded and buyers yawn at them today. The industry can still make money but it will need to adjust to their buyers market.

15 years ago I bought out my family's sport shop and worked 70 hrs a week to turn a slim profit yearly..today after radical changes that my father deemed foolish, sure to bankrupt me I own 10 shops and no longer work.

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That sounds like what im into with my dad i have the deer on his land so every change i go to make has to go though him and it has cost me to the point i just want to quit, seems like were fighting it out all the time.

We go through a boom bust about every 15 years down here with deer.

The small hobbie farms which appear to break even,seem to keep at least 100 breeding girls.I think you would need at least 500 and a very strong appreciation of deer to cover costs & make wages.

We have eight species & several subspecies in Aus,with red/elk & fallow the most common,followed by rusa,chital,hog,sambar & sika.

Reds are popular/common, because they return on venison,velvet & trophys,& are easy to handle.Fallow, venison & trophys,& again the farming requirements are easy.

Hog deer became a bit of a speciality & the getting price was about $5000 a pair,now its $1000 each & dropping fast,as they become more common & have little value for alternate income.

I should only comment on what its like here,but, I can see price getting weaker as supply peaks,the small(hobbie)guys will sell cheap as they have other incomes.The larger guys who can afford to deversify & adapt (venison,velvet,processing,including others deer)will hang in.Every one else may have cattle,sheep & goats behind deer fence (been to NZ recently?).

If you arent growing your own grass & feed??

Hand rearing fawns??

Then 15 years later, the cycle begins again,seen it twice.

Did I mention the price of deer & products are steadily increasing here?

Hope to see as many of you as possible at the top of the next bell curve.

Cheers Sharkey

Sharkey,



We have similar boom bust cycles here in the USA. However, I don't think the prices will ever rebound to what they once were. Look at ostriches..are they back to $50,000 for a pair? Nope that's water under the bridge.

The real problem is the inflation to the feed prices. In combination with the current "bust" cycle it's just plain going to make deer farming unprofitable for the foreseeable future.

Those who grow their own feed,& can find new & more markets will do best.

If you can't grow grass, you cant grow deer, profitably.

Cheers Sharkey

If I had it all to do over I would put the money that I have in deer in to 3rd stage cow's. When I bought my first deer I was told how much the shooter's are worth and how easy it is to make money, but was told wrong for sure.



Anyone want to trade some good cow's for deer just give me a call.

So since everyone is aware of how much money is to be lost and how we are just digging our own grave why are we still doing it? Why don't we do somthing about it or is there anything that can be done about it?

This has been discussed before in another thread, here is my favorite theroy: breed less deer!

Yep.....if you want the demand to go back up.......breed less deer.....not real complicated.....

works for OPEC!

Even if the number of whitetail bred are cut down this fall, you have 3-4 years worth of bucks to hit the market yet.

You still have to start somewhere.......its kind of like the debt our country is in......they feel like they can't do anything about it so they just keep printing more money and every time they do that it males the dollars value decrease.........we can't turn our noses at the problem we need to face up to it and all pitch in where we can to help turn things around.....if we all cut back on the amount of deer we breed it can have a very big impact.....

My opinon what really hurts the deer prices are the people breeding 500+ deer

Magnum Valley Whitetails said:

My opinon what really hurts the deer prices are the people breeding 500+ deer

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500 deer or 500 inch deer?

my bad..500 deer

I thought that's what you meant, just wanted to be sure though...

I hope others will join me in not breeding as many this year. right now I am not seeing a need to even breed any next year, the way prices are, plus this looks to be the 3rd year in a row that doe fawns have dominated my fawning season. I hate to sound like a complainer, but we all know the market is down and we really need to fix it ourselves, no one but the breeders are going to fix anything, so this is the year to start doing something about it. I am going to breed only 5-6 does this year if i do breed any.

One thing that I have seen advertised on other threads that will certainly not help the market is these ''how to deer farm seminars'' that are being offered to and targeting potentially new deer farmers and are designed to encourage them into the business! WHAT????? Are you kidding me????? A seminar to encourage more deer farmers into an already determined suppressed, unstable, and uncertain business for many, and we want to add more farmers to that equation for what reason??? It doesn't seem very fair or make sense to those of us that are struggling in this business that people ''in'' the business are out there attempting to recruit deer farmers, when we all know that one of the major problems is ''too many deer''!!!!!!!! A friend of mine earlier this summer asked me to help him get started into the deer business. I was honest with him and told him I could not with good conscious recommend that he get started in the business, even though I had plenty of good does to sell him to get him started (which by the way I shot at birth). Given the escalating cost of feed, bookings being down due to a depressed economy, and the overall saturation of deer within the market, and WHO knows when any of these 3 things are going to turn around, what else could I tell him???

Mark all you have to think about is the almighty dollar..Just like myself when a person comes in to this thing they buy from the top farms that are out there thinking that thats where to get the big deer and deer that they can market and then a couple years latter they learn...like myself..That even if you buy the best deer from the biggest names you still cant sell your deer or get into auctions...Its still a name game and with new blood brings new dollars.But it only takes a couple years for that new guy to figure out he could have got the same deer or better from a smaller name and smaller farm..like myself.. I think i would have gave the same answer as you did...You did him a favor at this time in the deer world!!!!

Ok i am fairly new to deer farming and as my opinion it is a name game if your a no name with average deer no one pays you any attention but i am not in this for money as most people seem to be all about the money i do this because my family loves fawning and watching the bucks grow year to year if we make some money here and there then thats just a bonus if people would get in that mind set i think it would be a better way enstead of seeing who can breed these huge ceder tree heads that dont look like deer everyone wants a big deer but come on what happened to enjoying a beautiful typ. 10 12 pnt buck with a few kickers here and there when did it become all about these 20 30+ trashy looking inbreed monsters that everyone gets a hard on over again this is just my opinion not trying to piss anyone off or start a big deal