Criteria for a yearling buck breeder?

Please list your personal criteria in no particular order, for choosing a yearling as backup/breeder. Antler dimensions, spread ,configuration, pedigree etc

.Im looking and have found one im looking at pretty hard. If I can decide I will post pictures soon.

I don't like breeding yearling..wait till two so you know what they look like

Pedigree is what I look at first before I even look at the deer.Then its conformation when you see it,if it doesn"t conform & I mean ears, jaws, legs,movement,etc,the pedigree means little.Even with the best bred stags/bucks I expect to cull 90% & I don't like breeding stags & bucks before they're 5yo, to be sure.



For domesticated deer like reds temperament will also be a consideration.



Cheers Sharkey

Richie I understand where your coming from, I havent neccessarily ever used any semen from a yearling in the past. I have made purchases of yearling semen, and have yet to be disapointed.I have about twelve does that I plan to AI this fall. This yearling im considering for backup would have name brand stuffing his pedigree. He is a 6x6 mainframe with a few extras. He is 20" inside with twelve inch tines est. him @ 195" mostly frame. My question again would be if you were in my situation ,what would your criteria be? Thanks for your comments Sharkey, alot of people dont pay a lot of attention to physical attributes or temprament anymore.

For me its about the look, because 99% of your deer go to preserves. So that leaves what the buck and grand dad look like and what look does your doe pass on. I would take a chance on a good yearling that you think will have the look that you want. If your nervous about taking a chance then I would only AI a couple does and not all of them, but if he has the look your after then use him. Pedigrees are just a bonus.

If i had a yearling like you are describing i would breed him in a heartbeat.

Depends what part of the game you are playing. If you are playing with auction games then you would have to watch the pedigree. If you are doing nothing but stockers pedigree means nothing really. Some yes,Most no!! Like mark says..With stats like that i would breed him for stockers for sure!!!

Jason, just my opinion... After breeding many yearlings on my farms over the last 15 years about 90% of them do not grow their best 2 year old rack the next year. It doesn’t seem to matter if I breed 1 doe to them or 10 does to them they just don’t get as big the next year. Live bred or back up also doesn’t seem to make a difference they will be small. A few times I have had twin yearling brothers one real big let say for example the guy you are considering and the smaller twin brother let’s say 140-150 with about the same look just smaller. I breed the big one of course and then next year the big 195 yearling scores 205 and the 140 yearling brother scores 230+. (Just an example) Now you have promoted and got behind this youngster only to be disappointed. Thing is I am not like the majority of the breeders out there that wait for the buck to be mature and have proven offspring to look at before I will commit to them but rather I will take a chance on the well-bred yearling or 2 year old and I like to breed more aggressive that way. I have come to the point where I am AIing to my best young bucks but not live breeding them until they are 3 years old. If I want a sure thing all that I need to do is expose a yearling to a few doe fawns and back up does. Guaranteed he will be smaller the next year. I look at it anymore like my young buck that is exposed to my fawns and some back up does is just a sacrifice for the year and he is doomed. I sure wish it wasn’t this way for me but experience has shown this.

This is great information.

I also bred a few does to my best yearling last fall. This year at 2 yr. he has basically the same spread and tine length he had as a yearling. He does have more mass but went from a typical 10 down to a nine. As Russ mentioned above, he has a half brother that was smaller as a yearling that is now 22-24" wide and will push 180+ at 2 yrs.

Have others of you seen similar results?



I have a Cardiac Kid yearling with 20+ scoreable points and a pretty decent pedigree that I would really like to breed with this fall but I'm not sure that I am willing to pay the price.

What are your thoughts?



Thanks...Bill Mayes

www.mayeswhitetailsandauction.com

I agree with you Russ to a point but, if you are concerned more about selling production than a" hot look " you should make more in the long run. The sons will be yearlings when your so called" beauty buck" is three. By then his offspring will be a hit making their sire look good or will fade away. The fact is usually the more experienced breeders will look past a mild gain between age one & two. By three his body should be just about caught up anyway, thereby showing pretty much what his concreted characteristics are. I cant blame anyone for making breeding decisions as they see fit. If you want to buy for hype, you might hit a homerun or you strike out. Im not a deer broker. Some invest in deer annually who dont plan on doing anything but turning semen over, im not like these kinds of people. The semen I have purchased in the past was for a specific breeding. Those breeding plans may have changed for a more suited sire who was not necessarily more popular but would fit the equation best. I have put semen up for sale in the past, but usually what doesnt sell ends up being used in breeding preserve does. I usually buy the semen I intend to use as far in advance as possible, usually the year before. Looking at your breeding two "plays" in advance is your best move. Sometimes we just have to fly by the seat of our pants and hope it was the best decision. My situation is like this. I split partnership this past February. I ended up with no bucks, by choice. That might sound crazy till you understand what I ended up with was the factories and the heart of twelve yrs of devotion. I was able to talk my ex-partner into leaving "ROLO" on my farm for the summer. Believe me its been hard not to look at a bunch of bucks. Rolo will leave in the fall. I will need a backup buck for AI. This yearling is a grandson of Maxbo Ranger . I like wide yearlings because they usually get wider with age. He already has twelve inch tines and huge mainframe. My initial question was what criteria do you look for in a yearlings dimensions. For example # of tines, length of tines ,main beam length, spread, do tines lay in or out, do beams curve in or square out, mass in any or all areas?

I agree that breeding is one’s own decision and strategy. I too plan ahead and breed for production. We have 3 hunting ranches and 99% of our bucks will end up there no matter how big they are or what there pedigree looks like, so big deer are king for us. Compromising and breeding a smaller buck just to say he has so and so’s bloodline behind him just doesn’t get me going anymore. What would I look for in a yearling or any breeder… Huge, Huge, Huge a solid production pedigree and then lastly and most importantly Huge. If he don’t knock your socks off and you have to convince yourself if he’s good enough then in most cases he’s not good enough. The point I was trying to make and probably failed to communicate well was consider AIing with your up and coming young boys and not live breeding them. For example I would love to breed my 2 year old buck Moneymaker but have decided to just AI with him and not live breed. I remember great advice from Gene Flees years ago when he said breed your yearling bucks and watch them shrink. Mark Sipes said something like you couldn’t pay him enough to breed his best yearlings. If anyone can make him work in Texas it’s probably you Jason. Just a heads up bud. Best of luck and God bless.

It must depend on the number of does they breed or maybe depends on the buck himself. I know i bred 3 yearling does with my best yearling buck and he made a huge jump. I imagine it depends on many things like how many does, How much they had to run them around and probably even the bloodline of the buck himself.

For me it's real simple, I only have 3 yearling's here. I have two year old's that are way bigger but they were not near as nice last year when they were yearling's as two of the three are this year. I will use the best two, one to back up my a.i. doe's, one to live cover a yearling doe and also be exposed to this year's early doe fawn's that I put cidr's in.



For a.i. I dont like to buy straw's from yearling's but have and still will some, just cant help it. There are so many nice yearling's out there and the number's keep going up each year on quality yearling's. Any way I like to use buck's that have proven doe's in there pedigree, the more great doe's the better. I like buck's that were nice yearling's, dont have to be the largest as yearling's. But they were larger each year as they aged and keept a great look (frame) as they aged. Also like buck's that at least have nice yearling's on the ground, even though I am positive a lot of the credit the buck may get should go to some of the doe's in his pedigree and doe's he was matched up with. Another thing about yearling's, you see buck's advertised with there yearling photo even when they are 3 or 4 year's old, why is that was that there best year. I used straw's from a real nice yearling's a couple year's ago, have never seen a photo of him as a 2 or 3 year old. Have ask the man that has him on his farm with no luck, would think I had ask for a photo of his wife or something.



All that said, it's just hard to lay off on breeding with some of the awesome yearling's and two year old's out there.



Odd's are good that the buck that would have been the best producing buck ever was shot on a preserve somewhere because he was not the largest yearling or two year old and was never put in with a doe.

Wayne and Rodney, you guys are speaking the truth. Thanks for the posts!

The question I have is if you have a great yearling buck wouldn't it make more sense business wise to begin marketing the buck to build a reputation and demand for the animal? It seems to me rushing to breed an animal before the market is aware of the animal will reduce the overall value and in the end possibly cost the owner more money than necessary.

Chris what are you calling a great yearling buck? I ask because I have seen top name brand stuff end up being duds as yearlings. Face it , the reason we pick out a certain deer in the first place is because it caught our eye. Then we analyze every tier in the pedigree to see if it has and should give you what your looking for. As far as advertising at an early age , absolutely nothing wrong. I have simmered on yearlings till they were two just to see if my hunch paid off. Most of the time my gut instinct is dead on. The area I feel should be most addressed like Russ said is in your end product (shooters) anyway. After saying all this, all I want to do is grow big bone because im a hoarder!!! I need to cover my bills, but I could care less if I ever sold the bucks or semen ,lol

La. Bone Collector said:

Chris what are you calling a great yearling buck? I ask because I have seen top name brand stuff end up being duds as yearlings. Face it , the reason we pick out a certain deer in the first place is because it caught our eye. Then we analyze every tier in the pedigree to see if it has and should give you what your looking for. As far as advertising at an early age , absolutely nothing wrong. I have simmered on yearlings till they were two just to see if my hunch paid off. Most of the time my gut instinct is dead on. The area I feel should be most addressed like Russ said is in your end product (shooters) anyway. After saying all this, all I want to do is grow big bone because im a hoarder!!! I need to cover my bills, but I could care less if I ever sold the bucks or semen ,lol

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Good point! So why would anyone want to hold off and not breed a yearling if he matches up great and you feel he will make you great stockers. I think some do not look at stockers as the big picture. Who cares what he looks like at 2 or 3 or 4 IF stockers are your main goal and he is gettin the job done for YOU!

The first picture is Bucky at age 3, and the 2nd picture is Bucky at age 4.

I guess I see it like this! If it is for your own farm breed him if you are planning to sell semen and offspring out of him be careful! I say that because you could have lots of customers who may be slightly unhappy if he becomes smaller because of being over used!

If you have a this year buck fawn in a pen with does will he breed. That would make him about six month old.