How did you get started whitetail farming?

Hey guys! I've always been intrigued by the stories of how and why farmers got started in the whitetail industry. If you could jot your experience down I would love to read it and I'm sure others would too!

I'll get the ball rolling here.



25 years ago when my dad, an avid hunter, bought 15 acres of property to build a house on, he wanted to start a deer farm. It has been his dream from then on! But back then he had no idea how to get started.

Two years ago my dad started talking about it again and his brother actually knew fellow deer farmer Steve Stem. We contacted Steve and viewed his farm in early spring, then again when his fawns were born dad and I went down for a long weekend to learn about them. We put up fence and a barn and in January of 2012 we purchased three bred doe. I have to say that the whole community of whitetail farmers have been very helpful to us! God has blessed us so much, to be able to look out into the backyard and see our deer out there is awesome. I hope to keep our little farm thriving and I am starting to branch the Antler Company out through taxidermy and pedicle repair. It's a lot of fun and I wouldn't trade it for anything!



Just for fun, I created a FaceBook page for our friends and relatives to keep up with our farm. https://www.facebook.com/AmentsAntlerCo

Welcome autumn! I started 4 yrs ago with a one acre doe pen, now I have 2 doe pens and 3 buck pens with what I think are quality deer, Made mistakes like most, bought deer from a shady character ! learned quick and made great purchases from some great people! Im happy and Im also happy for you!!!! Good Luck!!!!





Scott Neeb

www.chanllowfarms.com

1-570-386-2468

I was just thinking about this the other day and to be honest I could not think of what it was that made me buy my first deer. I would guess it was because I have always liked hunting whitetail and was interested in learning all that I could about deer. I think that I went up to Don Higgin's farm to buy tree's one spring and seen his deer and I just decided I wanted some. Don had better quality anmal's than I thought I needed at that time, so I bought a few cheap fawn's from another farm to start out. If I had known then what I know now I would have started out with fewer but much better deer from the start. And it would have been bred doe's not fawn's that I bought first if I had a do over.

I do some taxidermy work and I gave my wife the best sales pitch I've ever pitched! I told her to be a better taxidermist, i needed to have live references. She unwillingly agreed and we bought a couple doe fawns and bottle fed them in a dog kennel, proceeded to put up one pen that summer and after that she was hooked. We then continued with the cheap route of lesser genetics and our first year of fawning ended up having 9 fawns out of more does we bought and the bottle raised does and every fawn was a doe! Another setback! Then, our luck changed. I got very lucky and guessed the score of Xfactor and won a straw of him. Just that one stroke of fate has forced me to get into better genetics. Someone told me that it costs the same to feed good genetics as it does to feed lesser ones! That is so true!! As someone stated in previous posts, I would change a lot of things of how I got started, but I wouldn't change the fact that we actually got started. It has helped me learn from my mistakes. I love deer farming and am going to do this for many years to come. I hope my kids will then carry it on.



Chad

I remember the day I started like it was yesterday.

It was the summer of 2006, I was helping toss and load hay bales into the pickup truck (like I have done every summer since I was 6 or 7 years old) I believe we were helping the neighbor with his hay field. We were finishing up for the day, and the neighbor asked me to come and look at his buck. I thought, wow, that is amazing, he has a buck. I was absolutely thrilled! He had a bottlefed 3 year old buck, probably about 140" (he was in velvet and 2/3 done growing his rack), and I was petting him on the nose, that was the first time I ever petted a deer. I had always hunted and I just absolutely loved whitetails, but when I got to pet one that day, I knew I absolutely had to own some.

That summer I got help and we put up 2 acres of fence, and by the end of September of 2006 I brought home my first 3 does and a small breeder buck.

I was content to have "just deer" for a year or two, but the more research I did, the more I realized I needed to make some money to support my herds feed bill, so the last 3 years have been a heavy "remodeling" of my herd, and I am getting to the point I am very happy where I am at, hoping for 1 or 2 of my bucks to go 300" this year, and several others have a shot a 200". (praying for a EHD free summer, and no velvet infections/ injuries)

I would change a lot of things of how I got started, but I wouldn't change the fact that we actually got started. It has helped me learn from my mistakes.

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Very True Chad!! I would say the same for myself getting started.

You guys have some good stories, thanks for writing them down!

Thanks Scott, it's an exciting adventure!

Chad, What a story! That's a crazy stroke of luck, or divine intervention! Either way that's awesome. I know that having deer has helped me a great deal in taxidermy and drawing by just observing them and their habits.

AntlerShed, We will all be looking forward to pictures of your bucks this fall. 300" is quite a number! EHD is getting to close for comfort for everyone, I know I'll be making a spray system for this summer.

I bought my first deer because my MoM moved to town and loved watching deer when she lived on the home place. Then she would come out to the same farm I built my farm on and she would look for the wild deer!? I miss her!!! Charlie...

For me it was an obsession for whitetail that I wanted to take to the next level. I bought a farm and had worked on every aspect of it to improve wildlife and have a safe place for them and my family to enjoy. I remember talking about it with hunting buddies who thought I had lost my mind. I put my fence up 2 years before I ever bought my first deer wondering if they were right? All the while attending auctions and visiting farms all across the country. I bought 5 bred does bred to local bucks who consistently grew great deer and still have offspring from them in my herd today. I'm addicted to the whitetail now .......probably like few others! My obsession consumed me and I went all in raising, selling and buying deer.

By the first fall in the deer business I had gone from 5 does to 35 and I had gone full dipshit into being a deerfarmer...........I spent every minuet of everyday talking deer and pestering other Deerfarmers across the country about all they knew about whitetail deer!

I lost interest in my day job of owning a succsessful construction company of 25 years !I found that for me there was no turning back!

I had to be near my deer and promoting and caring for them so I made changes and cut back and learned to live with less excess in my life and ENJOY my deer!

I could not do it WITHOUT the support of my wife of 30 years and my children and their help!

Today we are committed to growing deer with tools I have learned from some of the True Deer Breeders in the country............

Proven Lines of deer for Proven Results that will bring you a Paycheck year after year REGAURDLESS of what the MARKET is doing .........PERIOD!



I have made mistakes along the way...........those mistakes we make in life and in business are what make us who we are and mistakes are not always a bad thing I believe They make us stronger and more appreciative of what we have.



I'm TRUELY THANKFUL to EVERYONE who has HELPED me with my "SICKNESS" along the way!

Awesome stories everyone.........I thank God for creating such an awesome animal!! PERIOD!

We started the same as many people with an intense interest in whitetails. First we had the idea of starting to raise them and started looking for other deer farmers and talking to them. This was 1994 and there weren't a ton of folks doing this then. The more we talked about it the more we thought we could turn it into a living. So instead of starting small we went big. A lot has changed since we started - back then most everything was focused on breeding stock and now we believe the emphasis is on the hunting side of things. That is where the growth is and shooter bucks are needed all across the country. When we started everything we raised went to the breeding market now it is going to our hunting ranches.



If you've seen our TV show you can see we haven't lost our interest and passion for the whitetail!

Of course like most of us I had a burning desire to be around whitetail deer. I went to college and got a wildlife degree and a Masters in Business. Then I taught at the University of Missouri for 23 years to support my habit. I was lucky to have a big family farm and in 1983 I started raising gamebirds and doing quail, pheasant, and chuckar hunts. I started in the whitetails in 1992. I wanted to fence in my farm because I was so frustrated with all the hunters shooting bucks at 1 1/2. So I started with a small pen and bought a bunch of fawns from the Buck MO Geronimo. Then I decided to fence in our farm and did that in a big way in 1993. I just started cutting 13 ft cedar posts and drilling holes to put them in! I didn't know hoe to build 8 ft fence but learned as I went along. The deer got some age on them and the hunters started coming. From there its been and up and down roller coaster ride but I wouldn't change a thing. There is no other business that I can think of where you can do exactly what you love to do and be around good people that share the the same values. I am extremely lucky and thankful!

Back in about 1993 I started looking at the idea of doing something for a little extra income on the side. My cousin Dale Kremsreiter had been raising whitetails for many many years already at that point. In fact at one point he owned an exotic zoo in northern WI and was familiar with and had knowledge of all sorts of animals. Dale was most likely my driving influence to enter the whitetail world. Dale's influence in the industry can still be seen today even at places like the Top 30 sale by looking at pedigrees. For those who know what they are looking at they will see the animals that trace back to Dale. Many don't give credit to those who came before them or who sold them the stock to build a successful whitetail operation. I give a great deal of credit to my cousin though. He was an honorable man who served his country and eventually paid for it with his life due to health affects from agent orange. Dale was my cousin, my deer mentor, and through our connect from deer became my best friend.

My former wife and I started out small and stayed that way. After researching and planning we started in 1995. Some years breeding only 4 does and when we were really big it was about 10 does. In 2001 we started doing A/I to really step up our genetic program. Despite always being very small in numbers we consistently produced large bucks every year. I am proud of how our percentages have worked for us. It is one thing to raise a few big bucks while breeding 20 or 50 or more does, it is quite another to raise a few big bucks each year while breeding only a handful of does.

Along the way we learned a great deal by trial and error. To this point I have built and or rebuilt my deer farm 5 times. We went from losing fawns every year to not losing any fawns most years. I credit my former wife for that improvement. She did an awesome job with the girls on the bottle. Over the years we tried cutting antlers and then not cutting antlers. To cut or not to cut, there is a debate that will never end! Then there is the great feed debate. LOL! Loose grain or pellet, high fat levels or low, high protein or mid range, garlic or not and on and on.

Along the way I have made some amazing friendships that will last forever. And as with any business you will have those who are not so pleased with you. Sometimes a little success paints the biggest target on you. All I can say is I try to make sure everyone is happy having done business with me. It is my hope we all make money along the way. I find those who have made the most from having done business with me are those who return to do even more business with me. But it is important to realize that not everyone will be happy and you can't let that get you down.

Overall the deer industry has been very very good to me. Yes I made some money, but the real benefit has been the friendships. In early 2011 my world became unraveled and if it had not been for the friends in my life I am not sure how I would have ever made it through. The whitetail deer is an amazing creature no doubt, but our friends are so much more important. I am saddened every time I hear a story of how someone has let greed or ego get in the way of friendship.

I want to thank everyone of my dear/deer friends I have met along the way.

Dale was indeed a fine man and great deerfarmer. When he decided to get out of the business we bought his entire herd. Our buck Stretch came from Dale when we got a bred doe from him.



As Roger says, there are many good people in this business, but just like any business there are a few bad apples. We place a high degree of importance on honesty and integrity.

The responses are really awesome, keep 'em coming!

Roger, I'm sorry to here about your tragedy in 2011. I urgently pray that things are better now. You have a great story though, it's quite inspiring!

I 2005 a friend of mine got a job running a hunting preserve 25 miles from my house. He had no idea how to run the preserve and knew nothing about raising deer. I didn’t know anything about it either. All he was hired for was to feed the deer, check the fence and make sure everyone kept out. Pretty easy job! I was amazed that someone could make money like that. After he got the job he called me and asked me if I knew anyone that had a preserve so he could go there and try to figure out what the heck he was supposed to be doing. I said “I have a friend in Indiana named Russ Bellar that has a preserve, He has been inviting me for years to his place.” I told him that I could probably take him down there and we could check it out. I went with him to Bellar’s place and really didn’t want to because I had no interest in raising deer, I was just trying to be a good friend.



Within 2 minutes of arriving at Bellar’s place, I was 100% hooked. This was a Disneyland for outdoorsmen. This was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I could not get it out of my mind. When I got home I announced to my wife that I was going to start a deer farm. This was in May and by October I had my pens done and had my first deer. I have NEVER regretted the decision one single day. Good days, bad days or otherwise, I love every single minute of it.