Rustyblaster said:
Blackshire,
I've never had a bottle-fed buck. The risk is too great to have a hormonal temper tantrum running around the neighborhood during rut. You say to build up a fortress so your deer are properly contained. That's fine for the occasional jail break but what about the nosy neighbors or kids when you aren't at home. Sure, they are breaking the law if they come a snoopin' but that won't pay the medical bills when the judge says pay up. No matter how bad the neighborhood kids might be I don't want to have to know my hobby caused serious injury or death. That's where I draw the line.
Tame versus untame might be the debate here.
For us, our risk of that happening is low for the most part...our property is fenced in and gated around the perimeter and you cannot get in without entering a code at the gates. Aside from that, while we're still technically within city limits, we're out in the country with only a few houses nearby. The only one with children has been given the gate code to come in, but we've explained to them that the bucks are dangerous this time of year and they are not to enter the pens (plus those pens are back out of the main drag for the most part). I keep my two bottle-raised does in a separate pen up front which I allow them to enter if they want...even then, they normally will visit the deer through the fence since we chain all our gates closed as a little extra security.
I do agress tame vs untame is probably the biggest debate here...but even then, I think a lot of it is just the individual buck.
This may sound a bit sexist and I apologize to you ladies out here, but it's the best example I was able to come up while discussing this with my roommate earlier... think of it as a woman during her monthly cycle. Some women can be complete b*tches...and others you'd never know they're PMS'ing.
We've bred both bottle feds and mother raised bucks on our farm since I've been working out there (bout 5 years now)...our tamest bottle fed who we bred 2 or 3 years ago wasn't aggressive toward us at all. Granted, when he came near, I would head straight back through the door...but he didn't act any different when he saw me around the fence lines or anything. We had another buck we bred who wasn't tame at all and when I'd walk into that pen...he'd start snorting and immediately start heading my direction, even from across the field. I don't doubt for a second that he had one thing on his mind--attack the threat to HIS does. I've also heard the stories, such as this thread where the tame bucks just go insane...the main reason for that is an untame buck is
usually scared of you enough that he won't get close, even when he sees you as a threat...until you become a BIG threat...then he'll finally snap. Whereas a tame buck...he sees you as a threat and he's not scared of you. You're fair game from the moment he decides you're a threat.
I know I was reading somewhere on one of our deer products (probably formula mix) that it flat out says...if you bottle-raise a buck, it should be castrated before it goes into rut and the above is the exact reason they recommend it. So if the OP doesn't want to kill their buck and doesn't intend to breed it again, castrating it may help. Of course, we don't do it because typically we don't have a problem with our bottle feds and usually our bottle feds end up bigger and healthier than our mother-raised so we prefer to breed with them.
But like I said before...when raising white-tailed deer, you should be aware of this risk and prepare for it. If you personally wish to kill all off all your aggressive bucks during rut...by all means, go for it...if that's your plan, then I don't have any issues with it. I'm no tree hugger...lol. But I don't agree with telling someone who doesn't appear to want to kill it that his
only option is to kill it. There's plenty of options out there that don't have to result in the death of the animal...especially a potentially good breeder. Sorry, I'm rambling...just woke up after a looong night.
