Ok...Im confused!!!

Four Seasons Whitetails said:

I guess i was wondering which way is right and how a new guy in this business can get started in the right direction. If you read a post on another thread you will hear sam and russ say that to stay in this for the long run you better grow bigger deer. Then if you listen to the auction companies they say you better buy flees does and maxbo ranger bucks. Then when it comes time to buy shooters they say they want big wide clean typical looking bucks that will bring top dollar on hunts but then you have deer that score better(more inches brings more money right) that they will not buy or will buy them for crap!!! Someone needs to get on the same page here because you cant have it both ways. Not to mention if you try to get in auctions..If you have breedings that will make a buck with more inches you will not get in because they need flees does and maxbo ranger bucks to get bids.. I guess some of us are confused and there are a few of us out here!!

Any ideas?????

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mike, your treding on thin ice, calling out ( the big ) names! but i like it . nice to see someone out here still has a set . LOL

This is a complex question that Mike brings up and no easy answer will do because everyone will have their way of doing it and that’s great. Capitalism! I think Sam was giving a hunting ranches perspective and that’s all. All the other entities of this business although exciting and rewarding are a different gorilla. If you can figure it all out you will be very successful indeed in the deer business. For me and this is only my opinion, I love em all. I like the big typical’s and nontypica’ls and diversify my genetics somewhat 2/3’s nontypical to 1/3 typical. The experiences that I have had with 12 years serving at Quest Haven I will ditto Sam’s post for the shooter buck part of this complex decision making process. The bucks I breed with live and LAI this year are all very big frame, wide, shock effect type nontypicals. New Image, Fear Factor, King Kong, Energizer, X Factor, Frequent Flyer and the list goes on with a few secrets I got up my sleeve. If any one of these monsters or offspring’s that resemble them step out in front of our hunters I usually plug my ears. Also, just in my opinion its fare easier to grow a 250"+ nontypical than it is to grow a 200" typical and if I sell them for about the same price I can produce 5 of the big nontypicals to every one big typical. My standards for a nontypical are they must be balanced and natural looking. I don’t breed for tumor heads as somebody once said but big open framed bucks with lots of extras. The more the better and the perfect buck to me looks a lot like New Image 528 SCI. 280 mainframe, 28 inside, 15” tines and lots of them, with 33” beams all with a balanced deer looking rack, sharp tines (no cauliflower tines) and hold his head up like a 200” buck no cutting his antler for damage. If I could raise 20 just like him I would retire. Nah probably still be deer farmin.

Mike, I wish I knew the answer to that question. I am working on building the doe's I want for future use. I wish it was easy to pick the right way to go. The one thing I am doing is breeding with buck's that I like the look that they have, and more important the look of there offspring.

Even if in the future only the big inch deer sell, I doubt that is the case but even if I still cant see going wrong right now breeding to monster framed buck's that seem to pass that on down the line.

I dont know what is right or wrong and every guy you talk to has another view on how it should be done.

So this year I used buck's that I liked, buck's that had great frame's and beam length,long tine's and a good spread, buck's that had some great doe's in there pedigree's. They were all 300"+ animal's except one. Next year I plan to do the same thing except on 3 doe's I am going with a nice looking mostly typical 7x7.



I may never make a dime on the deer but at least I hope to have some that have the look that I like.



When someone dose find the answer on what to do, please let me know. I am still searching and am sure that will not change any time soon.

Bruce said:

Going forward, for most of us, cost control will determine our operations profitability. Inventory control (don't overpopulate pens), time to market ( 200" @ 2), rein in ego costs and focus on improving your animal husbandry skills. As a mature industry the margins will shrink but the tools are available to remain profitable. If you don't understand farming don't raise deer.

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Amen Bruce, amen!

I love to hear all the different perspectives and certainly don't have the answers. As a matter a fact I am a very bad example and have lost my butt trying to figure out the breeding market, the political games, the auctions and all that crap. I have really quit trying. Some very high profile breeding bucks look good but are just "Average" shooters as far as what you would get to shoot them. I always scratch my head at the auctions.



What I try to do now is just like Russ said, raise big high scoring big framed whitetails using the type of bucks that produce. If I can raise or buy those, then it seems I have figured out that we get paid for them! And that’s pretty good motivation.



With that said I have bought a lot of deer and wrote a lot of checks over the last 20 years. If people are really sitting on a bunch of high scoring deer that they claim people don't want, well they are either asking too much, can't move them out of state, or haven't done a very good job of marketing them. I can guarantee you that at some price higher than what ANY typical will bring, someone will buy them all.



I also get a kick when I read on here that we have made it to 300, 400, 500, 600 and beyond...REALLY? Having one buck in the industry that makes it does not mean we are all raising them. I searched all over for shooters that scored over 400 inches. I found about a dozen that people claimed might make it and only one did. It still is quite a feat to raise one much less a pen full of them. If a breeder has several 300 inch deer to sell he is doing pretty well and in my book is probably in the top 30 (my book is way different).



I agree with Russ that we all need to make up our own strategies and marketing plans and raise deer that fit those plans(and that's part of the fun of raising whitetails). Don’t ask me for ANY advice on anything other than shooters. On all the other topics I am more confused than Mike (lol). If you plan on raising deer for the shooter market think about the following list. It represents the average prices I paid THIS YEAR. Imagine you have 10 bucks in a pen and want to sell all of them. Assume that none of them are really un-even or super narrow (under 15).



All 10 are pretty and score in the 170’s - sell easily for 25,000

All 10 are pretty big typicals and Score 200-220 - sell easily for 45,000

All 10 are non-typicals and Score 200-220 - hard to sell for 45,000 but easy to sell at 35,000

All 10 are typical and score 250-300 – Impossible to raise!!! (There is a goal)

All 10 are non-typical and score 250-300 – hard to sell at 75,000 but easy to sell at 50-60,000

All 10 are non-typical and score 300-350 – Hard to sell at 125,000 but easy to sell at 80-100,000 and really easy to sell at 75,000.

All 10 are non-typical and score 350-400 – harder to sell at anywhere from 150,000-200,000 but easy to sell at 100,000-150,000

All 10 over 400 – Impossible to raise but if you do, you will do alright!



Now what size would you like to raise? Keep up the comments!

Sam- that is possibly the most informative post I have ever read in relation to the "end product" of deer farming. Congrats on putting into print what others can not "wrap their heads" around.



Jerome

I think like people said above. This is a business and has to be treated as such. Set goals, and standards. When I got into this I told my self that I would sell every buck I have at 3 yrs old no matter what he ended up like. This will keep you from doing the (i think he will get bigger next year). That never works either they die (and u lost money) or they dont get any bigger but u fed them for another year. This also didnt make you any more money. Also I would say the majority of us will never break into the breeder market so dont kid your self. Grow the biggest bucks you can the quickest. My goal is exactly what bruce said. If I can get them to 200" @ 2 I will make a killing. As sam said ten mostly typical bucks from 200-220 will sell easy at $45,000. I have it down to about $250 per deer per year for feed. Do some simple math and that is a net profit of $40,000.



Ya I know that doesnt cover the doe that produce these bucks but lets look at it this way. If you are selling 10 2 year olds you have to have 10 yearlings and at least 10 doe plus lets say 2 breeder bucks so from september to next september you have 32 deer to feed. At $250 per deer per year thats $8,000 for feed for one year. At the end of the year you get your $45,000 for your 10 2 yr old shooters and you have just made a profit of $37,000.



Now I didnt cover meds, vet bill, and over population of does. Thats were your doe fawns come in. You sell off all doe fawns in the spring time to different farms, scent collection facilities, or you replace some of you old doe by sending them to slaughter and keeping a couple doe fawns and that money generated from that will cover the meds, and vet bills.



I know I am not a pro by any means but I guy has to have a plan if he is going to succeed at anything and this is where I want to get myself to.

Also, just in my opinion its fare easier to grow a 250"+ nontypical than it is to grow a 200" typical

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All 10 are pretty big typicals and Score 200-220 - sell easily for 45,000

All 10 are non-typicals and Score 200-220 - hard to sell for 45,000 but easy to sell at 35,000

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Speaks volumes IMHO





Also a quick Question for any Preserve owners out there. Which buck is shot quicker a two year old 200" buck or a 4 year old 200 " buck? Racks are identical and they are standing side by side on a open field.

200 " antlers are going to look larger on a smaller deer to most hunters.

big deer always

I would try and have my hunter shoot the 4yr old.

Rack being the same...Unless like you say, the hunter is fooled by the smaller body of the actual rack size, I say hunters would take the 4yr old body every time.

I think hunters would always shoot the big bodies.

DJ

So summing up mature 4yr old+ bucks that are mostly typical and over 200 will be more in demand than younger bucks, or more nontypical bucks of similar size.

Because

1. They are harder to raise in numbers??

2. They cost more to raise to an older age???

3. They appeal to slightly larger cross section of hunters??



Therefore they should hold their price better as the larger nontypical prices slid?

I have only ever been inside the fence on one preserve in my life ( Apple Creek )and have never hunted one but did get the chance to talk to several of the hunter's that were there. When I was in the cooler looking at the buck's and talking to the guy that had harvested them they were all as happy as they could be. They were telling me what they liked about there buck's, they were all big deer upper 200's to cleaner low 200's and each hunter shot there deer becaused they liked what they seen when it was in front of them. I know that even the guy's that were looking for a more clean typical buck said that when they seen that big inch monster in front of them they just couldnt pass on that deer. The way I took it from the hunter's a lot of them took larger deer than they had planed when they actualy seen that larger deer. Even if we are breeding for big inch buck's we are going to get a fair number of cleaner typical deer to cover that end of the market. But if we are breeding just for typical deer I am not sure that we will get enough big deer fast enough to pay the bill's. As pretty as a 200+ typical is, I think that they are far and few between as 3 year old's where you would need to be selling your buck's. To be honest I have never sold a buck yet, my first will go next year. But I do think to make money we need to be working at growing 200+ at 2 buck's. If I do get buck's over 200" as two year old's, I will sell a lot of them as 2 year old's. My original plan a few year's back was to raise mostly typical animal's shoot for 180 at 3, if I stuck to that plan there is no doubt that I would go broke and would be out of the deer bizz quick. After talking to some preserve owner's I have started breeding with fast maturing big inch deer, not because I want to raise 400" deer but because I do think I have to raise good looking 250"+ deer to survive and to get to the 250" on a regular basis we have to add the extra inch's. Now I do use some cleaner buck's to a.i. at this point because of there frame, but I am not doing it to raise shooter buck's. It is to build the doe I want two or three generation's down the line. When I do get to the point where I have the doe's that I want there is no doubt that I will then throw the biggest fastest maturing genetic's at them that I can afford to use for the shooter's market. I do think that in the long run producing inch's is where it's at for us smaller no name farm's.

I feel that it is hard to keep a deers frame clean and that if you strive for big framed typicals you are going to get big framed deer with extras. It is easy to add inches to a big frame and a big fram with extras looks alot better than a little frame with extras. I guess what I am saying is it is easy to get extras but harder to get big evan frames.

This Apple Creek hunter was overjoyed with her hunt

That is a beautiful buck right there!