This is my first year in Deer Farming. At this time i have 1.12 acres under high fence. This area is divided into two pens. One of these pens is just a little bigger than the other. I have 1 breeder buck and 3 doe in each pen at this time. All the doe should have fawns if everything goes good. I am in the process of working on more pens but i am still in the welding part of things. The rain in Texas this winter slowed me down. I should have 1 more pen done in the next 4 weeks. Can some of you smaller sized farmers share with me how you seperate your deer? I am not sure what i should do once the fawns start showing up. One more thing i will not be bottle feeding this year. I should be able to bottle feed a few fawns next season.
Pasture Managment Please Help
- Thread starter Split Creek
- Start date
Split Creek i have not had any trouble with leaving my brood bucks in with the does during fawning, I would move my fawns out when it comes time to wean and seperate them.
Split Creek, I agree with Randell-bucks won't intentionally hurt the fawns but I have seen bucks get frisky when the weather changes and mine used to run around in the pens and while no fawn ever got hurt, there's no way the bucks could have kept from kicking/stomping the fawns if I'd left them together. I would recommend moving your bucks when you get your third pen built.
Split Creek you probably wont have a problem with your sires in with them but keep an eye on them for a day or too sires can be nasty to them. what we do is take a couple of the blue plastic 55gal drums and strap along the fence were the deer run the fawns will generaly go in them for protection
Okay thanks for the reply. I like idea of the plastic drums and i will try that. What i also hope to get out of a few different farmers is how they seperate the deer. I am not as clear on this as i want to be. How many different pastures do i need and how do you all seperate your deer herd each year? Do you have a pen for doe fawns and a seperate one for buck fawns? Doe you have a seperate pen for 1, 2, and 3 year old bucks? Basically i want to now from as many people as possible how many pens you have and how you keep your deer herd seperated.
Joined May 2009
2,369 Posts | 0+
Chillicothe, Missouri
We have 9 pens but 4 are for our fawns during fawnig and bottle feeding for our farm and a few others but we use our handling facility to seperate ours in the fall when we vacinate and again in the spring when we vacinate again. We seperate our fawns,does A/I and live cover and we will start a 1,2,3 year old buck pen this fall and all our pens are conected to the alley way and have multiple gates for ease of movement when mowing or handling the deer.
We have 9 pens as well.......but every situation is different......pen size....number of animals an other things determine how you seperate your herd. I will say a lot of farmers keep 1,2 and 3 year olds in the same pen together with veruy little or no problems.......keeping their breeder bucks in a pen of their own......but again it comes down to how big your pens are and how many deer you have......