Texas Tea @ 3...

There was "something" at the farm while I was away working that spooked the deer worse than anything that's ever happened to us. My farm hand never saw what it was, but it left every doe in my calmest pen with cuts and scrapes from hitting the fence, and 2 of my best does were dead. A Wildman ****, and mine and my daughter's favorite deer on the farm "Lu-Lu"... a Poncho **** that we adored. Not because of her pedigree, but because of how sweet she was.



I was finally able to come home last night and thought the bucks made it through without harm. When I woke up this morning Texas Tea was just off. I noticed he had damaged his left beam and he wasn't looking good at all. So I call Barkley and Cole and we darted him tonight. Good thing, because he already had maggots in his left beam from the damage. We reversed him and he's back in his pen hopefully on his way to a full recovery.



Seeing him every day has made me a little numb to how big and impressive he really is. Barkley and Cole have been raising huge framed deer for the past 12 years, and they were both blown away at how big Tea is the year. In fact, Cole was mad at me for not promoting him more. I guess I've just been so busy with work that I haven't had time to really show him off.



Anyway, here are some of his rough stats:



Inside Spread: 30"

Outside Spread" 41"

Right Beam 30"

Left Beam (damaged) almost 28"



He should score between 340" - 350", but his frame, tine length and mass are just insane.



I've always given Barkley and Cole nearly all of the credit for helping me produce such an incredible whitetail. However, their support and friendship in good times and bad have been the biggest blessing that my family and I could ever ask for. Tea is not out of the woods yet, but without them being here tonight his chances would be much less for surviving. Thanks guys... I owe you much more than I can ever say!



Here are a few pictures of Cole with Tea... Cole's lost a lot of weight but he's still a big ole boy at 240 lbs... just to give you some perspective.



Thanks again to everyone for their incredible support over the years!



Mike











__________________

Michael Heiter

WillPenn Whitetails

814-242-9119

Thanks for all of the support everyone. I'm very happy for everyone that got fawns out of Tea this year. We only have 6 straws left for the North this year. And that's out of a total of only 15 straws for this breeding season. Price is still $3000/straw and that's the same price that we finished up with last year. No increase even though he's obviously much bigger.



Wayne - you have always been so supportive and have the nicest things to say about our farm and how we do business. It makes it all worth it to hear such amazing feedback from our friends and customers. Once again Wayne... you have truly blessed us with incredible support! We can't thank you enough.



Mike

dearjohn said:

Sorry for your bad luck. Do you have shade cloth on your pens?

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We do have shade cloth around all of our pens. Unfortunately, I don't think it helped much in this situation. From what I was told, I don't think the deer actually saw who the intruder was... my guess is it was a bear and that possibly the strange smell alone got them all worked up. We've only had 2 bear sightings at our place in 10 years. And it was always this time of year where a "stray" was just wandering through. We are down off the mountains by almost 10 miles so there really are no resident bears that live here. I know that it could have been many things, but this is just a guess based on how calm the deer are and how worked up they became.

Mitch P said:

Man Mike I`m sorry to hear this !! Tea looks fantastic buddy congrats ! I hope this is all the bad luck you see . Seems sometimes the calmest deer get the most worked up for some reason . I hope tea continues to recover . Good luck Mike !!

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Thanks so much Mitch. It's been a while since we've chatted and it's very nice to hear from you. I really appreciate your well wishes, and want you to know that it means a lot to me coming from you.

Tea seems to be doing great so far and hopefully on his way to a full recovery!



I hope that you've been doing well and enjoying your summer.



Thanks again,



Mike

Thanks again everyone for all of the nice comments. Mitch - you are too kind!!! It must be the ******* blood that we share... my Grandparents and Aunt's are Lewandowski and Wasielewski!!! Wow, did I just admit that! LOL.



Here are a couple of pictures of Tea that I had and didn't post. I was waiting to get some right before he finished growing, but these will be the last one's with his headgear still attached!

You've got me beat Mitch. The only Polish I used to hear was when my Grandmother would yell at me in it!!! I'm not sure, but I think she may have been cussing me out... LOL!