Why are all of these big bucks dying?

ddwhitetails said:

First you have Sudden Impact and Bam Bam...then Wesson and noe Maxbo XL........you never hear of how they die so obviously that leaves one to wonder......Does anyone no the reason for why any of these bucks died? There have been a lot of great animals lost this year.......is it EHD, Antler infections.....or some oth reasons......would be nice to know......

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Good question,

We nearly lost Redwood & that was because of a velvet infection. It happen right near the end, he rubed the velet back on only a couple points & didn't continue to rub for a couple days & thats all the time the flys needed to hatch their eggs & from there it got seroius real fast. We noticed that he was looking hot & his one drop tine was swelling up. 4hrs later we put him down & removed his antlers.

Is it because of the stress added by growing these giant antlers. When the antlers are that big obviously they are more prone to having problems. It just seems to be the big ones because you here about them. How many normal bucks died that we didn't get to here about.

In my own personal opinion it seems the larger the antlers a buck has, the more chance he has to injure them in some way and get an infection. Also the bigger the rack the more blood there is in it..more likely to bring the infection back to the main body. The smaller racked bucks when injured seem more likely just to dry the velvet up rather than seal over like the larger racked bucks. Plus the late heat up north seems to make the deer more prone to infection right before the polish. IMO

I just want to put this idea out there for people to ponder... how many TRUE 400" B&C bucks have lived to breed the year following their 400" score? Start making a list of 400's from this year and past years... then start marking off all the bucks who didn't get to breed again. How many does everyone have left on their list and what percentage died? I think this is a good test to see where we should be directing our breeding programs.



It's not always the antlers that get the hunters all pumped up anyway. For quite a few years now we have been selling 3 yearolds that are consistently 225 - 275 pounds with big typical mainframes up to 200". Well I got more comments back from the preserve hunters on the body size then I did on the actual racks and they were 160"-200" mainframe bucks! Breeding for bigger bone structure in our animals will be very beneficial to the longevity of our big score deer. We have been doing this for years now and have never had a buck as much as dip his head from the weight, that includes Slingshot at 375+ lbs. Don't believe me, stop by and I'll show you a pen with a couple 200 pound young does!

I would be interested in seeing some pics of those big does and their back rounds . We have the big horns already but bigger than normal bodies would also be a reason to attract more hunters....like they say , "you can't eat the horns" but more venison for your buck wouldn't hurt anything. Jim

We lost soaring Eagle and a real nice 3yr old out of Soaring eagle last week due to infection in the antler

There is a term used in dog breeding and showing called "breed standard" where the "perfect" dog is one that conforms closest to the standard of the breed, which is measured many characteristics and conformation points. Has deer farming / raising / growing reached a point where we are no longer true to the breed? What I'm saying is, We must consider the whole deer and all of it's characteristics antler, color, health, mental stability, survivability ( if that's a word) . As breeders we all need to become the caretakers of the breed as if we we responcible for putting a buck and a doe on "Noah's Ark" and this would be the base of the species. Breeding for the sake of breeding the biggest buck ever and fudging the standard of the breed might have come at quite an expense. As the gardian of my herd I am not only responsible for feeding them but as a captive herd, their genetics thus their entire being. For example , it would be irresponsible of me to breed /AI my herd to South Texas genetics, not that they are inferior deer but the conditions where I live would not allow them to live and thrive. Texas deer have hide and hair coat much thinner and sparcer and they store very little back and muscle fat in comparison to the deer that live 2000 miles north of them and need to survive at 50 degrees below.

Curtis, I agree very much with your statement.

Is it due to the abnormally cold weather that we are having. Causing them to not shed all the way out in a couple of day's. My first buck that started to shed out stopped after he oppened up the tips on a Thursday and didnt finish the job until the following Tuesday.



I talked to another long time deerfarmer and he brought up the cold weather idea.

Last year PJ started, and then quit. It was hot that day and he was driving himself crazy, with the velvet just hanging. I was afraid he was going to over heat, so I dropped him and took the velvet off myself.

I feel we have two problems for these animals having antler infection problems.



First is the fact we have not raised an animal that can carry the weight of these antlers. This has caused stress on the animal lowering his imune system. We should put as much breeding into larger body animals as we do for antler size if for nothing else as to make animals that have 300 inches of antler more comfortable.



I think we will never be able to stop the flys from working over the deer antler as these big antlers are so ingorged with blood and tissue. We need to find a product that will kill fly eggs as they are hatched which we can put on these deer. The product should be long lasting. Any ideas on this guys?? Just an opinion.

You guys up north have house fly problems. For what ever reason, I rarely ever see a house fly on our deer.



I guess its in the geography?

dennis , we have to keep foremost in our mind that sone deer are put on this earth just looking for a place to die, no matter what anyone does. I do believe that harsh decisions in animal husbandry need to be considered with heavy antlered deer and severe distress must be dealt with quickly and if that means cutting antlers in mid july and giving up the fully grown antlers for a year to save a buck to breed or draw from..... Life is not about making easy decisions, you don't live until you make the hard ones and no matter where the chips fall they will never cover your character.

After raising one of these monsters, Double Down, I can tell you that most of the bucks I see carrying giant sets of antlers are younger deer with absolutely tiny bodies. DD made a huge jump, (at the time), from 2 to 3- he could handle it because he was a huge bodied deer. Ask anybody who saw him as a 4 year old if he was big bodied? Now these huge jumps are made from 0-1 or 1-2. The bucks are immature and smaller bodied. When raising cattle, it is not the biggest bodied bull that we breed with but the one that throws medium sized calves and puts the gain on quick. I am not saying that these big yearlings are not awesome, but they will be dead before they get shot because of the stress that the enormous antler brings. I want my deer to be big bodied because my hunters like it and it sets the stage to breed giants to them with the hopes that they can handle the weight. I still say that the next giant typical will come from not crossing typ to typ. But NONTYPICAL to Typical.

Dustin, You are exactly right. We need big bodies. I think TJ’s 5 year old huge body saved him from it being worse. His biggest problem was all the weight was out front in those huge drop tines. We are definitely planning on cutting him early next year (if he lives that’s long!).



I also agree with you 100% on the breeding theory. If we are after huge typical frames, I don’t think you get there by breeding 200 inch typicals to 200 inch typicals. You have to take the most bone possible and then bring in the typical frame. I always loved using DoubleDown and Timberjack because of the AMOUNT of bone they produced. We are also planning on using BamBam. Then we plan on crossing that with Maxbo, Martygraw, Hydro Ax, Maxbo 727, Maxbo Impact, Highway 10 and other more typical deer. Mike has a huge son out of BamBam that is very wide, framey, with lots of extras and has great drops. He is a hunters dream! And a preserve owners dream because he scores well AND has a great “Shock affect”.



One more thing I’d just like to say here. I have been in the preserve business and guiding hunters since 1993. I have probably watched hunters take over 2000 animals in that time. All this talk about typicals makes me roll my eyes a little. People that don’t even own a preserve talk like they know exactly what the hunters want. Well I can tell you this:



If they all looked the same, it would be just like the elk. They wouldn’t need but one or two on their wall. My best hunters come back EVERY year to get something different. The want a wide buck, a tall buck, a heavy buck, a buck with drops, a buck with lots of kickers, a buck with tall tines, a buck with a basket rack (tines are tall and turn in), a buck that lays out, and it goes on and on. People say “Sam, you used to preach the typical bucks”. Wrong, I’ve always preached the bucks with “Shock affect” Give me a buck with “Shock affect” that scores well, and I’m happy. Can I sell big clean 8 pointers and 10 pointers. ALL DAY LONG. They give the hunter the most bang for his dollar. But I don’t make as much on them. And they sell good because they are rare. If they were a lot of them I think they would quickly lose their luster!



That’s just my thought…Not worth much! But as this season begins to kick off all my hunters want something a little different! It looks like a year for non-typicals!