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I think John Swank makes an excellent point and I for one dont believe a preserve owner is going to quit producing his own bucks if his number of hunters doubles. In fact I expect the preserves will produce more bucks if they know they can sell them. It is far easier and cheaper to open a gate and run bucks into the preserve than to buy them elsewhere and haul them in (at fair prices that is). This certainly is not a slam on the preserves. It is just good business on their part to get their bucks as cheap as possible.The real question is, can we come up with a plan that benefits the whole industry long term, not just the preserves? The more I think about the "big picture" the more I realize that a solution might not even be possible. Maybe the law of "supply and demand" will just have to run its cycles as it does in other livestock industries? When producing bucks becomes unprofitable, producers will get out of the business until the demand makes it profitable again. Why would deer farmers want to help fund a program to help recruit new preserve clients if there is no guarantee that those extra bucks will be bought from deer farmers but instead be produced by the preserves themselves? If you really look at some of the bigger breeders who own preserves, they have been producing many of their own shooters while also selling their doe fawns to new deer farmers for a premium price as well as supplying high dollar semen. Deer Farmers have been buying up these high dollar doe fawns and breeding them with the high dollar semen and in fact have pumped as much money into the pockets of some preserve owners as those preserves have put into the pockets of the deer farmers from whome they buy bucks. Even if we do double the number of shooter bucks needed each year, what have we really done? I think the only result is that we lengthen the time frame of the current market until once again the preserves can produce most of their own shooter bucks and then once again we find ourselves right back where we are now.
I think John Swank makes an excellent point and I for one dont believe a preserve owner is going to quit producing his own bucks if his number of hunters doubles. In fact I expect the preserves will produce more bucks if they know they can sell them. It is far easier and cheaper to open a gate and run bucks into the preserve than to buy them elsewhere and haul them in (at fair prices that is). This certainly is not a slam on the preserves. It is just good business on their part to get their bucks as cheap as possible.
The real question is, can we come up with a plan that benefits the whole industry long term, not just the preserves? The more I think about the "big picture" the more I realize that a solution might not even be possible. Maybe the law of "supply and demand" will just have to run its cycles as it does in other livestock industries? When producing bucks becomes unprofitable, producers will get out of the business until the demand makes it profitable again. Why would deer farmers want to help fund a program to help recruit new preserve clients if there is no guarantee that those extra bucks will be bought from deer farmers but instead be produced by the preserves themselves? If you really look at some of the bigger breeders who own preserves, they have been producing many of their own shooters while also selling their doe fawns to new deer farmers for a premium price as well as supplying high dollar semen. Deer Farmers have been buying up these high dollar doe fawns and breeding them with the high dollar semen and in fact have pumped as much money into the pockets of some preserve owners as those preserves have put into the pockets of the deer farmers from whome they buy bucks. Even if we do double the number of shooter bucks needed each year, what have we really done? I think the only result is that we lengthen the time frame of the current market until once again the preserves can produce most of their own shooter bucks and then once again we find ourselves right back where we are now.
