How Many Acres of Food Plots
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots
Hey Grant, Thanks for the recent videos on herd monitoring using trail camera pictures (GDTV 35). I applied your formula for figuring the deer herd using a property and have some very interesting results. I’d love to get your feedback on what changes we need to make to ensure a better balance in our herd. We have… Our deer counts are… We experienced a severe flash flood of 12″ in a few hours on May 5th. Could this affect the fawn survival, thus accounting for the low fawn count? We are trying to figure out what acreage we need in food plots and a target doe harvest for this year. Thanks for your help! Walter
In Hickman County, Tennessee, 75 acres with 2.3 acres of food plots, 15 acres with 4 year old pine and the remaining in mature hardwoods. There is severe over browsing on anything we plant and understory browse is nonexistent (less than 4″ tall) in the hardwoods.
Unique bucks 8
Does 32
Fawns 1
Walter,
There probably weren’t many fawns on the ground by May 5th in your area. I think there’s a better chance that the fawns were not quit mature enough to be following their mothers during your survey. With that said, predators, disease, parasites, etc., can all remove a significant number of fawns shortly after they are born.
The four year old pine stand at your property is likely providing less quality forage each year, so that’s a declining food source. Likewise, the mature hardwoods, if they have a closed canopy provide very little quality forage annually. No forage is productive enough to provide quality browse for 40+ deer when the planting is limited to 2.3 acres. The total quality forage production on your property probably won’t adequately feed 40+ deer.
An easy method to confirm this is by using utilization cages to monitor the herd’s density with the habitat’s capacity to produce quality browse. If there’s not one already, I strongly recommend placing a utilization cage in the food plot to monitor the difference between the plots potential to produce forage and what it is currently producing. If there is a huge difference, which I suspect there will be if the plot has been established and maintained with quality forage, you need to harvest several does. In addition, deer herds express fewer signs of stress when the adult sex ratio is closer to being balanced. This is another reason to harvest does.
With all this said, the neighboring properties share the same herd that you are monitoring and managing. Hence, if a commercial soybean field adjoins your property then it is not as critical for you to provide quality forage during the growing season.
Take some time to consider how much food, cover, and water is available to the herd at your place and at your neighbors’ and then alter your management program to provide the resources that may be a limiting factor to the herd’s quality.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
