quote:

Researcher Investigates Water Consumption by Whitetail Deer
by Colleen Schreiber

...Little is known, however, about just how much WT (my abbrev.) deer consume in S. Tx environments. Hunter Brooks, a graduate student at Texas A&M Kingsville, set out to address this question. More specifically he wanted to see how age, season, and deer density affect water consumption in a WTD population.

...The study was conducted on the Commanche and Faith Ranches in Dimmit County......The actual study encompassed 2 200 acre enclosures on each ranch. One with 20 deer and one with 60 deer. Actual numbers.

...The data included runs from Jan. to August, 2015.

..."We saw a lot of individual variation, for example one buck visited the water trough 261 times while a doe in the same enclosure only visited 3 times."

...Overall the average individual water consumption on a weekly basis for the bucks was 4/10ths gal., for the does it was about half that.

...Brooks also found that season did not affect water consumption for bucks on any age, nor did it affect does younger than 6.5 years.

...Does over 6.5 years of age, he found, did drink significantly more water during the spring and summer season.