This is a practical question for a real requirement. I saw the thread on red deer antler development and thought someone might be able to help me here.

I have a deer farm with about 50 plus and minus fallow deer. Plus I manage a wild deer herd with the help of poachers, spotlighters etc as well.

The captive herd is easier to manage (obviously) and I am trying to build up superior antler genetics in the stags. I won't go further into any connections.

Food has a huge effect on the annual antler quality, but I have had extremely good (unproven) results with a particular supplement.

My question is how do you judge the antlers of immature stags, spikers and 2 year olds, and determine the chances their heads will be superior or just average in later years?

At the moment I have too many deer and am cullling back. Last year I started this and selected certain animals to be removed. I did not remove all of them. In some cases the animals I thought had no future, this year are showing very good heads or at least good promise. (note last year was a severe drought and supplementary feed was lacking in sufficient quantity for too long. I eventually realised this and considerably increased feeding.)

For spikers the only determinates appears to be length of the spiker and thickness, but what about 2 year olds? I need to cull at least half the bucks at either 1 or 2 year old.

Thanks for any replies.

NitroX,

I will take a stab at this, although Deerdogs and 1895 do far more with Fallow than I...

When doing a similar cull in a local deer park in addition to the height of the antlers as you mention we would also note their width/spread and for the angle they are growing at. Cull animals would be the narrow heads while animals selected to be left would be the ones which were judged to be the ones with most potential for a good spread in the future..Having said that, body weight and colour phase also comes in to it sometimes too...

The problem I see for you is that the seasons are ass about face down there and I don't know how that affects their antler development. In the UK the antlers are essentially grown during the spring/summer when feed is good..our roe on the other hand grow theirs over winter and as a result their antler development can be very varied from year to year even on the same buck.

In your case I think I would seek advice from the guys who do the deer farming in NZ as they probably have this down to pat by now...

You might want ask about the worth of winter feeding too and the levels ect. I attended a seminar a while ago and it seems in our climate Fallow and Red go into a "subsistance mode" and excessive winter feeding is simply ecconically not worth it as it does not translate into a gain in carcass weight. I can't remember all the details, but I was suprised just how scientific deer farming had got!

Regards,

Pete

Pete

Thanks for the reply.

It probably be worth tracking down some real deer farmers with fallow to ask but fallow are principally raised fro venison. The velvet growers all use reds, or red wapitit crosses etc as the velvet production is much higher. Fallow just don't produce much.

I'm not sure about the timing of feed and how it determines antlers but they cast around October to November here so at this point and later to January they must have good feed and be in good condition - so late Spring and Summer. They also need to be in good condition for the rut later on when they become very skinny. Too much rooting and fighting takes it out of ya! (and the buggers fight all day and all night too)

As said food has a massive effect. Last year I planned to cull / shoot a lot as the antlers often were pathetic. But with better feed now they appear to have improved a lot this year. eg the spikers have 1 inch stubs last year. This year a better one might be 4 or 5 inches long.

I'll see if I can take some digital pics of the antlers in velvet currently and maybe some comments will come from that.

Hi,
I don't know much at all about fallow deer, but have noticed that many free ranging stags in NZ, Ireland, UK don't attain the paddles (right word?) that are found in park deer...Is this due to genetic only (aren't all fallow introduced??) or the fine diet enjoyed by these animals.
One question more: When a Brit refers to a deer park, it is a fenced preserve used for hunting, right? In many other countries it is just a fenced area for tame deer...

Hi Boghossian,

The "paddle" at the top of a fallows antler is the palmation. Wild fallow typically don't have great palmation, I think mainly due to the food, and the local gene pool. The span is also an indication of quality (read desireability...) as is symetry.

There was an article in the Shooting Times just before Xmas which talked about the difference between hill stags and woodland stags. The superiority of lowland stags was massive, and I can only thinnk that is down to the better quality of life they have.

As for the deer parks, they are fenced in areas where the deer live, and are often fed suplementary food. One of the parks some friends cull for is 2000acres. on this particular park, they shoot the deer, but shooting is not always the method of culling employed.

Hope that helps,
FB

Unfotunatly I no longer have regular access to fallow stalking, but for a couple of memorable seasons I assisted a professional in the cull of a large herd of wild fallow near Cirencester. We were shooting 150+ females and prickets each winter, but we got to see a lot of mature bucks too.

When I think of the quality of antler development in that wild herd compared with the antlers on the bucks at Petworth Park, which are "park deer" ie semi tame, then it is the difference between night and day. The quality of the park deer were so much better.

If there was any evidence of "fishtailing" of the palmation in the second or third year, then that buck was shot. The result is some magnificant heads.

The aim is to have the area of palmation as close to rectangular in shape as possible.

My stags are showing evidence of fishtailing. The best 4 year old has very wide palms on one side plus a section fish tailing out of these as well. He is not yet a breeding stag but in reserve.

The breeding stag (6 years old) dropped his antlers last and is not showing the palmation development of the younger ones so far. I suspected this last year that he may need replacing this year or next (next year now maybe). I will let him finish off his antlers before deciding and then it will be too late to move him this year.

By the way I was handling the largest 4 year old this week. Had him in the pens in daylight with a couple spikers whom I wanted to separate. He came into a pen behind me, squatted down and leapt straight over a 7 foot plus gate without a run-up.

Given that we're either selecting for growth rate and body size to produce meat ignore the antlers as criteria. Just save the biggest bucks.
In a forestry situation I "try" to shoot any and every fallow possible. Roe make much better stalking and the fallow will tend to push the roe out.

NitroX,

What is the ratio of Bucks to Does in your park? In situations like this, a small number of buck can cover a large number of does. This means they spend more time breeding rather than fighting and you have more control of the genes passed on.

From my mates limited expirience, (he has about 20 to 25 fallow in a paddock on what you would call a hobby farm)
I would say fish tails are definately genetic and you need to cull them out ruthlessly. Perhaps a different approach is required? Leave the yearlings and prickets for a year or two and see what develops..instead cull heavily the mature bucks with fish tails so that gene is removed from the herd.
If your master bucks have fish tails, I would bite the bullet and take them out...the younger bucks hopefully with better antler potential will take over the breeding duties.
Depending on the size of the heard and how rigerous you cull out the fish tails, if you take this approach for a two or three years I think you will see results. Of course the fish tail gene will also be carried by the does, but hopefully the genes presence in the herd will still decline.
Once you get to that stage I think you can start worrying about the finer points of antler size and conformation...

Regards,

Pete

The master buck has no fishtailing.

I had another look at the others and perhaps they do perhaps not (?). I've been to busy catching them this week to take photos but ... At the moment I'm not too worried as they aren't breeding yet and may not be a problem anyway.

The master buck does ALL the breeding in a separate paddock, but he had fun striding up and down glaring at the next in line through the fence 24 hours a day. The bachelor herd - twelve last year - were the ones thrashing any branches, each other, the fence - 24 hours a day. They had an itch they couldn't scratch.

Since I know nothing about ranching deer I have to ask this.
What is the purpose of this, ie what is it used for?

Quote:

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The velvet growers all use reds, or red wapitit crosses etc as the velvet production is much higher. Fallow just don't produce much

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Wild Fallow are problematic in their management in much of the UK for precisely the reasons you allude to ie their range generaly crosses more than one hunting area.



In my area hunter's either disagree openly or covertly. We're not in trophy fallow areas and to be frank if one was to attempt to grow really good fallow bucks all that would happen would be that the rent would go up.



Thusly most of us decide what an area should hold and shoot enough to ensure our sport is sustainable. They're bloody difficult to get to terms with for months on end so if a good buck stops in front of me and I have animals left in my mental quota, I shoot it.



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