Image from national news item re high prices currently being paid for stag velvet by South Korea business's in the healtheries sector. Our deer farmers benefiting greatly with rethink on the timing of feeding these velvet producing stags. Usually in the wild the stags are not feeding much during the roar (rut) and lose a lot of condition which doesn't help when they drop the old and regrow new antlers. Farmers now specialised feeding their stags during the rut.

A good example of the ugly non-typical heads grown for velvet from which the old stags past their prime are put up for trophies to those desperate to have the biggest and the best in the trophy room serving only their own vanity.

Thats another freak that needs culled before his genes spread.

George

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Thats another freak that needs culled before his genes spread.

George

No the farmers are deliberately breeding those genes to provide the highest crop of velvet they can get from the stags. These deer will never be released into the wild. Those shot as trophies are behind fences albeit released in large areas of hill country but still behind deer proof fences.

See what I mean in the recent post on the Hunting Reports - Rest of the World page.

I simply say that you have conned yourselves and have been conned in shooting these pen deer and thinking it relates to what the word hunting translates to.

My guess is that that photo will be a stock image taken some time in last decade. I would bet that somwhere there will be a photo of that stag in an open tussock like hill country setting where its been taken as a trophy by now.
It will be easily recognisable from those drop tines.

I saw an Aussie bloke online with a Red stag with more points than a pencil case and wide palmation to rival a Hungarian Fallow buck.
.

@Eagle27, while I agree with your assessment of the deer's original purpose, its end is not typically as you say. Most Elk/stag breeders I have seen that harvest velvet sell their stock to put and shoot operations when it falls below a production threshold. Typically ending in an execution that is hard to watch.

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:
@Eagle27, while I agree with your assessment of the deer's original purpose, its end is not typically as you say. Most Elk/stag breeders I have seen that harvest velvet sell their stock to put and shoot operations when it falls below a production threshold. Typically ending in an execution that is hard to watch.

Isn't that what I said, maybe just not highlighting the execution part. I do know that most of these game stations cater for all hunters, even those that basically can only roll out of a vehicle or chopper and shoot their fenced trophy.

Most Stags are sold to Game Parks before they pass their prime for Velvet.