Does seeing these larger family groups SAY anything about the local herd......?

My thoughts were not so much in terms of sheer numbers but more in the number of adult does v.s. fawns in a large family group???

If you have a family group of fifteen deer walk out during the hunting season and of the fifteen, only three to five are fawns (first year deer), then does that say anything about the herd?

I've seen no correlation between the percent of the group that are fawns to group size. But when I see large female/fawn social groups in summer and fall I consider this a bad sign.






That would be a bad sign. You want see almost as many fawns as adult does (fawn recruitment rate). Generally an overall fawn recruitment rate above 80% (8 fawns for every 10 adult does) is considered "good." In agricultural habitat it should be over 100% (more than 10 fawns for every 10 adult does).

Thanks.....last season during gun season, i had a group of nine Does that you could set a watch by their appearance in a bean field....of the nine, only three were fawns......I was somewhat curious about that.....Would this mean a poor ratio buck to doe, in your opinon or some other factors?

thanks again

Bh

Something is causing low fawn survival (the vast majority of does get bred even in a highly skewed sex ratio herd). In most cases it is over-population (too many mouths for too little quality food sources) but many things can affect fawn survival. Of late I've been concerned by widespread low fawn recruitment that I've seen across one particular region of the state. I suspect it has something to do with excessive predator numbers, but many other possibilities exist.