Does in heat

[Bone Collector]

How long does a doe stay in heat? I guess what I really want to know is if a doe is in heat and a buck breeds her, is that it, or does she stay in heat and he breeds her several times?

I think the answer is she stays in heat and he breeds here several times.

The reason I ask is I had an 8 pt follow a doe across the power line easement and go into the woods on the side I was sitting on. I was thinking they would come to me, but they never showed. About 45 minutes later a doe busted out of the woods, in the vicinity where they entered. She was running like she was being chased, but nothing was behind her. I speculated that maybe he chased and she wasn't quite ready and he just abandoned ship, OR he bred her and she bolted when they got done.

Now I know that this doe ran to a thicket does hole up in, but I want to be sure IF it is the same doe, and she is in estrous, that she will hopefully still be in, even if she was bred.

 

[Andy S.]

She "smells" right to bucks for 72 hours, but she'll only let bucks breed her during the middle "peak" 24 hours. More than one buck can breed her during this 24 hour window. There are scientific studies that show where two different bucks were the father of a set of whitetail twins, each siring one.

 

[Bone Collector]

She "smells" right to bucks for 72 hours, but she'll only let bucks breed her during the middle "peak" 24 hours. More than one buck can breed her during this 24 hour window. There are scientific studies that show where two different bucks were the father of a set of whitetail twins, each siring one.

Thanks. I thought that was the case. I don't know when she went in, but I would guess yesterday, so Hopefully she hangs around and brings us a big buck tomorrow.

 

[Mike Belt]

Another thing to watch for is the does that are with the one you suspect might be in heat. The first one in heat will advance the others coming into heat provided they're not fawns and give you a future potential game plan. This time of the year I glass the hocks of every doe seen and many times I base hunting that general area now or later on what I'm seeing.

 

[Bone Collector]

Good Advice Mike.

The deal with this one doe is, 1. she was early for my area and my property, I usually see most of the chasing going on around the opener of rifle through Thanksgiving. 2. I am about 99% sure she had two fawns and Saturday those two fawns were alone.

What Andy said about the 72 hr thing is about spot on, because all this chasing started Friday sometime. I know because I have cell cams on trails and I was getting bucks chasing this doe and the fawns were there at first. Tonight I saw (I think) them all back together. If she went in Friday, Tonight would be close to 72 hrs.

 

[Mike Belt]

I've seen does in heat still running with their fawns while trying to escape from a buck/or bucks. Sometimes they have time to separate themselves from their young and sometimes they don't. One way or another if the buck is going to breed her he'll take care of "privacy" issues. I don't know what the percentage might be but some does when in heat don't wait for the bucks to pursue them. They do the chasing. I've seen chases go on where the bucks were just absolutely worn out from running and they have to stop and stand there panting like a dog trying to catch their breath while the doe runs on ahead of them. When they discover that the bucks aren't following I've seen them stop and call to them and if they didn't come after them they went back for the buck and the chase would resume. What's really wild is when several bucks go after a doe/s and pen them up in something like a small thicket. The most dominate buck tries to cut her out while the other does or fawns keep interfering and the entire time the subordinate bucks keep charging in and out trying to get to the doe and the dominate buck keeps having to stop working with the doe to chase each of them off of her. When this happens 30 feet in front of your stand and goes on for 5 minutes or so it doesn't matter if you even have a gun in your hands. The show they put on is well worth the price of admission whether you ever kill another deer or not.