Is this normal?

[dburt]

I couldn't answer your question either way, but just letting you know there's no attached picture. :)

 

[dburt]

On second read maybe there wasn't supposed to be a picture. Sorry!

 

[jb357]

I'd say your sitting pretty for the next couple years if you're getting pictures of multiple immature bucks so long as neighbors, poachers, etc don't get them before they can grow up.
I don't think it's very common for a 2.5 year old to be much more than a 4 or 6 and even if they never make it past a 6pt just think how cool a 5 year old 6 with coke can bases will look.

 

[fairchaser]

There is no way to control the genetics on any given property due to dispersal and the doe carrying 50% of the genetic code. But, often when you have small bucks it's due to too many does and overkill of 2 yo and older bucks. Does will be bred late resulting in late born fawns who will be behind on rack development for several years and may never catch up to their genetic potential. Implement QDM and you will see differences in a few years.

 

[ROUGH COUNTRY HUNTER]

I think it's normal

 

[Boll Weevil]

I think it's normal

Agree...normal.

I look at the "average" 2.5 or 3.5 year old buck like any other mammalian population...some individuals may be early bloomers, others are not, and some never. If you have lots of 4s and 6s, my guess is it's simply an indicator of generally healthy deer on average habitat/range.

 

[Mike Belt]

What percentage of the bucks seen and photographed are 4's and 6's and how old were they? No biologist here but I suspect that most were young deer. That being said I have seen a propensity for certain rack characteristics in a given area. For instance, a certain area may seem to have a good percentage of the buck population that don't have brow tines or may be mostly 7 pointers. I've even seen an area that produced many of the bucks that carried palmated antlers to varying degrees. To me, that would seem to indicate a very likely genetic code particular to the deer in that immediate area. The crazy part about this is that in some of those same areas that "seemingly" genetic trait may shift or even disappear every couple of years. That would also seem to indicate that in free ranging deer there's not much you can do to change the genetics dealt to your deer herd at any given time. There are and probably always will be a few of those bucks, although with a low number of points, that have the best of everything else going for them; thus those heavy, wide, long tined 4's and 6's we see from time to time.

 

[TX300mag]

I don't doubt it to be a genetic propensity, but I see a pretty balanced ratio which includes a lot of mainframe 8 points.

I can think of three distinct genetic traits that we see every year on deer in Ohio.


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