To cull or not to cull?

[texashunter56]

Antler damage in velvet does not make him a "cull".

[lab man]

I would not

[wl51797]

Not

[texas shag]

Not a fan of culling young deer. So I would say pass.

[systemnt]

Going to be different on every ranch...
you know what genetics you have... if you have an abundance of 1.5-2.5 9-s, 10's, etc - AND thats the genetic you want to keep and grow.. then shooting a 1.5-2.5 8 isnt out of the question.

MOST places, including the big buck breeders, will tell you not make a decision on a buck until its at least 3.5 though.

[AntlerCollector]

Going to be different on every ranch...
you know what genetics you have... if you have an abundance of 1.5-2.5 9-s, 10's, etc - AND thats the genetic you want to keep and grow.. then shooting a 1.5-2.5 8 isnt out of the question.

MOST places, including the big buck breeders, will tell you not make a decision on a buck until its at least 3.5 though.

This^^ I agree with.

Where I hunt near Eldorado our culls have to be at least 3.5 and less than 8 points.

[Tex_Cattleman]

On our place, dead dead dead. If one were to grow a 3 x 1 rack at year and a half, dead. We have a consistent gene that puts out beautiful 4 or 5 on one side and a 2 on the other. Doing all we can to knock it out. We've killed three like this already this year.

Were on low fence MLD and have more buck tags than we can use. We have enough beautiful (though small racked) 2 yo eight points, that they better show potential real early if they want to live. We also hunt a ton of kids. We hate having to be picky on a kids buck.



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[npe001]

Let walk. He is a baby.

[rtp]

Culling......usually looking for an excuse to shoot an immature buck. Most of the time, weird antler configuration is from damage during the velvet phase.

[BowSlayer]

We cull yearlings all the time...not for genetics as much as removing mouths. Everyone saying you should never cull young deer has never hunted a place with an over-population. It's not unusual for me to see 25 bucks at the feeder at one time. I would love to hear a better plan for our place from the ones looking down on culling young deer. I've scratched my head on it a few times. That deer would make it about .3 seconds on my lease before being shot.

[gingib]

Pass, looks like a big yearling. Even if he's 2.5 I would still let him go until next year at least

x2

[Kdog]

We cull yearlings all the time...not for genetics as much as removing mouths. Everyone saying you should never cull young deer has never hunted a place with an over-population. It's not unusual for me to see 25 bucks at the feeder at one time. I would love to hear a better plan for our place from the ones looking down on culling young deer. I've scratched my head on it a few times. That deer would make it about .3 seconds on my lease before being shot.

Wow, that is a lot of deer. Do you have twice as many doe as bucks? Really just curious, seems like too many bucks is only about 1/3 of the problem. The other 2/3 is too many doe.

[BowSlayer]

Wow, that is a lot of deer. Do you have twice as many doe as bucks? Really just curious, seems like too many bucks is only about 1/3 of the problem. The other 2/3 is too many doe.

I see way more bucks than does.

[bowsticker]

Following....some good opinions here

[Kdog]

I see way more bucks than does.

Very interesting. Sort of used to be like that where I hunt too. Not anymore after 10 years of feeding protein.