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protein. A testament

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    protein. A testament

    With protein going up and all the discussions we've had lately, I thought something that might give us hope and show that there is potential benefit to spending the money. It's a story of a deer. If you read TTH you read the story of the kill. This is the story of how he got there.

    I've always gone against the general thinking in protein feeding in two regards. The first is that you don't stop feeding it. You feed it year around, as long as you can afford it. The second is that it doesn't take years for it to show fruit. If the right deer puts his nose in the feeder and stays there, that deer can show dramatic growth the first year.

    I've put together a progression of pics showing him from the end of the season in 06 to the end of his growth in Sept. He had protein all through the season, but his horns didn't change, so I just included enough to show him during the season.

    We had fed L/E feed for a couple years. The deer didn't like it. They would MAYBE eat a sack a month per feeder. We begged, pleaded, and stomped and held our breath to get them to change. We told them if we were going to run the feed program, we needed to use something they'd eat. We managed to get about 4 test pens set up with Antlermax and convinced them to change. This buck came in at the beginning of that change. So, it wasn't a long term effect to his growth. It came about in one year.

    The year was a dry one. Overall buck growth was poor. This buck used a minimum of 6 pens. You can see from the pics that he used a number of pens.

    Here he is in hard horn from the end of the 05/06 season. He scored 163. That's considering he had 18 inside. We found both sheds. One was laying right by a protein tube.


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    #2
    We don't run cams after March/April. The horns are pretty well gone and we don't want to risk losing cams to hog hunters. Besides, it's boring looking at 500 pics of muley heads. We put the cams back out in June and in July, we started getting pics of him that made us giddy. My little brother and I were filling feeders that month and every time his pic came up, we cheered like we were at an Amway convention. We even saw him that month. We were going back out to put a new card in a cam to see if we could get him on camera overnight and he jumped up about 50 yards in front of the Ranger. Looked like he was wearing one of those big Russian fur hats with a stick hanging out of it. We stopped and started praying that he didn't hit anything and knock anything off. After that, as soon as we got to the ranch, we ran to the cameras to see how he was progressing. The following pics are a small sample of those pics. Takes him to just before shedding.

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    The last pic is out of chronological order. However, it's important. That buck that is feeding opposite the big one is following the same track, but he's been on the feed for two extra years. This last year, he was a mid to high 60's typical 10 with really long brows. He put a lot into body and "down" this past year. If he follows his cousin, this may be another success story. Cross your fingers.

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    Comment


      #3
      Daaaaannnnnnggggg

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        #4
        Wow, I hope I get anything close to that at my feeders this year. Thanks for sharing.

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          #5
          I..I..I... don't know what to say. Other than I need to go fill my protein feeders again. Outstanding!

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            #6
            Doc,
            I guess that's the buck Dr. Chaffin killed this year. What was the buck's final score? I agree with you 100% on the effects protein can have on a buck. Like you said if a buck really takes to it and becomes what I call a "Protein Hog" than they can really blow up! I started feeding protein a year ago this month and have not let the feeder go dry since. The buck in my avatar took to it right away. The year before last I passed him as a good 115-120" Hill Country 9pt. This year he gained easily 20" and about 50 lbs. He gross scored over 140". That's a 17-20% increase. I have several other bucks that have showed similar progress. Year 2 on protein should be real interesting!

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              #7
              He killed it last year. That's him. He's on the cover of this month's TTHA mag.

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                #8
                Protein is expensive right now, but worth it.

                John, did you guys find many sheds?

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                  #9
                  Nice bucks Doc

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                    #10
                    That is Sweeeeeeeeet!

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                      #11
                      We really didn't have time to look. We had to build barbed wire outer pens around the panel pens. They put about 2 jillion cows in our pastures and they wrecked havoc on three of our best pens. (Have I said lately how much I HATE cows.) We paid them back by eating some GOOD ribeyes Saturday night. We also had to pull in the last of our pop-ups. We put out about 210 to 220 sacks. They ate about 500 lbs per feeder on average. We'll have a month similar to that this next month as the mesquite greens. May may have a little heavier use, but June, July, August, and September will probably be close to 400 sacks per month. We'll earn our deer this year for sure.

                      We did find one full set of a nice young 10 at one pen. Found one side of a 150 class 10 that's going to be very, very hard to kill. some smaller sheds. Maybe next month we'll have some time to wander.

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                        #12
                        What would happen doc if you were the only guy on the lease that feed protein year round ?

                        One feeder?


                        Tink

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                          #13
                          Have all the deer shed already?

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                            #14
                            If you have the right deer find it and use it, you'll have the potential to grow a big deer. Problem will be that you'll probably have SO MANY deer, that no one deer can get enough.

                            Example. I have a 1000 lb feeder that doesn't have any protein around it right now. Dog hasn't been up there to feed since early December. His protein is empty. gold doesn't run any on that side. My little brother has a small feeder about 1/2 mile from mine. So, I get A LOT of deer. I may have 2 dozen bucks eating out of it. They're using over 50 lbs/night. It won't last but about 20 days. If I try to keep it filled, it'll cost me about 30 sacks/month at 8 dollars per sack. I also have one about 1 1/2 miles from there. My little brother has another feeder about 1/2 mile from me, but there's no other protein feeder within 1 1/2 miles. Add that to my other feeder and I'm spending some bucks. One good thing is that the bucks like protein better than corn, and I get a lot of the bucks that might use the other guys' feeders. Last year, I tried to kill and have killed the does near my protein so that more bucks got the feed.

                            My BNL has two 1500 lb feeders about 1 1/2 miles north of me. He's helping a lot on that end and from the use, it's going to pay off for him if he keeps them filled.

                            If you're the only one feeding, and you can keep enough out, you'll see benefits. A few years ago, I'd have just added more feeders and drawn ALL the deer. Too high right now. We're going to check on protein next month.

                            If we had no other feeders on the ranch for that big buck outside of the one 85 gallon with the Boss Buck pen, and if we had put a couple 1000 lbers in it, I think he'd have stayed right there and eaten them dry, and grown the same rack.

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                              #15
                              Thanks Amigo guess I need a protein feeder now...

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