A year in the life of a farm

[KR-oldmexico]

Nothing broken...an advantage of taking him early season. I think the 4 on rt followed the main beam and is hard to see. He was fairly balanced to have as many points. I'll see if I have more of a side photo that shows different angle.

The video he took from his blind capturing shot and all is amazing . TV quality stuff.

Congrats brother!

[UncleBubba]

Wow

[bounds]

Hey rusty, how is the coon proofing working on your feeders? Is the bucket method the best you've tried so far?

[MasonCo.]

Lets see that video El Gato

[bounds]

I know you've said you don't care what brand and what % protein you feed, as long as they're getting as much as possible. Do you feel the same for buying seed? I read a lot of reviews of guys saying their plots planted in Whitetail Institute seed or other brand names has way outperformed generic seed from a local supplier in side by side comparisons.

I'm not planning a ton of acreage (about 5 acres) and am trying to decide between buying bulk thru my local feed/seed store, buying bulk thru a well known seed company like Hancock Seed or buying mixes thru WI or Tecomate is the way to go. WI's PowerPlant mix is exactly what you plant in your spring annual plots (cowpeas, soybeans, sunn hemp and sunflowers). I would buy that if I go with a mix as everyone raves about it and seems you like it too. I was going to make the same mixture if I buy bulk.

[sgtau44]

Update?

[elgato]

Following.

Well,.....I kinda thought it might be time for this thread to die. Looking back I see I started it April 2014 so ' a year in the life' became 3 yrs. My original intent was simply to show the planting philosophy and cycles we go thru as well as our concepts of deer mgt. Essentially nothing has changed in our program though we continue to experiment with various planting ideas and watch the herd as it evolves and develops. Globally everything is the same though the finer details change each year.

I had planned to share my spring planting program though I thought it might be a new thread. I plan to start planting around April 15 - May 1.

I will share we found some nice sheds with the best being a 5 yr old that will score between 196-198. He could be in trouble next yr. We also found 7 or 8 dead bucks with the biggest about 170. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow.

For Bounds, apologies for not replying. I don't plant any 'buck on a bag ' mixes. I blend my own so I know exactly whats in it and at what ratios. However I do plant substantial acreage. With that said , only planting 5 acres or smaller plots, some of the store bought blends should work fine. Read the ingredients and make sure your getting what you want that works best in your soil.

It's almost planting time. Love it!

[Reedimus]

Change title to "life on the farm" and keep it going haha. Thanks for taking the time to share and all the great info. Good luck with everything in the future on the farm!

[texasdeerhunter]

Change title to "life on the farm" and keep it going haha. Thanks for taking the time to share and all the great info. Good luck with everything in the future on the farm!

Yea, I agree. Keep it going. Lots of knowledge here that you can provide, especially showing year over year results and changes in thinking on planting, etc.

[elgato]

Sunday afternoon with a bit of time on my hands so here we go with update.

About a month ago we ran a dose of feed with Safeguard wormer [ fenbendazole ] thru the feeders to deal with internal parasites. Been doing this for a few years in the spring and think it adds a lot of value. Next week we are going to run a dose of feed with ivermectin in it to get rid of ticks. I'm convinced internal and external parasites have a material effect on deer and we see benefits in both weight gain and antler growth. Non scientific of course.

Fall plots did great and we have clover all over the place. Durana, red clover, crimson , arrow leaf and berseem primarily.

We are getting ready for spring planting in the next couple of weeks. All the fields we double crop are in fall planted rye, wheat, and crimson. I'll be treating each field a bit more specifically this year based on what I think the fields need and where I want to go long term with a particular field.Specifically it looks like this:

11 acre field that has a big problem with wild summer melons of some sort. I burned it down about a month ago. I'm planting straight soy beans in it then spraying again with gly and Canopy which both kills and acts as a pre emerge. I want to clean this field up.

On a 16 and 10 acre field that are both quite clean I will drill directly into the standing crop a combo of; soybeans, cowpeas, sunflowers, and egyptian wheat. I might even throw a few melon seed in the batch for fun.

On a 8 acre and 5 acre field where I'm trying to increase the organic matter and water absorption capability I'm going with a heavy stand of straight grain sorghum . I'll let it go to seed and maybe even get a dove shoot out of it. Poor mans corn; the deer eat the seed heads once mature, but mostly I'm after the growth and tonnage.

And speaking of doves I'm going to try sunflowers again in my 13 acre dove field. I've had to shift to millet the last couple of years cause the deer started wiping out the sunflowers. Fingers crossed.

On a sandy 4 acre filed, probably the best drained field I have I'm going with a heavy stand of sunn hemp. I want the soil improvement , tonnage and nitrogen fixation. This fall I'll come back with a heavy stand of rye. Next summer I'll probably plant sorghum or something to continue building the organic matter. Then next fall I'm planting it in alfalfa.

Lastly I'm replanting a 5 acre right of way in joint vetch. I had it in there reseeding for over a decade before heavy flooding finally killed it out.

I'll take pics as planting commences.

[elgato]

Here are a set of sheds and a couple dead deer we found this year. Seems we find 8-10 dead deer each year. Guess it goes with the territory.

[elgato]

Here are some of the dead deer. The 2 together were found side by side with the biggest right at 170

[elgato]

Heres a mount on a 183 8Pt we found locked up with a 135 8 pt drowned in a pond.Ok he does have a fork and drop but still main frame 8

[BillyloMexico]

He's a beast of an 8!


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[BrokenJ]

Great thread amazing deer and operation. Hope you keeping add info we can all learn from.