Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

Question for you guys. Like I said above, we are going to continue to feed protein out of our 1,000lb all seasons trough year round, but we are going to install a Krivoman timed adapter to our 1,500lb Krivoman feeder and then feed a spincast feed (smaller protein pellet/corn mix for corn feeders) out of two of our other 1,000lb+ Krivoman feeders. My question is that I was wanting to put the timed unit adapter on our Krivoman feeder in the middle of our place, but it's only about 200 yards from the trough. The reason I wanted to put it here is because it's in the middle of our property and it's the best hunting spot on the property. Is this a problem or should I put the timed unit on our NW feeder which is around 700 yards away from the trough? Just wanted to get yalls thoughts on feeder placement and which feeders should be protein.

[mjbtexas]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

I had that droptine buck at 15 yards two different times. He is a very pretty buck, but still a little too young.

You sir, are a better man than I!


(I like to think I would have tried to hold off!)

[stxslayer]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

Question for you guys. Like I said above, we are going to continue to feed protein out of our 1,000lb all seasons trough year round, but we are going to install a Krivoman timed adapter to our 1,500lb Krivoman feeder and then feed a spincast feed (smaller protein pellet/corn mix for corn feeders) out of two of our other 1,000lb+ Krivoman feeders. My question is that I was wanting to put the timed unit adapter on our Krivoman feeder in the middle of our place, but it's only about 200 yards from the trough. The reason I wanted to put it here is because it's in the middle of our property and it's the best hunting spot on the property. Is this a problem or should I put the timed unit on our NW feeder which is around 700 yards away from the trough? Just wanted to get yalls thoughts on feeder placement and which feeders should be protein.

Is there a reason why you want it timed other than saving a little money? Last year was this feeder running free choice or was it a corn feeder or is it a new set up? I don't think that it would hurt or be to close to the trough feeder. It would give a different option for the deer which can be good. If the northwest feeder isn't protein maybe put the trough feeder over there. Thanks for sharing all your numbers. It is always nice to see what other people are doing.

[bgleaton]

We want the 1,500lb feeder to be timed just to help us save a little money, plus we are going to use the Krivoman timed adapter during deer season so we will be feeding protein year round in this 1,500lb Krivoman feeder as well as the 1,000lb all seasons trough. We are feeding a spincast mix (smaller protein pellet and corn mix) in our two 1,000lb+ Krivoman corn feeders. I just didn't know if we should think about spreading these two protein feeders away. Next year, we will buy another one of the Krivoman timed units and put that at the NW as well. Again, we are feeding free choice out of two protein feeders, one timed protein feeder and slinging a protein mix out of two corn feeders. We are also putting out around 1,000lbs of cottonseed a month.

[Big pig]

I checked my Goliad krivoman timed feeder this week.
Everything worked well except my timer setting abilities.
Apparently tired after filling, I set a time incorrectly and the feeder
Stayed open 24/7. Fed twice as much as I anticipated, but that's ok
Apparently they needed it, so money well spent. Refilled and reset.
Much more action there compared to the boss buck feeder located nearby.
Sure was a lot of birds at the Krivoman eating the protein. And getting their photos taken.
BTW put antler max in the first time, but refilled with Lyssey & Eckel.
Seems to be an even mix of does and bucks eating the protein
My Krivoman is actually placed in a large opening, but I wished it was set up in a thicker darker area where the bucks might prefer more during the day.

BP

[bgleaton]

So my twin brother and older brother went out to the ranch this weekend to fill all of the feeders (protein, cottonseed, etc.) and install the Krivoman timed protein adapter on one of our feeders. We are definitely going to buy another Krivoman timed protein adapter and put it on another one of our Krivoman feeders because this will allow us to continue to feed it during the deer season, but it will be on a timer just like a normal corn feeder. I also think it will help prevent the turkeys from eating all of the corn off the ground, but only time will tell about the turkeys. Here are some pictures:

1,500lb Krivoman feeder with the Krivoman timed protein adapter:



Couple more pictures of the new water trough that we installed on the north side of our property:



We put out 1,000lbs of cottonseed, 2,400lbs of 20% protein, and 1,450lbs of Spincast feed. This Spincast feed is 14% protein and provides better nutrition than corn and works great in our corn feeders. It's basically a small pellet and corn mix.

[Big pig]

That trough is very nice.

You have some lucky deer!

BP

[bgleaton]

Why are these pictures turned? How do I prevent this from happening?

[Krivoman]

Surprised the water does not fall out of that last trough.. Looks awesome. Did you have to cut the new legs any or did I guess correct?

[bgleaton]

We had to still cut off about 6 inches to get the spout at 40in from the ground. It was easy though.

[bgleaton]

W

[bgleaton]

Here is a picture of what a couple of our feeders look like some days:

We are going to change our feed times on our two 1,000lb+ Krivoman feeders that sling the Spincast Feed (protein/corn mix) at 6am and at 8pm because the turkeys will still be on the roost at those times. I am hoping to figure out a way to keep these **** things from eating so much feed.

[Big pig]

I did the same thing with my corn feeders after season on our feeders that aren't fenced.
Now I see more pigs. But overall much better feeding the deer than those feathered corn vacuums.
Still amazes me I have the only turkeys that won't hop a circle pen. We see dozens of birds each hunt.

[hammer63]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

So my twin brother and older brother went out to the ranch this weekend to fill all of the feeders (protein, cottonseed, etc.) and install the Krivoman timed protein adapter on one of our feeders. We are definitely going to buy another Krivoman timed protein adapter and put it on another one of our Krivoman feeders because this will allow us to continue to feed it during the deer season, but it will be on a timer just like a normal corn feeder. I also think it will help prevent the turkeys from eating all of the corn off the ground, but only time will tell about the turkeys. Here are some pictures:

1,500lb Krivoman feeder with the Krivoman timed protein adapter:

Couple more pictures of the new water trough that we installed on the north side of our property:

We put out 1,000lbs of cottonseed, 2,400lbs of 20% protein, and 1,450lbs of Spincast feed. This Spincast feed is 14% protein and provides better nutrition than corn and works great in our corn feeders. It's basically a small pellet and corn mix.

Great job and nice set up!

[bgleaton]

My dad was at the ranch this weekend and checked our feeders and trail cameras. All three of the cottonseed feeders are getting hit pretty hard and one of them was completely empty, so we filled it back up. He also topped off the 1,000lb Trough feeder, but I realized that they aren't hitting the protein nearly as hard as they did last year at this same time. They only ate around 550lbs out of the trough in the past 3 weeks. Normally, they eat around 1,000lbs in 4 weeks.
We installed the Krivoman timed unit on 1/30/2016 and set the timer to open at 6AM and to close at 8PM. We checked to see how much feed they had eaten and only around 150-200lbs was eaten in the past 3 weeks. They really are just not hitting the protein that hard right now, which is very strange because they normally kill it. We haven't go that much rain, if any, recently, but I guess there is still so much natural forage for them to eat from all the winter rains. We also changed our two 1,000lb+ Krivoman spincast feeders to throw the Spincast mix at 6AM and 8PM to prevent the turkeys from eating all of the protein/corn mix, so we will see if that helps. I just want to make sure that all of this feed goes to the deer instead of the turkeys.

[Hydestik]

Y'all definitely got more turkeys than we've got on our place. We are on the North side of the San Saba.

[Brute Killer]

I just read thru this entire thread. It's obvious the improvement in your bucks. AND with that in mind, my opinion on feeding deer has changed somewhat. Frankly, in the very recent past, I found it all distasteful, usually because I of my perception that it goes hand in hand with high fences, breeder pens and grotesque racks.
Your improvement of your property and the deer on it is evident, and the feeding program is at the heart of it.
Good job.
(I need to get out more)

[Big pig]

Went to Goliad to check my Krivo timed feeder
Deer had drained it although I had it opened only 5 hours a day total
Guess I had more deer than I knew. Several nice bucks, but no shooter.
Don't know how much the coins ate cause the camera had been moved to point away from the feeder. It is in a pen so probably most was eaten by the large doe herd I saw many times on the camera. Windmill is only 300 yards away.
This was over a period of 6 weeks and totaled only 900 lbs.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Brute Killer

I just read thru this entire thread. It's obvious the improvement in your bucks. AND with that in mind, my opinion on feeding deer has changed somewhat. Frankly, in the very recent past, I found it all distasteful, usually because I of my perception that it goes hand in hand with high fences, breeder pens and grotesque racks.
Your improvement of your property and the deer on it is evident, and the feeding program is at the heart of it.
Good job.
(I need to get out more)

Thanks! We would rather have quality habitat and feed a little protein, but when we purchased the property it had been overgrazed severely so we have really had to feed lots and lots of protein. Our goal is to continue to feed protein year round, but we want to continue to improve the native habitat by removing cedars, prescribed burns and re-seed perennial native forbs and browse. We are hoping that if we keep our populTion in check, we will see a small drop in feed consumption once we get the habitat where we want it within the next 5 years. We are hoping to eventually have a couple fall food plots this fall also.

[Brute Killer]

No doubt with the whole state in a drought and likely your neighbors' ranges in poor condition, you start putting out feed and you got lots of customers.

[RJK70]

Wow what a place. We lease a 1,000 acres close to yall. Beautiful country, you are fortunate to own a piece!

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by RJK70

Wow what a place. We lease a 1,000 acres close to yall. Beautiful country, you are fortunate to own a piece!

Thanks! We are very fortunate to be able to own it and manage it ourselves. It's a lot of fun to watch these deer grow, but man it's also a ton of work to improve the habitat. There's always something to do out there, that's for sure.

[bgleaton]

We were at the ranch this past weekend. We ended up receiving around 6in of rain and boy was it wet out there. Both the big and small ponds were overflowing and everything was starting to green up really nice.



Filaree is everywhere out there right now, which is around 14% crude protein and 65% TDN:



I attached a piece of metal on both sides of the 1,000lb ASF trough to prevent turkeys from being able to reach in and eat out of it. We'll see if this helps.



The Krivoman timed unit is working great and they are really hitting the cottonseed right now:


San Saba River:


We found four sheds this weekend and they happened to be two matching sets. Each antler was about 400 yards away from each other so I was very surprised when we found two matching sets:

[bgleaton]

Primroses are popping up everywhere:


We also saw a lot of turkeys. They weren't being very vocal just yet, but they were showing off for the ladies:

[RRagan83]

cool sheds do you know the bucks that dropped them

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by RRagan83

cool sheds do you know the bucks that dropped them

Yes, the one on the left is from a yearling and the one on the right is a nice little 2.5yr old. These two bucks are always showing their faces on our property. Hopefully we can find some more sheds during turkey season.

[Corn Sack]

I hate you having so much turkey problem, but it's a relief to know I'm not the only one. Adjusting the feed times like you did is the single best thing I've done and I bet you'll see good results like I did. Last year I also started encouraging my lab to chase them and now it's his favorite thing to do. We'll just ride around and when we spot them near a feed area he gets after them. You can see the joy on his face.

[bgleaton]

They have really been slowing their protein consumption down lately. Normally at our All Seasons trough, the go through 1,000lbs in about 3 to 4 weeks. My dad went out there this weekend to top the feeders off as he was only able to put one bag in the trough, which means they have only eaten around 50lbs in the past two weeks. I know there's lots of native forage, but I didn't think they would slow down this much. Maybe they are in such great shape from the mild winter that they haven't had to play catch up with their bodies...who knows.

[bgleaton]

[bgleaton]

Well...we installed a couple of the 14in x 14in square varmint cages back in October on our big feeders, but the raccoons were still able to reach in and spin the spinners. In fact, one of our 1,000lb Krivoman feeders only lasted about a month because the raccoons were spinning it every evening. I have since made some new varmint cages out of horse panels and they are 22in by 22in. I welded and wired everything together, so it should definitely hold up to the raccoons. I also welded a couple of hinges on there for a little access door. My welding is not pretty, but I think it will do the job. All I have to do now is get a 24in x 24in steel plate to mount it to and we should be in business.

[bgleaton]

Well, I finished building two 22in X 22in varmint cages. If the raccoons still find a way to spin the spinner plate with this new varmint cage, I'm not sure what to do.

[tommy1005]

Eliminator spinner plates do the trick for me. Mine are only 3 feet off the ground and don't have cages on them either.

[bgleaton]

I went to the ranch this past weekend to do some turkey hunting and to install the new 24in by 24in varmint cages that I built a couple weeks ago. The protein consumption has gone down quite a bit, which is probably due to the 10in of rain we have received in March and April. We received 3.5in last week, so it's really green out there and we saw lots of good forbs (i.e. rain lillies, wine cups, engelmann daisy, bush sunflower, redseed plantain, rock daisies, penstemons, skeletonplant, purple dalea, etc.) and good browse (i.e. acacia, kidneywood, bumelia, sumacs, etc.).

I was able to shoot a gobbler that had a little over a 10in beard and an inch and quarter spurs:



My turkey hunting buddy:


Pictures of the native forbs/browse:

Winecups


Plantains


Purple Dalea


Rain Lillies


Roemer Acacia


Bush Sunflower growing through Ephedra

Picture of the new varmint cages on our Krivoman feeders:



Picture of the big pond (around 5 acres):


I dumped a bag of Record Rack minerals at each feeder and 50lbs of cottonseed range cubes. These spring rains should really help the antler growth this year.

[Bone Thug]

Very nice...Looking real good.

Congrats on the Gobbler.

[gingib]

looks awesome. Love the pics and your thread

[unclefish]

Beautiful place! Nice bird!

[DUKFVR]

Looking Great! Thanks for the update!

[KactusKiller]

Looking Good. Hoping to get back out to our area in the next couple weeks.

[bgleaton]

It's crazy to see the reduction in protein consumption from this March through April compared to the past couple of years March through April. I think it's most likely due to two things:
1. Lots of rain...duh
2. The mild winter this year = lots of forage throughout the winter, which means bucks were able to recover quicker and haven't had the need to eat a ton of protein.

Is everyone else seeing decreased protein consumption? I saw the protein consumption thread and was surprised to see how many people were seeing an increase in consumption.

[RRagan83]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

It's crazy to see the reduction in protein consumption from this March through April compared to the past couple of years March through April. I think it's most likely due to two things:
1. Lots of rain...duh
2. The mild winter this year = lots of forage throughout the winter, which means bucks were able to recover quicker and haven't had the need to eat a ton of protein.

Is everyone else seeing decreased protein consumption? I saw the protein consumption thread and was surprised to see how many people were seeing an increase in consumption.

In your case I would contribute the clearing and other land improvements yall have done to the decrease as well I like to see my property be able to provide when range conditions are good

[bgleaton]

Well, we got another 2.2inches of rain this week, which puts us at 13.25 inches for the year. This is the wettest spring we have ever had. Can't wait to see how the antlers look this year.

[Krivoman]

Originally Posted by bgleaton

Well, we got another 2.2inches of rain this week, which puts us at 13.25 inches for the year. This is the wettest spring we have ever had. Can't wait to see how the antlers look this year.

Same for my ranch. Lots of rain, and no Protein/ cotton seed consumption. Double edge sword. They have plenty to eat, but the protein content in what they are eating is not as high as the protein/Cotton seed . Love the pictures. great looking place.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by Krivoman

Same for my ranch. Lots of rain, and no Protein/ cotton seed consumption. Double edge sword. They have plenty to eat, but the protein content in what they are eating is not as high as the protein/Cotton seed . Love the pictures. great looking place.

Thanks! It seems to get better and better every year due to all of the work we have put in over the past 5 years. They have definitely slowed down a bunch on the supplemental feed (protein & cottonseed), but I will take lots of rain and low supplemental feed consumption vs no rain and lots of supplemental feed any and every time.

[bgleaton]

Here's a picture of the San Saba river on our place. It's flowing really well and is really green out there.


Let's hope that the pecan and hay farmers in Mason don't pull so much water from the river this year since we have gotten so much rain this Spring. Last year, even after a record amount of rain, they still sucked the river completely dry in our area.

[bgleaton]

Here are some recent trail cam pictures. Nothing too exciting just yet. They are still not eating much protein or cottonseed because of all the rain out there.

[KactusKiller]

Looking good, I was in Brady last Friday and the place looked great. I don't think I have ever been there and not seen 20-40 deer from the gate to the house. We saw 5 all day. They are def fat and happy right now and no need to move around.

[bgleaton]

Originally Posted by KactusKiller

Looking good, I was in Brady last Friday and the place looked great. I don't think I have ever been there and not seen 20-40 deer from the gate to the house. We saw 5 all day. They are def fat and happy right now and no need to move around.

It's funny you mention that. My twin brother and I went turkey hunting on two different weekends and we both saw one deer the entire weekend when we normally see anywhere from 10-20 when filling feeders. They are definitely fat and happy and don't have to travel much to eat well. We received some more rain today, around 1in and more to come tonight and tomorrow.

[KactusKiller]

Have yall ever seen an Axis?

[bgleaton]

Two years ago we saw three really nice axis bucks around 100 yards from our front gate, but we've never seen them on the property. I hope one of these days we will see some on our land.

[KactusKiller]

We have never had any on our place either. We are just south of the river further east of you. Really surprised there isn't more axis in the area