Gleaton Chip Ranch Updates

[bgleaton]

Management sure looks to be paying off. how is the wheat field doing?

We got 0.15in of rain today so that should help the plots a little bit.


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[bgleaton]

We planted a couple of more Chickasaw plums, Mexican Plums, and a Deer Pear. We added weed mats and planted them in a low area that always stays fairly wet. Curious to see how they do in this area. Will need to add a wire cage around them once they get close to growing out of the tubes.


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[bgleaton]

Grasses are doing great since we didn’t graze cattle this year. Hoping we will do a control burn on 1/3 to 1/2 of our place in February or March.


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[bgleaton]

We were able to use our walk-in game cooler this past week. We would set the CoolBot on 33F but the room would only get down to around 38F. We used spray foam insulation on the sides and ceiling and then installed a foam board. Any ideas on how we can keep this room cooler? We have a steel door that we installed foam on the inside of but the door isn’t insulated inside. Curious to see if anyone has any thoughts on how we can keep our game cooler colder.


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[bgleaton]

This is a cool picture of a 3yr old I took with my phone on the way out today. Just thought it was a cool picture!


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[bgleaton]

We have been able to shoot 3 doe, 3 culls, and 1 blackbuck so far. Hoping we can shoot another 3 deer (2 doe and 1 buck) on the weekend of 12/17 and then another 3 deer the following weekend. Hoping to fill all of our MLD tags this year - 10 doe and 9 bucks. We originally had 10 MLD doe tags and 5 MLD buck tags but after submitting our spotlight census and deer blind counts the biologist sent us 4 additional buck tags. Again, we are shooting the worst quality buck in each age class from 2.5yrs and older just to help reduce our overall numbers. We are wanting to do a lot of cedar mulching and burning in Feb/March so it’s important that we reduce our deer herd numbers to allow quality forbs to come back.

[Chance Love]

Any idea of the age these deer will live to in the hill country with good groceries before they decline ? I assume they will lose dominance and breed less after an age

South texas ranches and gar guy have sure seen some big antlered older deer in those areas

BP

There is no standard age for a "decline". I've seen deer peak at 3 and go down from there. We are not too far from Bradley's place. We let our "trophy" deer get to 8+ before considering to shoot them or not. It's amazing what they can do between 8-10 years of age. Most times they are a completely different animal than at 6. When really trying to grow deer to their maximum potential, 5-6 year old bucks are just middle-aged.

And Bradley, I would NOT put those mats in your cooler. It's gonna be a PIA to clean them. We have a similar set-up with the cool-bot and ours seems to stay around 38 degrees. Sometimes 36. I'm fine with 38 though.

[Big pig]

Was able to catch this big male on a snare this morning!


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I can’t tell. You have an apron on that fence ?

Thanks

[bgleaton]

We don't have an apron on the high fence. If we see any holes from coyotes we put up snares and then cover the other holes with large rocks.

[TKRanch]

We were able to use our walk-in game cooler this past week. We would set the CoolBot on 33F but the room would only get down to around 38F. We used spray foam insulation on the sides and ceiling and then installed a foam board. Any ideas on how we can keep this room cooler? We have a steel door that we installed foam on the inside of but the door isn’t insulated inside. Curious to see if anyone has any thoughts on how we can keep our game cooler colder.


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Does the walk in have a separate roof over it? If not, getting a "shed" type situation over it for shade and air space on the outside might help?

[bgleaton]

Thanks for the input! The walk-in cooler was a closet in our pole barn so it has a metal roof over it and then we framed it in and spray foamed it and put the foam panels up so the actual metal roof is probably 4ft or 5ft above the roof in the game cooler. We really like the cooler, just wish we could get it down to around 35F instead of 38-40F.

[TKRanch]

Well, sounds like you have it done right for sure. I forgot it was in an existing building! Not sure what else you can do really....I do think you are good at 38 degrees, but I also understand the desire to get it a few degrees cooler. Good luck and thanks for keeping this going. I really enjoy it!!

[powderburner]

Add another AC or find a way to decrease the size of the room.

Less space to fill the colder it will get. or Increase the AC size

[PondPopper]

There is no standard age for a "decline". I've seen deer peak at 3 and go down from there. We are not too far from Bradley's place. We let our "trophy" deer get to 8+ before considering to shoot them or not. It's amazing what they can do between 8-10 years of age. Most times they are a completely different animal than at 6. When really trying to grow deer to their maximum potential, 5-6 year old bucks are just middle-aged.

And Bradley, I would NOT put those mats in your cooler. It's gonna be a PIA to clean them. We have a similar set-up with the cool-bot and ours seems to stay around 38 degrees. Sometimes 36. I'm fine with 38 though.

Man I wish more would understand this about hill country deer... It takes age...

[bgleaton]

There is no standard age for a "decline". I've seen deer peak at 3 and go down from there. We are not too far from Bradley's place. We let our "trophy" deer get to 8+ before considering to shoot them or not. It's amazing what they can do between 8-10 years of age. Most times they are a completely different animal than at 6. When really trying to grow deer to their maximum potential, 5-6 year old bucks are just middle-aged.

And Bradley, I would NOT put those mats in your cooler. It's gonna be a PIA to clean them. We have a similar set-up with the cool-bot and ours seems to stay around 38 degrees. Sometimes 36. I'm fine with 38 though.

I agree with everything you said in regards to deer aging in the hill country. We have several bucks that are 5 and 6yrs old that we want to go at the very least another 2+ years. Our goal is for the trophies to be at least 7yrs old, possibly older. The key is just removing enough deer every year and removing the right ones to ensure there is enough groceries out there for all of them.

We thought the same thing about the matts in the game cooler so we just use some plastic water troughs to catch anything dripping from their nose and mouth after they have been hung and rinsed clean. That's good to hear that 38F is okay to store them in for a couple of days!