5 Week drought, now rain = Midges = EHD?

[backstraps]

I hope these rains continues for the next few weeks.

I am worried that with the drought we have been in, and now getting large amounts of rain,that all the heavy exposed areas of dirt could lead us to a massive hatch of midges.

If I am not mistaken I have read BSK's post where EHD break out commonly occur 5-7 years in huge porportions, but are also likely each and every year. Just not on the massive scale like we seen in 2008?

Could these hard downpours, local flooding be the right conditions for a large midge hatch?

I know thats what the story was in 2008 in Ohio where I hunt. There were local floods that really washed away creeks, banks, pond damns, etc All this happening after a long 7-8 week drought.

The no see ums were terrible! There were a few weeks up there in late Aug or early Sept where you couldnt stand the smell driving down the backroads for the dead deer!

 

[BSK]

Good question, and I have no idea as to what the answer is. However, during our big EHD outbreak in '07, we were experiencing a long-duration drought. The problem was the few water holes that existed were drawing all the deer. All he deer being drawn to a few midge-infested stagnant water holes opens the door for big localized infections. If you spread water sources out, less chance big groups of deer get infected at one infested location.

 

[Mr.Bro]

Good question, and I have no idea as to what the answer is. However, during our big EHD outbreak in '07, we were experiencing a long-duration drought. The problem was the few water holes that existed were drawing all the deer. All he deer being drawn to a few midge-infested stagnant water holes opens the door for big localized infections. If you spread water sources out, less chance big groups of deer get infected at one infested location.

Just last week you were telling us that putting out stagnant watering holes could do more harm than good.Actually been telling us that for a very long time.

Now your telling us that putting out watering holes is good and will spread the deer out.This is my opinon also.

I guess the word here is "stagnant".
Well, any water supply you put out will become stagnant unless you hook up to a river or other water supply and pump in new water everyday.Not available for most of us.

I'll continue to put out my buckets and let them become stagnant.
The deer i see drink out of them dont seem to mind.

 

[de novo]

I don't see this as being contradictory.

He's talking about natural water holes from rain compared to a few buckets.

The problem in 2007 was due to there being very few sources of drinking water for the deer. They were forced to congregate at these water holes to survive. This congregation put the deer at increased risk of midge contact and the EHD they carried.

An individual putting out a few 5 gallon buckets in a drought has the potential to be a bad idea. However, an area receiving a large amount of rain produces a much better result for the deer. Plus, the saturated browse can now meet many of the deer's moisture requirements.

 

[backstraps]

Mr Bro, I dont think BSK is referring to the 20 gallon buckets now being a good idea. Different concepts completely.


Novocaine:
The part in your reply about "an area receiving a large amount of rain produces a much better result for the deer"

This is actually what I am worried about. When an area receives a large amount of water following a drought, the rainfall creates muddy areas from flooding and/or run offs. The muddy areas are like breeding grounds for the midges.

From what I understand from the last bad EHD we had, as long as we continue getting rain, and not turn back into hot and dry conditions, we should be okay. But if I remember correctly these drought periods followed by heavy rains can be potentially bad until later August for breeding of midges.

There were areas locally that got 4 inches of rain here in one afternoon!

 

[SelphLogging]

Midges/no see ems are going to hatch and be present every year. A drought dries up your multiple little watering holes that contain probably less than 25 gallons, isolating the deer's watering hole to sometimes only one particular spot on some large blocks of land.
With that said, the midges live near the existing watering holes, example: 10,000 midges in this area, with 20 holes = 500 per hole avg. only 4 holes = 2,500 per hole avg. Also drought causes deer to need more frequent water because theres usually not any dew and the plants dont usually contain as much moisture, so the deer have to frequent these water holes much more than normally.
The disease itself is spread every year, just not as bad as bad drought years. And since the deer have to use the same holes, the majority of the herd tend to visit the same hole that is passing along the disease the most. Hence, affecting more of the population of the herd.

As for the buckets, it does disperse the water holes out so that there are multiples, but I think stagnant is the problem. Midges like stagnant holes. The holes that exist during drought times are usually going to be a spring type hole in the hollars, creeks, etc... So the one spring water hole would be better than 20 stagnant little holes, jmo

 

[BSK]

Now your telling us that putting out watering holes is good and will spread the deer out.This is my opinon also.

No, I think creating small stagnant water holes is a very bad idea. What I was talking about was good rains and all of the widely spread water that occurs when we are getting regular rains, especially free-flowing creeks.

During the last big outbreak, the properties I monitored that had free-flowing creeks experienced few EHD deaths. On the properties that used ponds and small stagnant water holes as their primary water sources saw HUGE die-offs.