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Natural mortality rates

BSK said:
However, the biggest problem inside high-fences is the mortality of bucks due to fighting. Unfenced, bucks can just leave the area under intense social pressure. Inside the fence, they fight to the death. I've seen shockingly high fighting mortality inside high-fences.
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I've heard this mentioned before. And the closer the buck to doe ratio is to 1:1, the higher the mortality is due to fighting. Some places let the ration climb a little to minimize this.
 
I've seen large chunks of property managed in some of the most extreme ways possible. But the strangest results, from a social/behavioral perspective, I've ever seen have been inside high-fences, even those of 2,000+ acres. Being contained appears to be HIGHLY unnatural for whitetails, and doing so appears to produce very extreme responses.
 
BSK said:
In the 6 weeks of primary rutting, it's not uncommon for older bucks to lose 30% of their body weight. That doesn't sound that dramatic until you realize that's a buck live-weighing 200 lbs at the beginning of the rut only weighing 160 lbs six weeks later. That's a HUGE difference.

The below pictured buck is a stud mature buck I had on my place in 2017. Knowing the deer in the area, I believe he weighed at least 220 lbs on the hoof when the picture was taken in mid-October. I ended up killing him at the very end of the season, on Dec. 31, very post-rut. He only live-weighed 175 pounds by then.
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Am I missing something or do you need to check your math? ;)
 
BSK said:
I needed to check the math. Make that 140 lbs. Good catch!
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That is incredible (the 140 lbs.; not that you needed to check your math).

This makes me wonder about one of the "biggest" bucks I've killed where I hunt. His frame was big but he seemed a little thin to me. He did not weigh as much as a smaller (shorter?) buck I've killed there. I thought maybe he was just getting old and lost some of his bulk like people do with old age. Now, I'm wondering if it was due to rut season as it was post-rut.

I didn't have a history on the deer (no cameras) and I've never paid much attention to determining the age of deer so I don't know what the case was. He looked healthy. Maybe he was just naturally tall and skinny.
 
The most active bucks in the rut lose the most weight. And that is REALLY hard on bucks that live in low to moderate-quality habitat, like extensive hardwoods in a poor acorn year, or a year without Red Oak acorns (Reds are the only acorns still viable post-rut). THAT is what kills mature bucks in hardwoods environments - rut stress.
 

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