February 10, 2015

Give This Year’s Fawns a Head Start

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A good beginning to a fawn’s life is important. Most don’t realize that if you had two buck fawns born with equal genetic traits, but one buck fawn starts life in good standing with ample nutrition and low stress, and one doesn’t, as an adult the buck that began life well off will always have the potential for a better set of antlers - even if they eventually live on the same property! A good start is very important to a whitetail’s life and now is time to prepare for their foundation.

There are several things we can do to get fawns off to a great start.

Make it easy for the doe to intake the necessary nutrition. A mother doe will need plenty of protein rich milk for her fawns. Their milk contains over 30% crude protein and over 30% crude fat…that takes some nourishing groceries to generate. Perennials like Clover Plus and annuals like BioMass and BioMass all Legume are a very important part of a nutrition program.
Make sure you have ample security cover. Diversity and edge cover are important. Native warm season grasses will help with security cover. You want thick ground cover that will keep fawns hidden, and if necessary, help them escape predators.
You can also help by removing those predators by hunting or trapping. Coyotes, bobcats, coons and hogs should be removed whenever possible. Predator control can have a HUGE impact on fawn recruitment.

There are other details you may wish to implement, but if you only do the above three things you should see a huge improvement in recruitment and four years later these bucks have a much greater chance at being one of those “world-class” trophies we all dream of.

This tip is courtesy of the GameKeepers Field Notes, a weekly wildlife and land management email newsletter produced by the Mossy Oak GameKeepers.

A GameKeeper by definition is someone who truly loves AND lives the land, the critters and nature…not just during hunting season but all the time. A GameKeeper wants to be outdoors every day and work the dirt while living their personal “obsession”.

Find out more about what makes a GameKeeper by visiting our website.

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