Episode 18 DWP- Mule Deer w/ Cedar Breaks

Brandon Walker from Cedar Breaks joins the Deer Wizard for a great conversation about Mule Deer. Enjoy! 

This podcast is built around real-world experience, collaboration with producers and veterinarians, and nearly three decades of hands-on work across North America. The goal is simple: provide practical insight that helps producers make better decisions for herd health, genetics, and long-term success. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Deer Wizard Podcast, conversation shaping the deer industry. I'm your host, Josh Newton, the Deer Wizard. Through interviews, advocacy, and industry news, we deliver field-proven insights to help producers build better herds.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Deer Wizard Podcast. We have a great episode today. We are talking all about mule deer. So my passion for deer expands beyond whitetail, although white tail are my favorite species. We get into mule deer, elk, etc. Um, we have a gentleman from South Dakota that I've known for uh at least 10 years now, and um he knows a ton about mule deer. We get right down into the weeds of mule deer production, genetics. We talk about forages and feeds, uh geographical differences between the east and the west. It's just a really kind of you know, your your normal conversation that you would have with somebody if you're in the uh private deer management space. It'd be like sitting down after an auction and chatting with your buddy. So um I hope you enjoy this conversation. We're gonna try to do more of these. There are not a ton of mule deer producers in the country, uh, though uh that market is continuing to grow and expand. They are challenging species to raise, and we get into really all aspects of of mule deer management. Um, you whitetail guys, you'll you'll find this interesting because we we do some compare and construct uh contrast, and it's a it's a uh a really nice conversation. So uh without further delay, we want to welcome Mr. Brandon Walker from Cedar Bakes Ranch to the Deer Wizard Podcast. Brandon, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Josh. So we have a a bit of a different conversation today. Most of my conversations revolve around uh whitales, but I always find mule deer fascinating, and I know that mule deer is the the place that you you live in. That's your that's your uh area of expertise. Um before we get into that, can you just give the folks a little bit of a a background on your yourself and uh you know lead us up until um when you came on to uh Cedar Breaks?

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Yeah, so uh prior to being here, I would have been uh I was in the Army until 2012, got out, went to college. Uh after graduating college, I actually got internships throughout the whitetail industry, or I should say during my college degree, and then took an interview out in South Dakota for a place that I had heard of Cedar Breaks at the time, and this would have been back in 2016, and then would have started the following year, took a job out here, been out here for gone 10 years now, so it's been my tenth year here.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

That's awesome. Um so you've worked you've worked a bit with Whitetails before you got into uh Mule Deer. What did um what did that first trip into Cedar Breaks kind of shed light on for you? Like because obviously, like if you're used to looking at white tails in a pen, right? Right um Mule Deer are quite a bit different. So what was that what was that like for you on a personal level?

SPEAKER_05 3:47

I'd say seeing a mule deer first in you know our environment is yeah, it's completely different. Um but I kind of just fell in love with them. I mean, they're so unique. There's a lot of challenges that come with it. You know, I knew that off the this the start off the bat, but I mean the mannerisms are a little different too. So I mean, as you know too, coming out here, we're uh about an hour and 20 minutes plus from town. So there was also that part to it where you know it's not just a 10-acre place that's 15 minutes from town. You know, we're we're sitting on 330 acres roughly, and I think we're close to a hundred acres of it fenced right now. So they take a lot more room. It's a big thing, but uh yeah, no, it's been fun. They're completely unique as far as uh compared to whitale, you know, from ear displacements big to you know, they're just goofier, but yeah, they the uh the the big ears are uh a challenge for me when it comes to scoring, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Because so used to looking at white tails and being like, okay, that's uh yeah, it's a mature buck, he's got a six and a half inch ear, and like you look at a a mule deer, and you know, they got they got elephant ears, and you're like, Yeah, that ain't six inches, so yeah, that's cool. Um yeah, so the um I I I was fortunate enough to visit you. I was it this past summer or the summer before, or I don't remember. Yeah, last summer. Yeah, yeah. And um such a cool trip out uh for me. You know, I I kind of flew into the the eastern portion of the state and and drove across, and I had never been through South Dakota before, and I was amazed at how expansive and open the the ground was and how much ag was there, right? Right, and then uh you know I got off the blacktop and I I snaked through you know seven or eight miles of dirt and mud roads in my rental car, which was was great, and uh ended up at your place, and uh it's certainly it certainly has a an isolated element to it. Um and it's it it was it was super cool because you know the pastures are big and you had mentioned space. Um why do you think the space is so important for for mule deer? What like have you kind of pinpointed some of that?

SPEAKER_05 6:22

Yeah, it's there's a number of factors. I think the biggest one is gonna revolve around your your bacteria and parasite growth, you know, trying to reduce as much uh number of head per acre to prevent um then incursion of the parasite and bacteria growth. One of the things we do with a lot too is fuso. Um fusobacterium on a really takes off in a wet year. Um so you know mitigating that again, number of head per acre is huge. We try our best to do three per two, three head per two acres, especially during fawning. You know, once they start dropping fawns, it's that's usually where that fusobacteria is gonna sit, we're gonna see issues. Um, we've gotten it down in the last several years here, but last year especially, you know, we're under 10% that might be affected by it. So that's been huge. Um, and then introducing uh pen rotation and and is is key because again, we you know not a lot of trees here, not a lot of browse, it's a lot of grass. So they're they're on a lot of the same vegetation, um, and so reducing that impact that they would have from you know hoof to how much they graze and the height of the grass, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, that's interesting um do you think like just given your time with with whitetails and mule deer, uh, do you think they're they have a higher susceptibility to uh parasites and and bacteria load? Uh and so why is that? Do you know?

SPEAKER_05 7:57

Definitely on the parasite side of things. Um, you know, uh other than identifying specific parasites like you know, flukes, liver flukes and things like that, they're really affected just by your simple worms and some of our uh necropsies on our fawns, or even looking at their fecal samples, you can identify it pretty quick. So removing the load, uh number ahead on that ground, on that soil helps a lot. And and again, going back to trying to limit that parasite growth so that you know dragging the pens, opening it up pores so that some light can kill those issues, or spreading lime, reducing that that pH so that it's at a level that the those parasites and other bacteria won't grow. You know, that's been huge. Every year we try to put down between 150 to 300 pounds an acre, depending on uh where the animals were, either over winter or from early spring and fawning periods.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So and you you've been in uh I I suspect you've been in a expansion mode since you started, right? So like you just keep adding on, keep adding on. Um and like you've reduced your numbers, your overall numbers of animals, um, to kind of meet what that that management strategy is. Do you want to talk about that a little?

SPEAKER_05 9:20

Yeah, that um that was challenging because you know the first thing you want to do is like, well, we need increased dose to increase fawns. You know, you want more fawns, we need more dose. It's a numbers game, which is true to an extent. Um, the biggest issue uh that we had was was we weren't on enough ground for fawning to take place, um, especially at the numbers that we wanted, you know, and and getting over getting over 40 head of dough on you know the 80 whatever acres that were on, you know, our fawning acres of that, you know, you're looking at potentially 20 acres for fawning. And uh at one point it it got to the point where it wasn't enough. So expanding, making pens that uh were five-acre pens, taking after fawning on a two-acre area, three head per two acres, and then moving the group come July, or a couple of groups come July to whoever has fawn and still has their fawns on them into these five-acre pens. Then we turn around and and take care of the pen that they were just on, the ground that they were on from fawning, onto a uh larger space, a cleaner space. You know, there's gonna be a lot more browser a lot more uh grass available for them to browse on. Um and again, you know, you hope that more space you have, you know, you hit 14 headabucks or or up to 20 head of bucks, and like what does that look like on two acres? Well, in South Dakota, that's pretty limited because our moisture is limited. And then again, you're gonna have issues with how many times a year can you rotate them off two acres, or are they stuck on that two acres until they're three years old? You know, with mule deer, that just it it doesn't work like that or like very well. One of the issues uh again with that number of head your your grasses, it just doesn't produce. Um so having bucks on you know four acres plus is great.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Um you had mentioned I I I'm curious because like I've seen like would you it's more of a desert environment. I know that's not an apt um descriptor, like it's not sand, right? It's not the Sahara, but I mean your rainfall's sub 15 inches a year generally.

SPEAKER_05 11:49

Yeah, I mean on an average year, I think between where we're at, it's between 12 and 14 for rainfall. And I mean that's a that's a good year. Um, you know, last year when when you were here, we were really good on moisture last year. I don't remember the total, but I know we were over we were well well over our 15 by August.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

So yeah, I pulled in and there was like water puddles in the driveway, and I was like, is that is that water? Like what's what's going on? You told me it's so dry out here, and like everything was it was it was really nice. Um, I mean the the the garden had vegetables in it, it was great, you know, the trees had nice leaves on them. Like it was it was nice, but that like that's an exception, like that's not the norm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:35

And the the flip side to that is great moisture, great ground, but flip side of that is the bacteria growth that we get with it. And um, we saw a huge increase in E. coli last year because of that. So I hate to say that a drier year is is better for these animals, but it is. Uh when we're in a drought, it's it's just easier on on the deer, on mule deer, specifically the the parasites and the the bacteria just don't grow that well.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

I wonder if uh and this is off topic, but I mean, generally speaking, you know, you look at the the mountain west, right? And where the range for for whitetail and mule deer bump up against each other, um the the mule deer end up getting pushed into the into the mountains, if you will, right? Um, but they thrive there. They you know, like I I've I've watched plenty of hunting videos where these guys are bow hunting at 14,500 feet, shooting big mule deer, right? They're in these giant basins and they're they're stalking down in, and it's just it's like high country desert. And I I know that there has been attempts, many attempts, at raising mule deer, you know, east of the Mississippi generally, and like they just they don't thrive for whatever reason, their systems aren't adapted for it. Um and so like you're kind of on the edge of that that area.

SPEAKER_05 14:02

Yeah, we're we're we're west of the Missouri, but not, you know, again, we're not that far, about an hour and a half, maybe. And it's yeah, you see those odd years where that eastern moisture, or whatever you want to call it, comes up and we get hit with it. And um yeah, it that has a challenge the challenges to it. I I would say uh it's a lot more the animals are a lot more reactive to that climate than you know white, so you can kind of produce them you know from east coast to west coast for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah, yeah, they're very adaptable. Mexico Mexico, Florida, Canada. I yeah, I suspect if you put them out in the mountains of of uh Colorado, they just they do fine, right? Yeah, um, they're they're a much more adaptable species for whatever reason. Um so I want to get into some genetic talk. Um when you you know, so cedar brakes has been around for for a long time and like over 20 years now, yeah. Yeah, I I would say that um, at least from my perspective, you guys have been like a a well-known leader from the genetic side of things as far as breeding stock goes, um, for a long time, right? Like a lot of the core lines came from cedar breaks. So when you showed up, just give us your perspective and kind of maybe work through some of those lines and you know, using your eyes, how you kind of developed what you you guys have today.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

Yeah. Um, so originally the the big genetic push here would have came from um from Canada when they first had the when that border was open, they had a purchase of uh something around 120 headers, something like that. Um you know, it wasn't genetics that produced those 200-inch mealys yet. You know, they were looking at three-year-olds that were creeping up on 150 inches. You know, and that that would have been one of their bigger ones back then. Um it took time, and then one of our baseline bucks, I believe he would have been four at the time that he blew up was chief, and he at age of five, he had a double main beam. Um, that was the biggest buck and at the time, and that of course became the baseline breeder for Cedar Breaks. Every doe currently um that we're utilizing has chief in her pedigree. Um, whether again, it maybe be something that was original genetics, not something we introduced after, but at some point every doe has chief in her pedigree. Um and after that, they started breeding um with some semen, started doing lap AI, got in um what called Shotgun. Again, it would have been Rocky Mountain mule deer, and then shotgun uh would have produced some great offspring, and and one including was needles. Um, and needles is kind of our forefront as far as a figure for our our top breeder. That was at the age of four, you know, 264 or something like that. So that was at the time one of the biggest bucks that came out of it. And and again, even uh two generations prior to that, there was there were several bucks. Uh Achilles, Apache, Gladiator, that were some foundation bucks too. Um, those would have been bucks that also would have would have started some great genetics. We're we're currently actually dabbing back into some of those pools to reintroduce it to um to some of these deer. Like previous, I'd say two years now with that we've been doing lamp pi again. We've been we've been going back to some of those old siders. Um one of the things that we we had an issue was was as everybody does, but we're short supply, short selection of meal deer. There's there's not a lot of breeders out there, right? Um, and so introducing new stuff was always a challenge. And you know, luckily now, you know, 23, 24 years later, you know, we're there's a little bit more options out there, but um, we're introducing what I would say is more of a southern Rocky Mountain mule deer and a northern Rocky Mountain Mule Deer mix um into our genetic pool. And it's worked out fairly well. Um, one of our like George is one of the top names that we had for a long time. George at four giant, you know, four by four, some extra flyers, um, was if I remember correctly, about 230 inches, 229 inches, and then blew up at the age of five and six. I mean, um, and produced, you know, one of our top box Rushmore and Blackhawk, who was up at um uh Chris's place at uh Missouri Brakes.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Missouri Brakes, yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

So and that buck over 300 inches is what that buck ended up going. I think it was something like 333 inches. We scored them on the hoof. Um so I mean you start producing world-class world records at that point, and so it takes a while, you know. But with Mule Deer, you know, you started at bucks weren't hitting their their peaks until five or six years old, and and now we're finally getting to the point our genetics are at three years old. We're selling them at as stalkers at three. They're they're hitting 220 plus at three years old. So that's you know, as long as you don't have any uh have any hiccups, that's always a a good target age.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

So yeah. Um I noticed at least in in my in my journey of breeding deer, um, I can look back at like my kind of original genetics, if you will. And of course, the the selection in whitetail is endless, right? Like there's right, there's no shortage of genetic material to use in whitetail deer. Like you can get anything you want anytime you want, pretty much. And like that's that's not the case in in Mule Deer, but um I'll say I'll say a couple things. Um I've I've learned that my eyes need to do most of the work, and what I'm seeing in the field can then be verified on paper or through the genetics or pedigrees, whatever you're looking at. And as I've as I've done more breeding, I've you know, over time, you just you make certain crosses that work, you make certain crosses that are they work fine, but they're they're not as great. And you start, you know, you start kind of doing some line breeding or or breeding within uh you know a family line. And of course, you don't have a choice but to to do some of that, right? So I'm curious um if you've seen maybe some lack of vigor or um not health issues per se, but um uh maybe lack of thriving or genetic expression or whatever you'd want to call it, um maybe the closer you get to certain sources, or what does that look like for you and what you've you've seen? So, like you mentioned, uh just you mentioned chief being like kind of the basis of everything. Um you know, when you start taking you know, chief sons and breeding them back to chief daughters and then out crossing with an

SPEAKER_05 22:00

not outcrossing but breeding you know the subsequent generations with uncles or aunts and stuff what is what does that look like in the mule deer world yeah uh one of the one of the things on antler production i'll start there i'll start with the antler production one of the things that we saw uh on those double lineages specifically for for us it was um uh george or stacking uh us his son's uh rushmore on top of again same same thing a george dough or whatever um we had a lot of mass issues to the point like like mule deer you know you want time growth you want a big like a big frame like you know that's only 144 inch mealy but it's got a nice frame to it and we had we had issues with the mass production to the point that even after your g2 you know we were having a lot of webbing and like this this mass was getting carried out to where you know you you couldn't measure it because it was over five and some inches change it was just gnarly you know time length wasn't there um we saw a lot of a lot of issues there to where we weren't hitting the big frame that when you look at a mule deer you know that's what you want to see you know straight on view it's just like this you know it's big and then it turns and you have all these time lengths to it and so one of the issues stacking was the mass production um body size actually hadn't played it played a part um we had for whatever reason we had a pretty good success no matter no matter if they were line bred like you're saying or are kind of cross with some older genetics um body production was still there the the bucks that you know four years old if they were a breeder I mean you know we some of them the Skidster bucket was overflowing with their bodies right they were freaking huge they were 350 pounds plus you know um and then you start looking at your your fawning success and and that's where all it also became tricky. I can't 100% say but you know you start looking at okay well the sire for for whatever issue the last two years all these fawns have had subsequent issues or were susceptible to more susceptible to fuse or to this you know bacteria that we had an issue with and our fawn success that year off of that sire or buck that we were AIing with was horrible. Not that he didn't produce the fawns or that the doughs didn't take they did it's just the fawns weren't weren't successful. So you had to go back and we we started looking at the basically scoring the dough at that point you know where were we having issues with the lineages to the point that you know these fawns were successful because of that or were these dough unable to take care of of the fawns so um you know one of one of the things that again with with some of the stacked sires that we had if if I had uh a a brushmore son that also had george and there was three um subsequent George and his pedigree and went back and tried out crossing it with uh with needles instead or something um again because our genetic pool was still limited it took a couple extra years to then more or less weed out that stacking that we had issues with um you know going back in the in our genetic lineages a five year generation we were still building to get to that at one point so it was hard something that was at least put in our either NATO or MGMS or whatever it was hard to say 100% that you know because our pool was our genetic background was very deep yet it was hard to say where our issues were coming from in that that line breeding or not so but ultimately I going back to what I said on the mass growth we had to we had to kind of turn on it and and we would lose inches but we'd start to develop actual uh time lengths and some framiness to them so buck that yeah it's really cool to see almost seven inches of of base you know but we we're trying to reduce that to maybe four and a half so that the whole antler production is there because then you could get a G2 that would produce 20 some inches at that point which is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So it's hard to uh you know I I think mass is the most heredable trait that they get from an antler construction standpoint and for whatever reason when you when you made those you know those double george crosses right they just mass was what came through and um it's really hard to push that energy north right or up um when you have a a G2 coming off the beam and it's six inches around right you try to push that 20 inches up into the air in 45 days and it's just you're fighting gravity and um it's it's hard to do and um it seems like especially in whitetails like generally speaking the heavier they are um the less constructive the antler shape is yeah and then that density too that that antler density falls I mean you wouldn't think so but it really does.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

Yeah that's the blood expansion or whatever yeah yeah they're not as they're not as dense. No no and I mean you know sometimes you're gonna get that from poor nutrition too but definitely with the the amount of mass they're producing like some of them are still going to be fairly heavy don't get me wrong but when you start seeing those tips break and and you look down and and maybe not at the pedicle but you know through that antler and you're seeing aloe points to where you can see where the the uh the valves the blood was actually flowing and issues like that. Or uh maybe maybe it's more nutrition have you ever seen with uh with the white tail where you have that stunt growth there's like a little bulbiness as the tyne is trying to grow you get all of a sudden there's a bulb about three or four inches down from the tip. We had a lot of that too I wouldn't know if that would be more of a stunt issue or if that would be again going back to this mass production issue. I I I haven't seen the only time that I've seen that is uh damage right some sort of physical physical damage um it it it is interesting the um the conversation around how genetics and nutrition work together on antler construction um because like I don't want to say we have it figured out but like these deer generally are not lacking in nutrition right right like we've had 40 solid years of of research into what at least in whitales what whitetails need um to grow quality antlers like the the basis of you know your your protein fat fiber intake and then all your macro and micro micronutrients vitamin levels all that stuff it's it's pretty well defined right now there's there's uh as I explore this more there's more there's difference in the bioavailability of what certain types of vitamins and minerals are and the sources of those and how the body can uptake them into the system um but then there's there's a genetic component right because we're we're raising a herd animal right so we feed them as a herd so if there's 20 bucks in a pen those 20 bucks are getting the exact same thing to eat and so there's difference in how um I think from a genetic standpoint the the nutrients are absorbed right like you might have a a high achiever that you know he can he can absorb your you know your uh calcium phosphorus magnesium zinc cobalt etc and convert that into bone structure whether that be body or antlers is the same difference um and he might be a couple percent higher than another buck in the pen and you you see that right in the condition of those animals um and that's a challenge right because like everybody's like you know do you how do you achieve the the greatest results from these animals and like the best way to do it would be to have you know genetic testing done in relation to what we were just talking about running blood tests regularly feeding them as individuals like you know you you and I have different diets right like you may you may absorb um fat a lot differently than than I do right or you know your the protein you get from eating you know salmon is better for you than the protein you get from eating beef right like yeah there's those slight adjustments but when we feed them on a herd basis you know generally speaking we're they're getting good stuff yeah um but a lot of times like I don't know we I I have a couple bucks like they're overly dense like you pick up the antlers and you're just like oh my gosh like I do not want to fight with this guy if I'm another deer because I'm gonna get my butt kicked like they're just you know I can just imagine you know being a being a Indian a hundred years ago or 200 years ago and finding a shed to make tools out of right yeah bring that sucker back to camp and you're like yeah look at this thing like it's awesome um I'm curious you you had mentioned you had mentioned starting to bring some of the older genetics back in um how do you evaluate that like what is what does that look like because because of that that gene pool that limit in that gene pool it was first would have been limited as far as you utilization in the herd was limited um the number of doe that were successfully um put back into the breeding pool I think was an issue so going back to again how I said that it might not have been the sire it might have been something with the fawns or maybe that their their pool at that point was stacked you know to a point that these fawns were just unsuccessful because there wasn't more depth to the pedigree um so going back to bucks that one we knew had great antler production um were successful sires and we also had a uh a good amount of semen collection collected from them and it hadn't been used in over well over 12 years in some cases so going through and looking at again the pedigree and saying well I don't see this buck or his lineage anywhere in you know 25% of the herd so I started looking at it saying like yeah chief is still there but we're now over that again five generations deep we're like building or we have a uh genetic background on a dough that it's stacked with with those with George and Rushmore or whatever so it it was something that it was almost an outcross within the herd itself so going back to to something that yeah it still had the founding again with chief and there's a baseline but it was a buck that wasn't utilized and the doughs that were produced out of those sires one weren't out anymore and we hadn't had very many fawns out of them. So now again we've been doing it for the last two seasons on those bucks now we're starting to see them uh play back into our breeding our breeding pool and I've got yearly or first time does here this year that'll be fawning out of them that you know body sizes are there hopefully they took to to ai and everything but um start producing some more frame back into our our our bucks again is kind of the goal with it because those bucks that I mean going back to 2014 when they were utilized you know they they had frame to them um just for whatever reason there wasn't as many does around or uh that made it through over the years so um I need some mule deer basics you guys consistently getting twins just on average with out of your does is that normal twins um we started the last few years probably the last seven years now triplets started to increase um which is great means the does are healthy right but our triplet success is not great it's pretty poor which it's not that the does can't take care of them you're just getting a really poor fawn out of triplets you know you're getting three but they fit in your ball cap or there's one real big one and two runs you know um but twins is the average uh singles generally speaking come out of the first time moms uh the the going on two year old does um and then they kind of build off of that I've had does in the past that were older that all they did was throw singles to and they were usually big and healthy and I didn't have to worry about them. And then we've had a couple cases of quads which you know doesn't work. Worse than triplets yeah yeah I mean just you know we end up bottle feeding pretty much two of the three fawns when it comes to triplets um or the the first week those fawns just don't even make it I mean just how it is a poor um poor fawn that just doesn't either have the the growth didn't get the nutrients you know you name it so are are the um are the moms pretty good like are they pretty good moms like I know with at least from what I've seen with whitetails man like mom does a great job like it's rare that we get a a poor mom um they usually like they make good milk they take care of the fawns they're just really good moms is that right male deer generally like that too yeah I it really all that success you start looking at you know a percentage that aren't going to be good um one of the issues that we were looking at uh going back to how we like kind of scored the does is that at one point in time we were bottle feeding everything so I think there was though that for the last three years we have been blowing their fawns and successfully bottle feeding them and then we go and try to let her take care of one after three years. You know she's not the greatest mom because you took all that away from her but there's there's some does that they successfully of the of the twins they'll have no issues or you'll have those that only 50% of the of the fawns make it just you know going back to kind of how I think Mother Nature works with mule deers they do have a very poor um success rate in the free range like their mortality on on fawns is pretty high so we we generally try to bottle feed our our doe fawns anyways so have you have you done any uh hybridizing with whitetails at all no not here no okay um we had I know there's plenty of guys that I've talked to that have had decent success with it uh I've worked with a few people in the past that they wanted kind of like the East River thing right they wanted to raise mule deer but I told them you know success for that on 100% mule deer is probably not optimal out there. Um so a lot of guys towards the again east of the either east of Missouri or east of Mississippi like you said I think more of that's going on.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Yeah um what is the uh what does the breeding cycle look like as far as like when they breed in the fall when they have fawns gestation time what is that what does that look like in mule deer it's relatively close to the white till 196 days I'd say the you're probably close to the 200 day mark um I feel like the counting on a lot of them I hit more around that 200 mark maybe 205 at most but uh there have been some we we've gone back to our breeding like we've noticed that our success uh in our fawning period is is if we miss our AI right and we have a buck in there but we didn't AI until November 14th and our buck didn't get in there towards the end of the month.

SPEAKER_05 39:52

Our fawning success come that late summer midsummer is poor because of that because at that point all that early season uh development that was going on with those fawns that are born early they make it through it and the late fawns don't like our July babies have a very bad reputation of just not making it um so going back to our our breeding time we tried to actually this last year start it early so we were breeding already our dough around the 22nd of October we were putting bucks in at least so that they had an opportunity that on our first time those are though we weren't going to AI they were going to get read hopefully some point in October so that come May 10th May 15th that we're gonna be looking at having fawns. And then we were done with our AI last year at the 4th of November. So we were a whole two weeks earlier than normal so do you think that helped well we'll find out that's this year's goal. But I do believe the the early fawns do better. The the fawns born around the between the 15th and 25th of May with mule deer they just do better. How do you contest with the weather um where you're at relating to earlier uh birth generally may is it's yeah it is wetter it's greener you know I've seen snow on May 2nd before so there is that where you're almost in sweatshirts up until June at least in the last several years um so there are times that that that is an issue but I haven't had I mean again we're gonna go find a fawn every day and if we have to try them off if they're in the open weather you know we're gonna try to to keep them as uh their body temp as ideal as possible um you know like today I'm glad I don't fawn in April it's snowing right now I mean I know there's a lot of people who start fawning generally at some point in April and and we wouldn't be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah but yeah I always think about the the northern climate and like when fawns come and then you know you think about the southern climate and like their their breeding season is actually later yeah at least a little bit I mean you know a lot of the guys in the south that do natural cover you know they're looking at June as their primary month and I'm thinking to myself like like I want if I can target a date you know if I can hit May 20th to you know call it June 1st but not past I mean again I I get plenty of fawns first two weeks of June. But if I can be under that's when they thrive um you know vegetation's as good as you can make it um the weather's okay you know you get some cold days you get some rain but like generally speaking it's okay and then I look at the south and I'm thinking like you guys could fawn like in March. Yeah yeah I mean obviously they're not going to but like you could have most of your most of your fawns in May like beginning of May and they would just be they'd be really big um for that genetic pool in September when you wean or October right um yeah so that's it's just I always I'm always curious because there's like you and I live in different parts of the country like yeah our our facilities are not any anywhere close to each other as far as um geography, soil type, vegetation, weather like it's all very different. Yes we get snow where I am and yes it rains and the wind blows hard and yes it gets hot but like it's just very it's very different. I feel like you probably have more Extremes in your weather than than we do.

SPEAKER_05 44:03

Yeah, I mean we've seen negative 55 in the winter, and I've seen 115 in the summer.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Yeah, we don't we don't get that. Coldest I've seen here is like uh minus 15 and you know low 100s, and like both of those are short-lived. But you got the humidity to go with it too. We got lots of humidity, buddy. Come on over if you want to sweat. Yeah, I I uh I always laugh. It's it's different, right? But like I'll get in conversations with guys from you know Alabama, Louisiana, etc. And they're like, oh, it's you know hot and muggy. And I'm like, it's hot and muggy where I live too. It's just that the Thames not as hot, right? And there's there is a difference between you know mid 90s and 90% humidity and 82, right? Where I am and 90 humidity. Um but yeah, I always I always find those those conversations funny, like they they think we don't get uh humid where I am. It it's we have a lot of moisture. Um it's definitely humid. Um okay, so when you um uh again, I think the I think the journey with with Mule Deer is cool. So as you've been um you know building like you you had mentioned building some new new pens. Um are you doing like plantings in there? Are you trying to get stuff to grow? Like are you targeting certain forages? Um, or are you just like happy just to get more space or all the above?

SPEAKER_05 45:39

All the above, yeah. I mean, I the luckily enough, where we had uh expanded on, there was already a good um ground to go to go put on because it was an old hay field at one point, and you know, it was a mix of uh western wheatgrass and intermediate Malaki uh alfalfa. Um, you know, and there was obviously out here, for whatever reason, once you disturb soil out of here, you get weeds, you get kosher, you get, you know, you name it, stuff you don't really care for. And and at a certain point the deer do go after that growth. Um but yeah, there was already other than having trees, there was already a good base to to start on. Uh, I do try to implement other things, you know, like recently I planted a bunch of oats um because the last for the last two years I've been trying to get a lot more brome grass integrated into our ground. Uh where alfalfa's not been trying to put alfalfa in. Um we have a couple grass types that uh like crusted wheat that just takes over and nothing else tends to grow. It just overshades everything. It's not super tall, but it just it's a it's a hell of a grass to fight. And it's really only good for early season. And if you don't mow it, it heads out and the deer don't eat it, or no nutrition value to it at least. Um but putting in things like again, uh Rome grass, putting oats down, uh here come one that's soils better in first of June. I'll go through and I'll put in some Egyptian grass to try to get some uh some cover, you know. Um against planting trees when the deer in there doesn't really work. So as much as I would like to have uh an area fenced out for trees, and it takes a while out here for tree growth. So um that's just the lack of water, right? Lack of yeah, and and specific trees that do better that you know soil type out here, it's it's either it's either really gravelly, really sandy, or or you get some organic material, but not a lot. So growing oaks, it's not happening. You know, those eastern trees. We've we actually just got done planting uh 1100 trees this last week. We did uh like junipers and cedars and some hoose spruces, um, all outside of the the pen environment. But um, so those those type of trees do fairly well. Um elm trees out here for whatever reason take off fairly nice too. But getting it's again something to grow where there's deer, it's I usually eat it right as it's a shrub.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

So um so like you have to, I'm assuming you have you like you have shelters that you build, like they need they need cover. So what you just put up a shed in each pen, or you gotta have some shade for them, or windbreaks, or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 48:32

Yeah, yeah, a lot of windbreaks. Um, every pen has uh a windbreak or uh windbreak with a with a roof um on it. We've been trying to implement in some of our uh new additions. At least I did a uh instead of being so tall instead of like a 10 or 8 foot tall building or whatever, we did lower ones that you know they they might be only three foot tall, but the roof's concealing them. So when the doe's and the fawns are in there, they get really good shade. The temperature change is right there on the ground, no sun gets in. So on those hot days when it's 100 plus, it's a really cool environment for them. Um, and having it fixed so that there's two, but they're in different directions is key. Um, but yeah, a lot of a lot more wind breaks and stuff because again, South Dakota wind, but um yeah, it's all open.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

All open.

SPEAKER_05 49:22

Yeah, I mean there's we do have a pretty good tree belt on our uh South Pens on our west side because those trees were established over 30 years ago, and all there's cedars and pines in there um and elm trees. But uh, you know, other than that, it what are you gonna do? Plug in a new tree and then not have deer in there for five plus years, or you know, it just doesn't work like that.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

So yeah, yeah, it's always uh I I think the guys in the east don't even think about that. I mean, right, I was looking at a stat and I think it's 68% of Pennsylvania is covered in trees. That's crazy. Like it's you know, they call it pen pen woods. So like it's just I mean, like we have a huge timber business throughout the state, and like we've got nice hard woods, and yeah, we have we have uh we have your pines and uh hemlock, eastern hemlock's kind of the it's our state tree, it's the dominant tree, but like people don't even think about tree tree growth here, right? Like if you like if you plant a spruce tree here, um that's you know three feet tall when you plant it, in five years that sucker's ten foot tall. That's crazy. Like it just it's gonna grow, it's gonna grow really well. Yeah, like people like everything, not everything, but like everything grows here. Like whatever you want to plant, you can pretty much. You can yeah, stick in the ground, and yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes off. Um, so I guess you have to be a lot more selective. Um, when you're looking at those, and so like I know you and I have had this conversation many times about uh natural forages and kind of our thoughts around the importance of that, um, compared to like a stock feeder, a grain. Um, when you're trying to select those uh species to grow in your pastures, um there's probably a lot of factors to that, whether it be soil establishment, nutritional value, what grows, what doesn't, economics, all that stuff. Walk us through what that looks like. Um, at least maybe in those those new pens, because you've been doing it recently.

SPEAKER_05 51:37

I would say the the key thing is gonna be the uh access to uh a variety of grass species out here. Um you know you try to get it as I guess organic as you as you want, right? You know, not just uh a pen of alfalfa, you know, as they would probably eat it, but you want a variety of things. And one of the things trying to establish is is yeah, having alfalfa at a good percentage, having your your intermediate growth, um, and again your like your June grasses that come in, or you know, your late season grasses that like an Oahee grass, something that'll be nice and tall, that'll provide more of a more of a shelter than anything. Um trying to select more native grasses, which it's tough. I mean, you can go down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what tell us about this rabbit hole. Yeah, well, I mean, like one of the things out west, I mean, there is having a variety, like an actual, as they call it, the range of of grasslands out here isn't just your isn't just your Wahi intermediate grasses, you know, it's not just a field of that's a good hay field of of brome grass, you know, and and that's all it is with some maybe alfalfa in there, but your your actual vegetation of you know, a mix of it could be yucca plant, it's gonna be a like a a common uh Oaha western wheat. There's gonna be flowering species, which is huge, you know, having not just a grass, but a native flowering species out here, and they all bloom at different times of the year. So early spring, you're gonna have these purple ditchweed flowers that take off, and then come June or July, you're gonna get yellows, you know, there's gonna be wild sunflowers, there's gonna be all sorts of tiny little flowers that you know they don't get but three inches tall, and they sprout uh sage grass, you know, common sagebush, there's there's common sage. Um, it's a short uh common sage, it's it looks blue almost, and and you know, again, there's having over 12 different species of grass would be ideal. Um, but what you're gonna get to take uh is another thing, right? You know, I would like to go in and have early clover and then other grasses take off after that, but a lot of clover takes a lot of moisture. We don't really see that. So you have to have a regional specific, you know, your drought tolerant species. Um, and again, one of the things planting with the with the oats is that it'll be something early, so they come in after after the oats are done. A person can go in and try to stick something else and fall in the ground, um, trying to trying to build something back for spring again for the following year. Um, but yeah, I mean, variety I've I've tried, I've tried the uh yellow clover, which deer love it, it's like candy to them. It yellow clover is a little taller, I think like an average of three feet, maybe a little under that. But once it starts to bud out, those those yellow flowers they hammer it like crazy. And that one's hard to kill, but it also comes in uh kind of sporadically. It's not a year-to-year thing. It comes in when the the conditions for that plant are ideal. Um, whereas like your common alfalfa comes in every year, your Wahi and other intermediates come in every year, you know, your crested wheat and all that stuff, but um having things kind of take off at different times in the summer plays a big factor for us. Um and again, like out in the grasslands, meal deer are gonna be hitting everything, and they're roaming quite a bit more than than maybe what uh whitale might do. And as much as I would like you mentioned brome or not brome uh browse, as much as I would like to have an abundant selection of browse material for them, uh it's difficult, but we do go and and cut those materials that we can, like elm tree growth or young saplings in areas that uh um that we have access to and bring that in. So periodically throughout the summer, they're eating eating more browse, more leafy stuff. Um we have uh we have an area that's kind of fenced off, and I just call it the browse area. We have a pond back there, and there's there's elm, there's cedar, there's you name it, that's back there, and and the deer don't go in there so that it's able to re-establish itself every year. And so we go in there and trim a lot of trees or knock some stuff down um and and bring that into the deer pens. And I'd say in the summer, that's probably a weekly thing, especially during fawning, bringing browse in there. Um, and then again, having, I think you and I have talked about this before, just having hay out there every day is a selection for them. Um, they're not gonna hammer it, but the fact that that extra um material is there, you know, it helps with the protein intake, uh, the gut health, you know, instead of being specifically on whatever grass is growing and then your pelletized or mixed feed that you have, like ours is a is a mix of grain and pellet. Um, but having that that extra grass, that that hay, that protein level of of you know, either straight alfalfa or brum grass mix with alfalfa is key.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yeah, it's it's interesting. So when I look at uh and I've I've made this comment to several guys that raise mule deer, um, when I look at the difference between like mule deer and whitetail physically, the first thing that I always notice is a distended belly in a mule deer, right? And it's it's um I I kind of equate that to more of like a cow, and it's just I don't think that they have this as efficient processing system for whatever reason as a whitetail. And you know, you can only and may maybe it's maybe it's climate, maybe a lot of it's climate, right? But um yeah, the I think they would just do so good with this mass variety of forage. Yeah, you know, I suspect like you've you've you've had the same dreams I do of of meal deer uh that I have in Whitale, where you know you just have like unlimited amounts of ground and the variety is endless, and you don't feed really.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

It's just like they just eat whatever they want, and um, I suspect health would be a reflection, good health would be a reflection of of that variety. Um yeah, anyway, we can we can we can dream. Um right, yeah. So you uh uh the other thing that I I found interesting about uh your place is that you you have a bottle feeding program that you implement for your you know pretty much based on um the idea that you you need to keep these animals in a controlled environment so they ultimately can reproduce for you in the future with your your females. Um you have an intern program that you guys have done for a long time. You want to talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_05 59:01

Yeah, so the yeah, the bottle feeding part is huge for us. Um we again generally speaking, we we pull the the dough fawns off of the dough um if they have twins. Um or we'll we'll go back and and uh look at our our dough score, you know, who has successfully fawned in the past and taken care of and had had good success with their fawns. Um and so anything that we're bottle feeding, and we're limited on our our capacity. I'd say like you know, hitting 30 bottle fawns or bottle babies, whatever you want to call them, or it's that's getting up there for us. Um and that that's a lot, you know. You start at six times a day. Uh see how and the amount of ounces we feed compared to feeding whitetail fawns is is different. You know, we're starting at uh you know maybe an intake of a one and a half to two ounces a day to start with. Um and then we're getting up to three ounces after that first week, but it's six times a day, and then as the per feeding. Correct. Okay, it's two to three ounces, six times a day. I gotcha. Yep, okay. And the you know, first 14 days determines pretty well how that fawn is is gonna be established and and growth-wise, at least with our bottle fawns. Um and after your after your two-week period and ounces increase, and um doing four feedings a day, which is ideal because then it leaves you time for other things, but uh four feedings a day, there's I mean, pushing five ounces per feeding, you know, that's getting up there. A lot of them at a certain point, we'd rather have on five feedings a day if we had to, even though they're older, and start reducing towards the end of summer um the amount of feedings just because they do get uh a little bit more inflated from milk, I think, than white tail fawns do. Um, you know, another issue has been the milk replacer in the past, which I know you and I have talked about. And as of uh as of last year, we're 100% goat's milk. So, and I will never I will never go back to any form of it. If anybody ever asks me what to feed for balafig, it's goat's milk. I don't care. Like you can buy the goat, milk it yourself, and not you know, pasteurize it, have it raw, that's great, as long as it's you know controlled and clean. Um, but we do pasteurize ours, we get ours from from the neighbors, and then in order to to more or less just make sure everything's sanitary and clean, um, we pasteurize it and then freeze it. Um you have neighbors, yeah, exactly. Right. We're about an hour away. It's still a neighbor. An hour away. We're not quite the town yet. So 45 minutes to an hour is where we go get our milk and sure uh you know, 14, 16 gallons of it at a time. But uh it's a process, but uh it worked. Like our our balafien stuff last year was great. The fawns, the size class that we got out of it was phenomenal. I mean, even the runs grew, right? I mean, the late-born fawns that they're yeah, they're gonna have problems, but they made it through it. And and that was key. It was having these fawns that they're smaller, they're later born, and yet they hammered the bottle, they were getting the proper nutritionists, and we got them through whatever the the bug was, you know, at the time I think it was uh a parasite issue, but we got them through it, and they they came out and they're fine. I mean, most of our our doe fawns are all relatively speaking in the same um size class now. Whereas in years past, doing the formulated milk, I mean, you'd have the like this time of year, you'd have ones that still look like they could be a fawn, and then you'd have a mature one next to it. So I it's a hundred percent swing as far as what to feed them. It's goat's milk is the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:02

Yeah, I've had that same experience, and every time somebody asks me, I'm like the best fawns that have ever raised as a group or individuals have always been on goat's milk. And um, you know, I I it's funny. The like one of the first times that I kind of put goat's milk to the test, there was this I I I I guess I feel bad now, but there was this elderly lady she had to be 75, and she had like three or four goats, and she loved these goats, like they were her world, and she'd milk them. I don't know how I got hooked up with her, and I was like, Well, I'll take I'll take everything that you can give me. Of course, you know, she makes cheeses and yogurts and whatever else, and so she kept these goats going for me, and I would get unpasteurized milk from her, and I had fawns that were drinking like 60 ounces a day, six zero. Yeah, like they would just crush oh, dude, they would crush you'd go out there with you know 32-ounce bottle, and they'd take the whole thing down towards the end of the summer in one in one feeding, and they'd be all blown out and they'd just walk around. Those fawns were enormous. They had almost yep, they had almost no digestive issues. That was unpasteurized milk, so they got all raw milk. And like she, you know, she was I think she was feeding them like uh like blue seal pellets or something, some kind of high-end go pellet, and like good quality alfalfa. And so they get their grain while the while she was milking, and she was super clean, and um it just grew the best, it grew the best fawns that have ever had. You know, I don't think we did a ton that year. We maybe did 12 or 15 of them, but like they were beasts, all of them. Yeah, you know, at the end of the summer, you let them into the barn to feed them, and like they for them. Yeah, did do you do you notice that at night the fawns seem bigger than they are during the day?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:08

I don't know if it's your but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Like they just come in and like you're like, oh, these things are you know, they're 40 pounds and they're ready to tear your head off.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:18

I'd say I'd I'd say like uh your your last feeding of the day, and I you know, once they figured out like I'm not getting fed until morning, you know, they're they're definitely pretty rowdy. Um you said that you were feeding 35 ounces at a time. Like, I wish the the meal deer fawns could take a whole 24 ounce bottle, like that would be great. Because then yeah, you could reduce your feedings, but had just so many bloat even on the ghost, just bloat issues, and then I mean maybe it's because I'm being too careful or I don't know, but it's just it's worth done. I've I've I've done the raw milk before. Um, we just whether or not it was uh implemented correctly, I guess. Would be the trick to it, but um that I think the difference between the raw and the pasteurized, you're gonna see a big difference too. Well, the pasteurized is just way easier. Well, it's our big thing is that yeah, we're we're freezing it right away and and we're trying to store it properly. And yeah, um, I mean you're you know, you got flies, flies around everything. So we're just trying to was it coming from a fly, or was it not, you know, we're just trying to eliminate the the deal. But is that uh that neighbor's still milking for you, or what no, that was 15, 18 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

Oh, okay. Yeah, it'd be really pushed her nerve. She was 85 years old still milking for you. Yeah, no. Um we um we found a supplier like maybe two and a half hours away. Um and so we would just go down. Uh I'd have her when when they started having kids or lambs or whatever the heck they call them. Um, and and don't like all the sheep and goat people don't reach out and hate on me. I don't know the difference. You had to bring kids and kids and goats and lambs are the yeah. There you go. And so um I just told her to start um putting it away for me. And so she would like the half gallons sit in a chest freezer a lot better than the gallons. So I had her bottle them up in half gallons, and so we'd go down and get like 120, 140 half gallons, stuff them in the cooler, they were all froze. And then when we brought them back, we just you know, you thaw them as needed, and you know, of course, the the cream separates, you just shake it up good, put it at uh 100 degrees, that's where we we feed ours, uh you know, 100 to 103, and uh they did really good. And then that so that's all human, that's all human-grade pasteurized milk. And um I got away from bottle feeding in the numbers I was because I was at, you know, I was doing like 20, 20-ish a year, and it's just me. And so I I dropped that, yeah. I dropped that down, and it just wasn't worth um it wasn't worth it to me. So like I played around with some replacers, which were never good. And um, I used the record, I used the record rack replacer, and I I know there's there was some people had issues, some people didn't. I thought it was amazing. Like I had really good luck with that replacer. It mixed well, as long as you followed the instructions, right? So you'd you'd mix it at 125 and then you would let it reduce down to 100 to 105, and you'd feed it. And if you followed that, I don't know if there was an activation ingredient um at 125 or whatever, but like I did I had good success with that. Um, and then you know, you just kind of get lazy, and um, you know, like you feeding four or five fawns, you just go buy some cow's milk, and that's where we're at. So um I'm looking at expanding the operation here in the in the future, and maybe we'll get back to doing you know 2030 fawns again, and goat smoke will be it. So hopefully I can find a supplier that's a little closer. And you know, like it's important to have tested tested milk make sure everything's good. So anyway, that's that's where we're at.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:26

Between the the amount of work it takes, I mean, and having 30 head, that's yeah, that's a lot. I don't care what it is, white tail or not, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

So back to the interns.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:39

Yeah. So we usually do two every year. Um and you know, from May 15th through August 15th. And I mean they're again six times a day they're feeding, and then they kind of teeter off towards the end of the summer, but I mean they come from all over. Um I think this year they'd be coming from one's from New York, I believe, and then the other one might be from Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

So but from all over. I mean these are like uh animal science uh students or vet students or both.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:18

Generally speaking, they're uh animal science, egg studies. Um, you know, I've had a few wildlife uh backgrounds too. And um I mean it yeah, it's not a lot of it's it's bottle feeding, right? So it's just more or less just doing the work. And if you have interest in uh any sort of animal husbandry, you know, you'll have good success. But it's challenging. I know that uh we always put a we always put a goal towards the end of the summer, like if we can keep our mortality under say five percent or whatever, as far as bottle fading goes, and that's an amazing year. Um and then there's bonuses included with that, but um yeah, we do a thousand dollars a month for our for our interns, plus the housing and then some travel, um travel stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

So cool. Yeah, it sounds like a a neat program. Uh anybody that's had their hands on fawns for any amount of time knows they are just cute as hell, and like it's it's uh it can be a labor of love, right? Like it's right, it's yeah, it sounds awesome. So what a what a cool summer job. It's definitely yeah, it's something unique you can put on your resume. Um yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Um well I I appreciate you coming on. I I um I I I really enjoy talking about Mule Deer because it's something different for me. And um I always enjoy our our conversation. So hopefully we'll uh we'll check in with you at the end of the summer. You can let us know how the bucks did, how the uh the interns did with the uh the bottle feeding program, and we'll just keep up on the the cedar breaks journey.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:00

Yeah, I appreciate it, Josh. Yeah, I'll be sure to share some pictures with you of the of the bucks this year. So I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, stay tuned for another episode of New Zealand.