Is big better.

howa243

Well-Known Member
Can anyone help me understand if it is possible to assess future potential of an animal by its first set of antlers.

Photo0236.jpg


This chap was born last year and has about 6 inches on the next best. Would I be right in believing that no assumptions can be made.

Grant
 
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I can't answer your question, but your stalking is on the ball ;), either that or you have some camera :eek:

Nice Stag.

TJ
 
Grant, hes a healthy looking beast but, assuming that hes in a park, hes really nothing special in the antler department. Having said that, why not run him on until next year and find out what he does? If hes your best spiker then it always pays to run him on anyway. Assuming that you don't want an excess of adult stags then you will always have to cull a high proportion of spikers so take the worst and leave the best. What blood line do your deer have? If hes a wild deer then who knows, you may never see him again and how will you identify him to see what his antlers are like next year? JC
 
It was a long and arduous stalk Stu, requiring several minutes in a Kawasaki mule and a bag of feed. :lol:

He is a park animal and my issue is one of succession. I would like to keep one of these chaps but not sure how to gauge which one. They all seem in good nick, but this one stands out in terms of his weaponry.
If these are no guide as to future potential, what is?
:confused:
 
Grant, its simple mate, he is obviously your first choice or you wouldn't have put up a picture of him! Stick with your first thought and go out this afternoon and shoot the rest! That way you won't be bugged by indecision! I won't anoy you by putting up a picture of the 14 point spiker that I have decided to run on this year! Best wishes, JC
 
JC275 said:
...... I won't anoy you by putting up a picture of the 14 point spiker that I have decided to run on this year! Best wishes, JC

Do It!!! 8)

Would live to have quality Red like that running wild on my bit, I have some very good Sika, 6 and 8 point but have not been lucky enough to have a summer at home cull some, Scottish Seasons :mad: :mad: I can only hope I'm there next year :rolleyes:
The Red's I've seen are only 1-2 year old lads, who have come down to shelter early in the new year, the Sika stags are there all year round and in abundance come closed season :evil: :evil:

TJ
 
JC I would like to see that too. Your probably right about my course of action but i would like to spend a few months agonising over it (well at least till they weigh a bit more). :lol:

Is it correct to call them knobbers rather than spikers. They were born in 2008.

Grant
 
Grant (or TJ, if you see this first), if you PM me your email adress, I will send you a couple of photos that you can put up as I don't seem to be able to do it. As far as red deer terminology goes, Spikers, Knobbers and Prickets (prickets is less often used as it generally refers to fallow) are all used to decribe this age class of animal, ie born June 2008 so 15 months old at the moment. I tend to call them spikers so as not to be confused with my fallow prickets and knobbers just seems inapropriate when they carry well developed antlers. The different terms always promote discussion and I think that it is good to keep them alive rather than just saying yearling stag etc. You are right that the remainder will gain a few kilos over the next couple of months but I still shoot all of the poor ones as soon as the season opens just so that visitors only see the good ones and I can pretend that they were all like that and I don't have any average or poor ones! JC
 
Wild deer of same age clean of velvet this deer would have made a real good stag but hey he was destined to become burgers before he became a royal ;)

allanandstaggiebasic.jpg
 
" but I still shoot all of the poor ones as soon as the season opens just so that visitors only see the good ones and I can pretend that they were all like that and I don't have any poor ones."

Nice one JC, that brought a smile to my face :lol:
 
He would go straight away as he only has spikes, we then assess the multi pointers and leave the best ones to develop.
 
Stand buck then you might miss out on some of the best stags this fella was the brother of the spiker shot and was watched for 4-5 years by the deer manager. Sometimes we play god and make a devil of a job of it but hey we can only perceive what is to be be.

25pointmassive.22JPG.jpg
 
Stand Buck said:
He would go straight away as he only has spikes, we then assess the multi pointers and leave the best ones to develop.

Bit harsh Stand Buck, Grant may only have a small park with a few animals, if that is the best young stag that he has then he is right to be proud of him. I think it is important to compare him to his peers rather than park red deer in general. JC
 
Hi there Howa,

I think you might have opened a can of worms with your question.
Being a deer farmer I am in the fortunate position of being able to see the consequences of choosing spikers that I think are worth keeping.
Firstly if you look at some of the websites of the top NZ breeders you can have 30-40 points on spikers. It doesn't necessarily mean they will continue to be that good.

In any years crop of spikers I normally get 10-15% with single spikes, the rest would have up to about 15 points. I don't breed for antlers but bodtweight. Whatever characteristics you want, the most important factor is to identify the mothers that pass on those traits. It's easy enough to see whether the sire looks the part and will take a bit longer to see whether he passes it on. It's the female side that is more difficult.

I have had stags that showed no real promise until 4 years old then suddenly grew fantastic heads. Also when looking at spikers remember that date of birth makes a huge difference in an animals first year.

If you are trying to keep the best of what you have available without buying something better, then you can only make a choice based on your personal preference and hope for the best. It's making these decisions and watching events unfold that make it all so interesting. Have fun.
 
Thanks for that cyberstag.

You have hit the nail on the head about the stag. I want to keep the best of them for the future. I have not much experience of doing this, so I have no idea whether the one in the photo is good bad or indifferent for a 15 month old animal.
 
JC275 said:
Stand Buck said:
He would go straight away as he only has spikes, we then assess the multi pointers and leave the best ones to develop.

Bit harsh Stand Buck, Grant may only have a small park with a few animals, if that is the best young stag that he has then he is right to be proud of him. I think it is important to compare him to his peers rather than park red deer in general. JC

True enough JC, we are culling 60 Red Prickets a year so have alot of choice.

Howa do you have pictures of the rest of the spikers? How many reds are you running and in how many acres.
 
There is a good article in Petersens Hunting where they have done quite a bit of work on white tail deer and single spikers - the old concensus was that a deer in its first year with just single spikes will never grow into a decent head. A research group tagged several hundred young bucks and monitered them over several years and the basic conclusion was that what they grew in the first year bore no relation to what they looked like when fully mature age four or five - ie spikes can easily go onto to become a decent head.

Not sure if this helps. The main principle to getting decent animals is to insure they get sufficient food and absense of disease. Too may deer, on too poor land = disease and none getting a decent level of nutrition. Fewer deer on better land = bigger animals.

Amazing to think that I think the research was governement funded to try to imprve the quality of the heard to produce more trophy bucks. Can't see our froestry commision doing that!

The articles can be found at

http://www.petersenshunting.com/content/shooting-spike-bucks
http://www.petersenshunting.com/content/growing-pains-0
 
Thanks for that heym thats good information.

The reality is that I shall run them together anyway and not reduce there number unless essential, so I will see how they compare in a year.
 
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