re: Does Galore!!

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What I never understood, is how some people put a date in their mind to not shoot does after, because they dont want to kill a doe who has a fetus. I'm like, if I kill her before she gets knocked up, or after she is knocked up, i prevented that future birth either way.....

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Old timers have a hard time grasping that concept. Took my dad to a DMAP presentation. He was still like nope, nope, nope. Not killing does

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What I never understood, is how some people put a date in their mind to not shoot does after, because they dont want to kill a doe who has a fetus. I'm like, if I kill her before she gets knocked up, or after she is knocked up, i prevented that future birth either way....

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Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Whitetails are not like elk or other cervids in that they breed lots and lots of does every year. As everyone knows, the vast majority of does come into heat during a 7-10 day window. In that time, a buck will chase and follow a single doe for up to 48 hours waiting for her to come in heat, and then breed her repeatedly before moving on to the next doe. It doesn't leave much time to hit a whole bunch of does. The does, will, of course, come into heat every 28 days until she is bred.

Anyway, having higher doe numbers later in the season causes does to go unbred the first cycle, leading to late breeding, etc. This causes other problems. And saying all this, it still doesn't matter if you can't kill them early, kill them later. Just saying it's better to kill as many as you can as early as you can.

As no colors said, studies have shown that orphaned bucks tend to have a higher likelihood of staying in original home range.