Fawns are showing up regularly around our house these days.  While horseback riding yesterday I saw my first pair of fawns with a doe.  We've seen lots of single fawns with does.  While does mostly always birth twin fawns, in dry or stressful times usually only one fawn lives.  The state of Texas has been dry this year and thus our fawn crop is not as good as last year when we experienced good rainfall. 

Whitetail bucks currently have horns are sprouting on their heads.  Nutrition is very important for horn growth and we are thankful to have a good mesquite bean crop this year.  The beans are full of good protein and will be of great benefit for our deer herds. 

Native plants are necessary to insure good wildlife habitat.  Wildlife are Dependant upon natural habitat for existence.  Everything else falls behind it in importance.  Exotic grasses have become popular in the last few decades for several reasons; erosion control, livestock forage, as well as the mis-perception of promotion of wildlife. 

Over the past 10 years almost 5 million acres of native rangeland has been lost to development in the state of Texas.  On exotic grass land even good wildlife woody plants get pushed out over time.  The grass eliminates native weeds and seed bearing plants that our wildlife depends upon.

A ranch with good wildlife practices has ample supplies of the basics, food, water, cover and space.  Variety and diversity of these basic needs are imperative.  For instance, food comes in the basic forms of plants and insects.  Structure diversity of cover simply means that the native grasses and bushes is in different shapes, sizes, and density. 

Our hunting ranches have little, if any, improved pastureland maximizing the potential for optimal wildlife habitat.  Thus, our hunters have consistently over the years seen many healthy whitetail deer, exotics, and turkey.

Texas whitetail deer hunting has absolutely exploded in the last ten years.  We began outfitting as a full time business in 1994 and there were few outfitters in this area of southwest Texas.  Since that time the number of outfitters has increased by the dozens.  Whitetail deer herds have also multiplied offering hunters opportunity to see large numbers of bucks and harvest low-fenced deer scoring 120-150 and even 170. 

Whitetail deer hunting has been affected by the low of economics just as other avenue of business.  As a result of the popularity and the search for big bucks, deer breeding is very popular in Texas.  A couple of years ago there was an estimated 6000 deer breeding farms in this State, and that number continues to grow. 

We get some mixed attitudes about bred deer.  We do have access to a really nice deer breeding ranch and their deer score over 240 b.c.  Most of our hunters prefer a low-fenced, fair-chase hunt and while they'd like to see these deer, they don't express much interest. I think that stems from a misconception that hunting high-fence is pretty much like hunting a feed lot.  While that is probably true of some operations, it is certainly not true of this ranch.  High-fence is used primarily to keep inferior deer out, not really to keep deer in.  The high-fence ranches we hunt offer hunting, not killing.  The terrain has been left natural with lots of cover and wildlife habitat.

This ranch also offers extremely nice exotic animals ranging from Texas exotics to African super exotics.  We have a list of animals on our exotics page - they are simply beautiful! 

Summer is a great time to book a hunt for exotics, take advantage of the sunny weather, and enjoy staying at a 5 star facility.  A great getaway for the family or a group of friends!

Well, it seems the dog days of summer have arrived early in southwest Texas!  Last Saturday our high was 112 officially and today my thermometer is showing 102.  These are temperatures we usually experience in August. 

I have noticed with the extreme heat, our deer herd showing up for feeding time has grown.  Lots of pregnant does and a good many bucks with horns sprouting out their heads.  A few large fawns as well, they must have been born late.  The does should be dropping their fawns very soon now.  Last year we had a great fawn crop, most does had both fawns live and do well.  Will be watching for fawns soon - the mothers hide them in the trees outside the feeding ground. They are quite a cute thing to watch once they get a little braver and start running and playing together. 

I'll be reporting on their condition and numbers once the birthing process is over. 

We feed deer morning and evening around our house.  So much fun - and quite interesting to watch them grow and develop and then if they're bucks, usually disappear after a couple of years.  We have one young buck that started coming in with his mother when he was just a little, bitty fawn.  His name is "Dumpling".  When he was a youngster, he would run and follow us to the horse pen (the horses get fed first) and he would wait for his own private treat!  He was precious.  Dumpling still shows up although not as often.  We may not see him for a couple of months in fact but we always look for him.  It's funny because sometimes we think, 'is that him?' but when he does show up, we KNOW it's him.  Anyway, this is his second set of antlers that he's growing now and he is already being a bit elusive.  Even though he's becoming more elusive, he still runs to get his own private treat!