Deer Herd Health

[96trigger]

Has anybody else been seeing an abnormally large amount of deer herds this spring? I've been noticing that in SEMN in the last couple of weeks deer herds of 25 to 50+ deer are out in the fields. For the most part many of the deer look really good, but there are few that are starting to look pretty skinny. Are the deer scrounging that bad for food that when the find an open field they all congregate to it? It reminds me of the deer herds in Buffalo Co. Wis. I didn't think I would see them over here but they are all over it seems. Not uncommon to see 3 or four heards in a 20 mile drive. Father in law has a picture of a buck that looks skin and bones eating his landscaping and he is in a rural farm area.

[mnhunter79]

iv'e been seeing quite a few deer in herds of 15 to 25 lately. Three different herds wihtin a 3 mile vacinity. they were too far away to see the quality of em'.

[maros91]

I seen a couple a herd of about 10 eating off a round hay bail by St. Francis and all looked healthy. I was shed hunting in the same area 2 days ago and walked up on a couple and both of their coats looked a little ruffled. Spring is around the corner.

[96trigger]

Yeah, I'm hoping for an early spring and no more big snow storms. That buck looked to be in pretty tough shape. Over all, I'd say the herds look pretty good. Maybe he had to come and eat landscaping because he was so old his teeth weren't very good and didn't have a choice. The Does all looked pretty good but I'd hate to see another big snow storm hit us, I don't know if that one in particular could make it another two weeks. I guess its just something that I've never seen before. I asked a few older people in my area and they all kind of say the same thing. They have never seen that many deer herded up like that on this side of the Mississippi.

[kilkercal615]

I was down snowmobling down by Caledonia two weekends ago at my hunting land and the deer didn't look very good at all. We found 7 dead deer over the course of the weekend. We found two on our land and 5 along the side of trails. The snow is pretty deep and under the snow is a couple of inches of ice. It has been a tough winter for them in that area. When I went down muzzleloader season in early December there was already a couple inches of snow and that ice was there so its been a long winter for them. I gusse that is how it goes though...Spring is on the way

[96trigger]

I'm in on the south edge of Wabasha County, we still have quite a bit of snow. Lots of deer, I'm not sure why the DNR put 342 to a management area last fall. It might have helped the deer herd a little in this area if a few more deer were gone and the zone stayed intensive harvest. I think that 7 dead deer over the course of the weekend is pretty significant. But like you said, thats how it goes. Nature can be cruel. The next couple of days of 40 degree weather might help alot. Haven't seen much for turkeys either, I wonder how they faired this winter.

[sticknstring]

The south-eastern portion of the state is probably hurting the most with all the snow. It's been pretty mild across the rest of the state according to winter severity indexes, albeit the arrowhead. Pretty common this time of year to see them yarded up so-to-speak. Saw a nice group of 30 or so at our hunting property last weekend in a recent clear cut. I've put roughly 15 hours of walking in so far looking for antlers and nothing yet. Some snow should disappear this week and reveal what I've been walking over for the past few weeks.