From cattle to whitetails
Emphasizing genetics, ranchers embrace deer breeding's income potential
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE Treats in hand, Vicki McLean checks on a doe inside a pen at her ranch west of Lometa. She and her husband, Jim, breed whitetail deer that they sell to other breeders and landowners trying to stock their property with additional wildlife. A doe's bloodline, even more than a buck's, determines the size and antler development of male offspring, Mrs. McLean said.

A griculture looks much different

now on Jim and Vicki McLean's land than when Mrs. McLean's great-grandfather established the ranch in 1876. In the last 130 years, the property west of Lometa has changed from primarily a cattle operation to a home for polo ponies. Now, like a growing number of Central Texas ranchers, the McLeans have shifted their focus to deer.

Mrs. McLean, a Lometa native, has been breeding deer since 1998 and has built up a herd of more than 200 whitetails. She started with just 10 two-day-old buck fawns and 10 two-day-old does she purchased from South Texas breeder Tommy Dugger.

In place of -- or in some cases, along with -- cattle, some Lampasas County ranchers are turning to deer for extra income. Breeders sell to other deer raisers or provide "stocker" deer to landowners who have built high fences around their property and hope to improve the gene pool of their wildlife.

PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE Vicki McLean tosses a vanilla cookie to a buck while standing near her all-terrain vehicle, which she uses for checking on males. The treats bring bucks in close enough for breeders to check them for signs of good health, but because males can injure humans who get too close, Mrs. McLean generally observes them from inside her vehicle.

Mrs. McLean has sold breeder bucks and does across the state. Wesley Crow, who tends about 100 whitetails on his ranch near Rumley, started with yearlings he bought from Mrs. McLean and from ranches in Brownwood, Brady and East Texas. Crow said he knows of at least eight breeders within a 50-mile radius of Lampasas.

Deer breeding contributes $652 million annually to the Texas economy, said Richard Cain, who helped Texas A&M University prepare an economic study on the industry for the Texas Legislature. Much of that spending directly benefits rural areas, Mrs. McLean added, in everything from tractor purchases to the sale of goat milk for bottle feeding doe fawns to fence building and other labor.

"All of that is right here in this local area," she said.

Deer operations also provide employment opportunities for young agricultural workers. Mrs. McLean and her sister-in-law, Kathy Duncan -- who operates Duncan Ranch Whitetails outside of Lometa with her husband, Keith -- both have hired summer feeders to help with fawns. Crow, the McLeans and the Duncans all employ a ranch manager at their properties, as well.

Mrs. McLean estimated as many as one thousand Texas landowners may be breeding deer -- many of them hoping for a more lucrative use of their land than traditional cattle operations allow.

"It has allowed a lot of people to hold on to the family property," she said of the deer breeding industry.

The Duncans, who have managed deer since 1993, consider whitetail breeding a hobby that provides some supporting income. The couple still use their property primarily for cattle.

Crow, however, shifted completely from cattle ranching to deer breeding three years ago. Working with a small herd of livestock was taking too much time with too little financial return, he said.

"You can't run 25 or 30 cattle and make money off them," said Crow. "I think the income (from deer) on a longer-term basis will be better than with cattle."

Entering the whitetail breeding field, though, requires a substantial investment. Along with the cost of building fences and the long networks of alleyways used to move deer from pens to breeding and vaccinating areas, ranchers can spend thousands of dollars for the deer themselves.

Reproductive costs vary, depending on whether ranchers artificially inseminate does and on the quality of the semen they purchase. Mrs. McLean has bred deer from "Maxbo" a trophy buck whose semen commands more than $10,000 per straw -- about the amount used to inseminate a doe. Mrs. McLean artificially inseminated 67 does this year, a task that took about five hours.

She and Mrs. Duncan bottlefeed their does with goat milk, making them calmer and easier to handle during breeding and vaccinations. Alleyways and chutes also are designed to calm and protect the deer.

Black netting blocks the deer's view of outside distractions that could frighten them and cause them to run into the alley walls. Chutes laid with gravel and containing short ramps also slow down the deer as they move through, which helps avoid injuries.

"We try to handle these animals humanely and with as much dignity as they deserve," Mrs. McLean said.

Although does remain fairly docile, even supposedly "tame" bucks can injure humans if the owners get too close. As a result, Mrs. McLean throws them their feed and checks on them from an all-terrain vehicle.

"People have gotten hurt from tame bucks," she said. "Their personalities change during breeding season. They can be the nicest deer, but they get very aggressive during breeding season."

Even if kept in a pen for several years, deer retain their natural instincts. "A buck reverts back to the wild almost immediately" when sold and released from a pen, Keith Duncan said.

Numerous state regulations of deer breeding enterprises ensure wildlife remain healthy, Duncan and Mrs. McLean said.

Deer ranchers have to renew a state license annually and provide herd inventory reports each year. In addition, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department requires owners to tag each animal and tattoo a specialized identification number -- which stays with the deer its entire life -- into the ear.

Texans cannot buy live deer from out of state, although they can purchase semen from bucks raised outside of Texas. Ranchers also have to obtain transfer permits to sell within the state. Once they finalize a sale, breeders have 48 hours to move the deer before notifying TPWD the transfer has been completed.

Breeders and state officials also work closely together to promote herd health. Ranchers participate in a chronic wasting disease monitoring program and receive Texas Animal Health Commission oversight of their herd. Whenever a deer dies, owners must send the head to a laboratory for testing for the disease, which causes deer to become listless and lose weight.

TAHC performs a yearly inspection of every licensed deer breeding facility.

"I welcome that," Mrs. McLean said, "because that makes my deer more valuable to have their stamp of approval."

Breeders also watch closely for blue tongue -- which can cause lameness, facial swelling and the tongue discoloration that earned the disease its name -- and for respiratory ailments, the top killer of both wild and penned deer, Crow said. Respiratory drugs have improved in recent years, he added.

"The more people who get in it and get experience, the better our treatments get," he said.

Crow's deer receive eight to 10 different vaccines, sometimes loaded into a dart gun. When administering several vaccines at once, he shoots only once with an anaesthetic dart and then injects the vaccines with a syringe. This allows deer to avoid being shot with darts several times.

Veterinary care for deer can be difficult to find, but the Lampasas County ranchers say they have been pleased with the treatment their animals receive from the Burnet Veterinary Clinic. Town and Country Veterinary Medical Center in Killeen also has deer specialists on staff, Mrs. McLean said.

Mrs. Duncan takes fawns to the Burnet clinic in pet carriers, and a Wisconsin veterinarian visited the McLeans' ranch to help with artificial insemination.

The most important contribution to herd health, though, comes from the owners themselves, as they feed fawns and check on their animals daily to watch for signs of illness or injury. Breeders check for indicators of good condition, like clear eyes and sleek skin, and note limps, behavioral changes and abnormalities in fecal samples. Deer owners also provide fresh drinking water in containers cleaned with bleach.

Bottle feeding, which continues for about three or four months for doe fawns, can begin as early as 5 a.m., Mrs. Duncan added. At the point of peak consumption, fawns drink about 17 ounces of milk two or three times a day.

"It's just like any other animal," she said. "If you want your animals to produce, you've got to take care of them."

While nutrition -- deer owners feed mostly protein pellets and alfalfa hay -- and medical attention help whitetails reach their potential, genes remain perhaps the most important factor in determining size and antler development.

"Genetics is the hardest to manipulate," Crow said.

When trying to improve one's deer gene pool, a property owner needs to weed out genetically inferior animals through management hunts, Crow said.

Buyers trace the lineage of deer they purchase, a task that has become easier and more accurate with DNA testing, which Mrs. McLean said became available to breeders about five years ago. Although a trophy buck sire is important, deer ranchers often consider the doe's bloodline an even greater predictor of the offspring's genetic quality.

With the substantial investments deer breeding requires, Mrs. McLean has turned to game management software to monitor the genetic quality of the animals in her pens. Computer programs track each deer's pedigree and vaccination records, along with providing ranch management tools and helping those who lease their property organize hunting schedules.

"It has wonderful tools in it," Mrs. McLean said of her software. "It has just made life so much easier."

Even so, raising deer, although seemingly a more profitable activity than operating a small cattle ranch, requires a substantial commitment of time and money, Lampasas County ranchers said.

Crow believes he may have to wait until his fifth or sixth year in the deer business to see significant income.

"It's quite an investment," he said. "It's not something where you start it today and start selling tomorrow."

Those who enter the industry hoping for quick profits typically end up frustrated, Duncan said. His wife, however, who grew up on a farm and bottle fed calves, has enjoyed taking on the care of deer. As much as the income from deer sales, Mrs. Duncan enjoys the new challenges of a rapidly growing and changing agricultural enterprise.

"I just like watching them," she said of her deer. "It's just fun to do."