Cows with calves

[vandeman17]

With the hard, long winter we had, I was a little worried about what it did to the herds. I know it hit the deer around me hard. I was out scouting this weekend and had a herd of elk come out of a deep, nasty drainage and cross the road in front of me. I didn't count but I would say at least 35-40 came out in groups of 2-4. What I was happy to see was that there was at least 10-15 healthy looking calves in the herd. My cameras have also showed similar numbers of calves as well!

[elkboy]

Awesome!  Thanks for sharing.  I think elk can weather those winters more easily than deer can, with their greater vertical reach and ability to digest less-nutritious browse.   

[kentrek]

I thought deer are the ones who can eat nearly anything ??

[zwickeyman]

Cow/ratio where I was scouting in 472 last weekend was 7 calves per 10 cows. I have been hunting up there for over 40 years and have never seen it so high.

On a bad note though, out of 70 elk never saw a spike. That's not good.

[elkboy]

I thought deer are the ones who can eat nearly anything ??

Hungry deer can eat a lot of things, for sure, especially in winter when their gut flora has shifted to favor processing woody foods.  But elk have a much larger rumen that can break down relatively low-quality foods.  Utah's Mule Deer Working Group has a good summary sheet highlighting differences between elk and mule deer:
https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/pdf/mdwg/mdwg-4_elk.pdf

The differences will be even greater between elk and whitetails or blacktails, which require high nutrition foods (fireweed, trailing blackberry, young leaves of other shrubs, etc.) for a good part of the year.

[kentrek]

I thought deer are the ones who can eat nearly anything ??

Hungry deer can eat a lot of things, for sure, especially in winter when their gut flora has shifted to favor processing woody foods.  But elk have a much larger rumen that can break down relatively low-quality foods.  Utah's Mule Deer Working Group has a good summary sheet highlighting differences between elk and mule deer:
https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/pdf/mdwg/mdwg-4_elk.pdf

The differences will be even greater between elk and whitetails or blacktails, which require high nutrition foods (fireweed, trailing blackberry, young leaves of other shrubs, etc.) for a good part of the year.

  cool

[bearpaw]

Elk can survive in much deeper snow than deer and for a longer time, tough winters are usually the hardest on deer.

[bracer40]

Our Eastern herds also do a fair bit of migrating to gov't feed lots too.

[nwwanderer]

Thanks for the Utah report.  Single trait selection, spike only hunts, is very hard on that trait.  You can expect fewer spikes over time.

[ffbowhunter]

I noticed the same thing, I have never seen so many calves!