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Author Topic: Cows with calves  (Read 4425 times)

Offline vandeman17

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Cows with calves
« on: July 23, 2017, 09:52:57 AM »
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!
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Offline elkboy

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2017, 10:53:51 AM »
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.   

Offline kentrek

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2017, 11:57:40 AM »
I thought deer are the ones who can eat nearly anything ??

Offline zwickeyman

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2017, 12:02:05 PM »
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.
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Offline elkboy

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2017, 12:18:46 PM »
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.

Offline kentrek

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2017, 02:06:58 PM »
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.

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Online bearpaw

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2017, 02:26:10 PM »
Elk can survive in much deeper snow than deer and for a longer time, tough winters are usually the hardest on deer.
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Offline bracer40

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2017, 11:06:38 PM »
Our Eastern herds also do a fair bit of migrating to gov't feed lots too.
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Offline nwwanderer

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2017, 07:32:54 AM »
Thanks for the Utah report.  Single trait selection, spike only hunts, is very hard on that trait.  You can expect fewer spikes over time.

Offline ffbowhunter

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Re: Cows with calves
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2017, 09:32:19 AM »
I noticed the same thing, I have never seen so many calves!

 


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