Late, late estrus does?

[Brickhouse]

Curious what the latest is you've seen does come into estrus. 2 weeks ago I saw a mature buck bedded in a fence line with a doe a good distance from the bedding area most of the deer in the area were using. That fence line is a typical lockdown rut bed location that I see in my area. Basically when they're trying to keep the doe away from all other deer. The next day I saw a different mature buck alone with a doe in the evening again keeping her away from all the other deer. Got trail camera pics of him and the doe the next day on a cam i have about 50 yards from where they were the day before. Two days after that I was glassing another group of deer on the same property and watched a buck dogging a doe around the other deer.

I've never seen this before. I've heard of fawns coming into estrus later in December but haven't personally seen it. Keep in mind this property has a lot of deer and multiple does for each buck to breed. I'm thinking that some does didn't get bred and are just cycling back into estrus until they are bred? Any thoughts?

[JoeRE]

Yea it can happen very late particulalry where the buck to doe ratio is really out of wack.

I have seen a lot over the years in December. Only 1 that I can think of in early Jan that was the latest.

Some parts of the country its peak rut right now tho...

[Rob loper]

I agree with joere
I used to have a roving patrol job at the prison back in jersey for about 2 years. I watched deer and patrolled the surroundings woods all day Well there was alot of deer around the jail. Surrounded by woods and swamps.
But the ratio was like super out of whack because of gun clubs driving deer with every weapon you can.
The ratio was like 20 does to one buck. At least it was like that in extreme south jersey. A biologist for fish and game council informed me of this information. Cause i would ask him. ( i knew him well). Why is there so many deer and hardly any rubs or scrapes anywhere
Bucks had no competition to breed. And the ruth was really fro around November 1st and would almost run into mid February. Ive seen immature bucks chase does around while working in late January and beginning of February more than once. So many does that they just all dont get bred. And they supposed to come back into if not bred in 25-30 days. It does make sense in regards to really late does in esterous in areas with really screwed up ratios

[mbucks27]

I was shed hunting yesterday and had 4 does run up the hill to me. Seemed like something spooked them. Took two more steps and there was a basket 8 right behind them. I believe he was chasing them. Maybe one was in heat?

[Rob loper]

I was shed hunting yesterday and had 4 does run up the hill to me. Seemed like something spooked them. Took two more steps and there was a basket 8 right behind them. I believe he was chasing them. Maybe one was in heat?

Most likely

[BKMississippi]

I assume you're talking about the Midwest, but the deer are rutting hard right now where I hunt. I'm in the pine belt of southeast Mississippi. I've only got another week and a half of season left to put a buck down, but the odds are better now than they've been all year.

I've read before that in parts of Florida there have been fetuses back dated to a late summer conception. The warmer the climate, the less the weather plays in the survival rate of the animal thus they have a larger window of dates to breed.

[<DK>]

MO - March 1st, high density, found the rut bed too. Couldnt believe what I was seeing

[Bigburner]

If that years fawn doe hits around the 70 lb weight mark they can go into a false estrous. They usually cant reproduce but I've seen them get bred, but it gets bucks up and moving hard in daylight. Every year for the past 5 years or so I've been documenting a lot of chasing in an around the second week in January and have a lot of pictures and observation to prove it. And this is in a low density area. We have relatively mild winters so I'm sure that makes a difference on whether or not it happens due to lack of stress on the fawns part. I know it happens in a lot of other places and this is what the general term second rut can come from. Granted its general but it always happens way outside of regular rut time in terms of what I see in the mid Atlantic and we generally have the same breeding times as the mid-west.

[NEbowman]

I recently read about this happening in areas with out of whack ratios, like others have mentioned. This article stated that if an area has too few bucks to do the breeding then doe's can continue going into estrus well into the winter. These late cycling doe's can actually throw the ratio into further turmoil, because the bucks will literally run themselves to death chasing does when they should be resting during the hardest time of the year. Wish I could find the article again, I'd post a link.

[Bigburner]

That was the problem when biologist tried to use contraception with the does in urban areas with high unhunted deer populations. The does stayed in a state of mock estrous year round and the bucks ran themselves completely into the ground. It didn’t fare very well.it was deemed as a failed experiment.

[Brickhouse]

Thanks for all the info. Forgot to mention this is in michigan.

NEbowman if you find the article let me know, I'd love to read it.