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Antelope on Winter Wheat?

C

Cowpuncher

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
652
Location
Southeastern Colorado
We missed the worst of the December Colorado blizzard and our wheat fields are pretty bare already.

Hundreds of antelope - maybe thousands - have drifted into our area and are camped on the wheat fields. Wonder what they do for water since all of our cattle are elsewhere and the tanks are frozen.

What damage, if any, are they likely to do? Looks like it shouldn't be much since a lot of wheat is pastured.

Several years ago, we complained to the DOW and they were going to let us shoot as many as we wanted, but they had to be left where they fell!!
 
For water they use snow-a drift here or there is adequate. I am not a farmer, but I would think that as many as there are, there might be some damage to the wheat. They need some control, but our goat problem is nothing to the elk problem that the mountain boys are faced with. Fish and feathers are not as sypathetic to ag as they once were is our main problem! : :cry:
 
Leaving them where they fall in a wheat field would be a nightmare on tractor tires next season.

We have on several occasions gotten permits to shoot deer in crops and they now let us drag them to the edge of the field. :mad:
 
Why would they want them left where they fell. Come spring things might get pretty stinky EWWWWWW...
 
Cowpuncher said:
We missed the worst of the December Colorado blizzard and our wheat fields are pretty bare already.

Hundreds of antelope - maybe thousands - have drifted into our area and are camped on the wheat fields. Wonder what they do for water since all of our cattle are elsewhere and the tanks are frozen.

What damage, if any, are they likely to do? Looks like it shouldn't be much since a lot of wheat is pastured.

Several years ago, we complained to the DOW and they were going to let us shoot as many as we wanted, but they had to be left where they fell!!
Click to expand...

If the DOW gave you any grief you could say it's funny how they all stood on the edge of the field while you shot them :wink:
 
They don't want them put in your freezer because otherwise it is like year round hunting season :roll: I don't know how Illinois does theres. we don't have the need, but I know they tend to frown upon letting places that keep hunters out have these permits.. The feeling is there is you have a deer over abundance, uhm.. Shoot them during the season.
 
gotcha, seems kind of wasteful though. I am sure that families in need could use them .....
 
IL Rancher said:
They don't want them put in your freezer because otherwise it is like year round hunting season :roll: I don't know how Illinois does theres. we don't have the need, but I know they tend to frown upon letting places that keep hunters out have these permits.. The feeling is there is you have a deer over abundance, uhm.. Shoot them during the season.
Click to expand...

If you have a prob. and can get the permit you can eat or dispose of them just like a deer taken in season. You have to put the tag on the deer even if you bury them. I have eaten a lot of loins and hams from deer that were damaging nursery [trees] crops :-)
 
Well, if you talk to the guys who run trucks around here we have too many deer... If you talk to the neighbors who live on the roads, we have too many trucks going to fast... Probably somewhere in between, lol... I tend to see the most deer during calving season... Don't know how many times I came across a group of does last winter during night checks.
 
:lol: The reason you got so many deer in IL is because we keep chasing them South. Don't know what else to do with them. DNR thought the wolves would take care of the deer population........so now we got too many wolves and too many deer too.
 
Shorthornguy said:
:lol: The reason you got so many deer in IL is because we keep chasing them South. Don't know what else to do with them. DNR thought the wolves would take care of the deer population........so now we got too many wolves and too many deer too.
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I would think that the chronic wasting program would have put a big dent in the areas with heavy density of deer. Ill just had a special 3day hunt last weekend for counties with high no. of deer per acre.
 

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