To grow big deer faster, you first must make sure that your land has healthy does when they’re carrying their fawns in the spring of the year. After the birth of the fawns, your land’s does not only need good health, but also the ability to produce large amounts of high-quality, highly-nutritious milk for fawns. Finally, as the fawns begin to grow, make sure that their diet has plenty of high-protein food to help build strong bones to aid in antler development and to add weight to the young fawns. Some game managers have suggested the importance of manipulating the genetic pool by adding superior bucks to the herd and trying to cull out inferior bucks. However, in a free-roaming deer herd, manipulating the genetic makeup of the herd is nearly impossible. Even on small acreages, influencing the age structure of the herd can be difficult. But, through proper harvest management, habitat management and supplemental feeding, you can control the amount and quality of feed available to your herd.
Pen studies have shown that spike bucks given high-quality nutrition can become 130-class, 200-pound 8 points in three years. Therefore, nutrition plays a tremendous role in the size of bucks you’ll have to harvest, and some researchers believe that nutrition is a far more important factor in growing bigger bucks than age. Here’s why: If a buck has the genetic potential to grow a rack that will score over 200 points on the Boone and Crockett scale, however he does not have the proper nutrition and plenty of it; he never will meet his full potential. Therefore, by feeding deer, especially during the late winter, early spring and summer, when the need for the best food is at its height, you can positively impact the growth and development of the deer on your property by supplemental feeding.