በዶክተር ሊዮናርድ ሊ ሩ III ለዋይትቴል ታይምስ
ፎቶዎች በዶክተር ሊዮናርድ ሊ ሩ III
Most of us do our best not to step in our neighbor’s dog’s doo-doo on our lawn, or a cow flop when in a pasture. We usually try to avoid stepping in deer droppings, especially when we are wearing boots that have a cleated sole when in the woods. But if you are in the woods to hunt deer, one of the wisest things you could do would be to step in all of the deer feces you can find. It makes a fine cover scent.
My subject today has many different names for what is a very common occurrence. The voiding of body waste material has different names depending on the company we are in and often on the species that produced it. The process of producing any of the following is known as defecation, and the result is commonly called excrement, doo-doo, poo, poop, pellets, crap, feces, turd, dung, droppings, scat, cow flop, or pasture patties (if it is from a cow). Bison droppings are called chips, and these latter discs can be thrown like a Frisbee when dried. There are probably other names that will come to your mind that I have forgotten because, as you well know, I am not infallible.
Through his books, Ernest Thompson Seton was as much of a mentor to me as a kid as anyone I have ever personally known. I wanted to know everything about every creature in the outdoors, and his books were the only ones that contained the knowledge I thirsted for. His books had the first pictures of scat, as he called them, that I had ever seen. It was the knowledge—of being able to recognize what animal had deposited that scat—that made me the very successful trapper that I became in the 1940s and 1950s. And, it was my knowledge of wildlife that I used as a trapper that allowed me to become the naturalist and wildlife photographer I am.
When I stepped on the scale in my bathroom this morning, the needle stopped at 176 pounds. That has been my basic weight for most of my life, and I would like to keep it there for the remainder. I haven’t weighed it, but I imagine I consume three to four pounds of food per day; I am not a big eater. As deer need about eight pounds of food per day per 100 pounds of body weight during the spring, summer, and fall, a buck of my weight would need between 13 to14 pounds of food per day. The deer need so much more food than a human does, not because they are so much more active, as they are bedded about 70 percent of the time, but because their food is nowhere near as nutritious as ours.
During the three seasons mentioned, a deer will defecate about 36 times in a 24-hour period, or about once every 45 minutes. After all, what goes up must come down and what goes in must come out. Deer can defecate while bedded, though they usually have to get up to urinate. I have found that during the winter months of December, January, and February, a deer’s metabolism slows down to the point that they only consume about 40 to 50 percent of what they would ordinarily eat and only defecate about 12 times in a 24-hour period.
Now, looking at what a deer has defecated tells you a lot about what the deer is doing and where it has been. When a deer has been feeding upon soft mast, such as berries and fruit, its feces will be a formless, soft mass, looking just like a small cow flop. If you know where such food grows, you then know where the deer has been.
When feeding upon grasses, forbs, or soft farm crops, the deer’s feces will be pelletized but will usually be deposited in a heap where the individual pellets stick together. When corn particles show up in the pellets, you just have to know where the closest cornfield is. When the deer feeds upon acorns, beechnuts, and browse, the pellets will be firm and voided individually. On average, about 75 pellets are voided at one time. Yes, I have actually counted them many times. There are some who say they can tell the difference in the pellets of a doe from a buck. I would challenge them on this as I have found that big does and average bucks void the same size pellets. If the pellets are exceptionally large, they will be from a big buck and the small pellets could be from either sex.
When first voided, the pellets are a very dark brown in coloration, but they bleach lighter when exposed for some time to sunlight after about two weeks. They retain their shape according to the current amount of rainfall, disintegrating in a hard rain. Counting deer pellets is one of the most accurate ways of actually knowing how many deer there are in a square mile. It is very labor intensive and not often done. The best way to do it on the land where you hunt is to get a group from your hunt club together 24 hours after a snowstorm and have them walk abreast, counting the heaps of pellets that you all see. Each person should only count the pellets that he or she sees on just one side to prevent the pellet heaps from being counted twice. There are 640 acres to a square mile, and if you know approximately how much acreage you are covering, divide that into 640 and that will give you what portion of a square mile you just covered. Then take the total number of heaps of pellets that you saw and divide by either 12 or 13 and you will have a close estimation of how many deer to the square mile your area holds.
While you are at it, you may locate the deer’s bedding area. I always carry a steel tape in my pocket when I am in the outdoors because I am always measuring something. Nothing beats a tape to prevent errors in your calculations. When you find the deer’s beds, measure the longest diagonal. If the bed is 40 inches in length, it could be that of a mature doe or young buck. If the bed measures 48 inches or more, it is that of a big buck, and it will help you to know where to put your stand come the next hunting season.
Dr. Leonard Lee Rue III wrote a regular column for Whitetail Times until his passing in November 2022. His wife Uschi has allowed Whitetail Times to publish his remaining lifework.
