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Deer Breeding is Big Business

by Ed Godfrey, NewsOK

Should a buck that is legally killed by a hunter in the wild, but is not wild, be considered as a potential state record? That’s the circumstances surrounding a Chandler hunter who bagged a 250-inch buck during the last weekend of Oklahoma’s muzzleloader season.

The buck might have pushed for the state non-typical record, except for the fact it escaped from a commercial game farm in central Oklahoma.

Genetically breeding white-tailed deer is becoming a big business in Oklahoma, one of the easiest places in the country to get such a license.

There are now 193 commercial deer breeders in Oklahoma. They are licensed by the state Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Much like stock contractors who breed bucking bulls for professional rodeo and bull riding events, commercial deer breeders are growing massive antlers on deer through genetics and proper nutrition.

Breeder bucks with more than 200 inches of antlers generally are sold for $25,000 or more. Such deer can potentially bring six-figure incomes to the buyers.

I’ve been told of one Oklahoma breeder who has grown a set of 400-inch antlers on a buck and is selling straws of semen from it for as much as $11,000.

In the Chandler case, an Oklahoma breeder had bought this buck from another breeder in the state and was taking the deer to his game farm when a latch on the trailer door came undone at the gate.

The deer escaped – never making it to the breeder’s pen - and for a month remained in the Oklahoma woods.

The deer was sighted near the game farm two weeks later. The breeder tried to re-capture the buck, but couldn’t get close enough to sedate it with a dart.

The big buck made it through the first weekend of blackpowder season but not the second. Darrin McLain of Chandler, hunting on property three miles from the game farm, killed it.

Game wardens say the deer was legally harvested, even though it had a yellow tag pinned on its ear, indicating it was a somebody’s animal.

"With 250 inches of antlers on its head, would you be looking at his ear?” said Deveral Bridges of Chandler, the taxidermist who is mounting McLain’s buck.

The buck was in the wild and McLain was legally hunting on the property. However, it won’t be considered for a state record or included on the state’s Cy Curtis’ list, the awards program recognizing trophy bucks.

"We hold to Boone & Crockett guidelines on certification of deer,” said Larry Manering, chief of law enforcement for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Boone & Crockett does not recognize any trophy animal that was raised in captivity, even if it was loose in the wild when it was harvested by a hunter.

Bridges said the buck falls short of the state non-typical record anyway.

He scored it after deductions at 242 3/8, well shy of the non-typical record of 248 6/8, taken in 2004 by Mike Crossland in Tillman County, Okla.