Buck bachelor groups breaking up

[nyslowhand]

Up until today I had regularly gotten pics of doe groups, does with fawns and a buck bachelor group I've been seeing.

Today’s trail cam photos showed the doe groups with members of the bachelor bucks in tow.

Two different doe groups and two different bucks from their summer group.

No photos of the bachelor group. Bucks were all out of velvet.

Should be beginning to establish their territories.

[burmjohn]

Thats awesome.... I can't wait to see what happens with the ones I've been seeing.  Do you think they will start spreading out now or? How big is a bucks territory anyways.

[nyslowhand]

Can't answer that with any specific knowledge or certainity. It depends....

Last year there was a bachelor group of 2 mature & 1 smaller bucks.

When they disbanded, the small guy sort of dissapeared. Did see him once again, fairly big bodied ~4-5" spike.

The two mature bucks each had territories within a majority of the 60 acres.

Problem is when the rut gets feverish, bucks will enter from outside areas.

Had this happen last year. One of those mature bucks had keyed in on an area that two smaller does lived.

When the 1st doe went into esterous, an outside, larger buck took over and forced the mature buck to backoff.

Then the outside, larger buck sort of disappeared back to his territory.

The mature buck remained in his original core area, but may not have bred any does.

When the girls are hot, the boys have no rules they play by!!!

[burmjohn]

Haha! I can't wait to see what happens!!

[Cabin Fever]

Looking forward to seeing them rubbed out! I just checked my cams 2 days ago and the bucks that I got pics of haven't started rubbing yet.

Did see something strange though... Last week as I was leaving camp, I saw 2 bucks and a little fawn running out of a clover plot. I figured there must have been a doe with them that I didn't see. Then this week, I got pics of the trio traveling together. Seems strange that a little spotted fawn would be running with two 1 1/2 yr old bucks!

[burmjohn]

Maybe the doe died?