They’re all over the United States. I’ve seen quite a few. My wife and I was taken on a tour of a whitetail farm couple years ago in the Oklahoma panhandle. Personally I think their antlers are ugly. It’s not uncommon Their racks can get so heavy the deer can’t hardly hold their head up.

 

Disclaimer, I’ve never paid to hunt whitetail. An oilfield company I worked for would take clients on pheasant & chuckar hunts here in western Kansas. I did go on a weekend of those but I’ll tell you I didn’t like it. Pheasants were pen raised and you nearly had to pick ‘em up and throw em in the air to shoot them. Dumb. Now if I won the lottery yea I’d probably try a paid whitetail hunt. Mainly for the food & comradery. But nope traditional hunting is real hunting and 100% what I prefer.

 

Father-inlaw and Brother-inlaw went on a guided deer hunt on one of those high fence places here in MI. So I asked how big of a place was it since it was "guided"... FIVE acres. Don't think I'd need a guide to walk around an area a little bigger than our yard so I'm guessing the "guide" was there to tell them how much each buck cost. I don't see the fun in doing that.

 

I don't pay to hunt. I have given people canned peppers, smoked salmon, and whiskey as a thank you to use their land. Maybe it's just me, but I would rather have an enjoyable hike and not see any people or animals than be shoulder to shoulder fighting over a deer or elk.

Fences? Won't even consider it.

 

Two things on this. First, I wouldn't pay for anything like that either, and 20+ years ago it was getting hard to find land you didn't have to lease... so I moved to Alaska. Problem solved.

Second thing... We all need to decide how we feel on fences. I choked on my coffee reading "5 acres." I can't begin to imagine how out of touch/vain you would have to be to shoot a deer in that and feel good about it. However, having been to South Africa twice now, fences are the rule there, but I would argue it's different. There are over 5000 registered game ranches in the country. Some are no better than the canned hunts available here in the U.S. with raised whitetails. But there are a lot of great outfitters who own large properties with self-sustaining herds. The trick is to do your homework and find reputable outfitters. The fences are two fold: the government requires it and to keep out poachers. Also, the fences are the be all and end all: I have twice seen kudu go over 8 foot fences.

The outfit I have hunted with twice owns a number of properties ranging from 20K acres to 60K acres. Every animal I have hunted there acted as wild as any moose or caribou I hunt up here.

Again, we all have to decide where that line is for ourselves.

 

There are deer urine farms, too.

I'm a bit more inclined to accept these farms from the angle of art. People will pay millions for art.

We know these aren't a trophy in the traditional hunting acquisition sense, but if you view this as a unique art acquisition with a bit more owner involvement then cutting a check to an art studio, I'd be willing to support these.

Just looking at the buck, yeah, they look cool. Suppose I'd rather have that on my wall than most contemporary pieces one might see today.

 

I put these in the same class as the pond raised Bluegill I see. Feed these bucks steroids and shoot them up with them and this is what you get. The gills they condition them to the feeders and they get feed whenever the feeder goes off.

Those freaks draw big bucks to harvest too. Plus there is always the guys that will claim it is a wild buck like the guy from Kentucky did.

 

Isn’t this how CWD got started?

 

CWD was discovered in a penned herd of deer. Many/most of the subsequent finds have also originated in penned herds. Rural Texas had become high fenced. One would think the governing entity, TPW, would shut this down, but there is money and politics involved.

 

Speaking of money...

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He claimed the deer was shot in Kentucky. It was shot in a pen in Indiana. It would have been #1 non typical killed in Ky. The price of fame was somewhere near $12000.

 

Thanks for posting that👍

Another recent case of someone's need for social media glory outweighing their common sense. This one is interesting in that there may not be any game "laws" broken except for a bogus entry (or 2) on the Kentucky telecheck system.

I can't see where Kentucky game has any right to confiscate a rack taken legally in another state. But I'm sure it's at least a fine able offense to make a false harvest telecheck report. I also don't see where there would be a Lacey Act offense involved.

No doubt about it being a stupid, ill conceived stunt in an effort to make a genetically engineered buck taken in high fence look like a great free ranging harvest.

 

There were quite a few deer and elk farms around. But CWD limited them. The MNDNR would come in and quarantine and eliminate all animals on the farms.

DEP

 

They have over 500 or so deer farms here. There is big money in selling doe in heat urine, sperm from very large bucks, and canned hunts as well. CWD has started in many enclosed facilities and spreads to the wild herd if any escape and mingle with the wild herd. Once it's in the wild, it spreads easily. Eradicating a facility of CWD when found is difficult since the prions associated with CWD stays within the facility, in the ground, plants etc for a very long time. Many are just fenced off and are not allowed to be used again once cwd is found.

I don't like them since the wild game herds of Elk and Deer are easily infected, and It's a shame it has gone this way personally.

 

I know of a guy that runs a deer farm. Not my cup of tea but different strokes I guess.

 

I hunt fenced land. It’s my land, and 120acres, and the deer feeder hasn’t worked in 10 years, and there are more gaps than actual fence, but it’s technically fenced.

 

A fence doesn't bother me so long as wildlife is left to be wild. Who doesn't want their private property fenced? I've many times seen deer (mule) jump an 8' high fence with ease. Having a fence is a lot different than keeping a controlled farm animal.

 

I personally think those bucks look ridiculous, freaky & ugly! Yes, I would like to shoot a monster, big normal looking whitetail, but those are not normal at all! I wouldn't pay to hunt those things. A high fenced hunting operation shouldn't be less than 2000 acres. High fence would be to keep trespassers out & the expensive trophy bucks from runnin off.
JMHO

 

Not a fan of bucks like that, or deer farms selling canned hunts. I'm not sure if it's still in operation, but there were a couple of elk farms not too far from us, but they did not (to my knowledge) sell "hunts". The animals were raised for commercial sale of the meat. I'm not quite so down on that aspect.

 

Mad cow disease came from sheep. I'm thinking the profit minded accountants came up with the idea of using waste material as feed for cattle, thus exposing cattle to the prion carried by sheep. Bovines and cervids were created by God to eat vegetable matter not bone meal from other warm blooded creatures. That's not to say deer won't eat mammal or bird, we've seen that in videos.

These animals were made to roam the Earth and eat as they desire. Forcing mammals to eat unnatural fodder causes unintended consequences. Penning/concentrating them promotes disease. Supplemental feeds contain unnatural ingredients so their diet is not what God intended.

Remember the TV commercial?............It's not nice to fool with mother nature.

 

Years ago I shot a deer in Nebraska that was the best deer I had ever seen and it justified a trip to the taxidermy here in the dfw area. After the mount was ready I went back to get it and it was next to a shoulder mount that dwarfed it . I said to the shop owner “ I’d feel better if you hadn’t put next to that one “ and chuckled. He said “ that one was a guided hunt in Oklahoma and the fellow paid a LOT to shoot it”. He said when they were working on the deer that it had previously had an ear tag …. I guess when money is involved

 

You can’t eat the antlers. To each their own.

 

I don't think I would want to eat one of those. Better Deer through chemistry.

 

Well now, that is just plain GROSS. It should be outlawed I tell ya. Those huge antlers are terrible to see.

 

It's just wrong!!!!

Do you want to shoot a live target, or get out into the wild and actually work to enjoy the hunt?

On some of the estates over here they have deer that are there for the aesthetic view and for the visitors to look at whilst visiting the estate house.
They do have to be culled but I'd be damned if I'd pay money to follow a gamekeeper up to within a stones throw of the herd just to take a staged shot. What the hell sort of enjoyment does that give.

 

Most of the huge bucks you see posted on Facebook and YouTube are fenced deer farm kills. Don't believe anything you see posted.

 

The last line of Settle's email to Field & Stream ("And I’d appreciate no further contact.” ) speaks volumes.

 

holding my breath cwd found in wild deer county north of ours. jsb

 

We have it in Montana. The private ranches that do high fence hunts are illegal in Montana I think. If I was going to do a canned hunt it would be a fat, black angus hunt!!

 

Just my two cents worth…………. I literally got a sick to my stomach reaction watching the video of all those deer. What have we come to? Not my cup of tea. I’ve watched Keith Warren shows in the past and he’s full of BS and generally is not a role model that I respect.

 

Further research shows that the ancient Irish people must have been deer farming; supplementing the stag's feed with growth enhancers. Yep, that's the way I see it. How else can the ancient Irish stag be explained.? It was a real beast in its prehistoric day; in recent times antlers of the beast have been dug out of peat bogs in England. Years ago I visited Warwick Castle in England where hanging on a wall in the great meeting room was a set of Irish stag antlers. I was impressed to say the least.

 

The Irish elk: when and why did this giant deer go extinct and what did it look like? | Natural History Museum

Once more commonly known as the Irish elk, the giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus), with its huge antlers, would have been an impressive sight. Find out facts about this prehistoric deer, including how big it was, where it lived, what it ate and when it went extinct.

www.nhm.ac.uk

 

Tenex, that you very much for the URL about the Irish Elk. The animal must have been quite the amazing sight to see when alive.