Well congrats on getting your place. I kinda started out just like you. I will first caution you that exotic animal dealers are very akin to horse traders. Many are unscrupulous and just want to sell you something. I learned the hard way. After many years of getting lied to and taken advantage of I ended dealing with one man on all my needs. Chris Atkinson in Bandera. He is an Aggie grad with a WFS degree as well, and is honest and fair as is out there. He knows animals… won't sell you junk and stands behind what he sells. He has been in the business for almost 30 years. Owns and flies his own helicopters and does his own capture and hauling. Tell him you are a fellow Aggie and he will help you. He is a wealth of knowledge and will guide you the right way. His Email is sdexotics@starband.net
Cell: two one 0 three 1 seven nine 6 three 0
He only sells quality healthy animals.
Start small. Axis breed once a year. They are no more prolific than any other Cervidae. But they go into rut and heat on their birthdays. Axis do not all go into rut at the same time of year like most other cervidae. Some bucks may be in hard horns, velvet and shed of horns all at the same time. Does come into heat all at different times. This causes great herd diversity and is a good thing. I would start out by getting you one middle age buck, and one young 1 yr-2yr old buck and 4 -5 does. Let the bucks grow to maturity. Keep track of your herd and buck to doe ratio.
You don't need to keep axis at 1:1 buck/doe ratio like whitetail. It's better to have more does than bucks.
Red deer, Elk, Sika, and of course whitetail, all have been found to be CWD positive. If you buy any of them you will have to keep your herds CWD certified and buy from CWD certified herds only. IMHO it's not worth the risk.
There are many cool animals that you can get and not have to worry about CWD. Any of the African hoofstock like Addax, Scimitar oryx, Gemsbock, Waterbuck, Lechwe etc. are money makers. And you can just start with a breeding pair of them…….you don't need to buy a herd.
Blackbuck are one of my favorites. They have more individual character than any other exotic imho. They will breed twice a year….yes that are prolific….so i suggest start with a small herd and then keep check on the females.
Start with one mature male and a one young male that's maybe 1or 2 years old. No older.
It will be a number of years (3-4) before the young guy will challenge your older male. By then sell or hunt your mature trophy male and let the young male get mature. Keep stair stepping your males like that in years.
Mature blackbucks are territorial but will rarely fight to the death. If you manage your herd to keep only one or two mature males and then stair stepping in age your other males it will minimize their territorial dominance.
Start with 3-4 females. The older male will control them as his "harem". Don't let your females get out of hand in numbers. Kill off the does as needed to keep from over populating and leave the young males. They eat good.
Fallow deer are the hardest to get to true trophy size imho. They are extremely aggressive during rut and mature males will often fight to the death. About the only way I found to raise big fallows was to have no females ….period.
What you can do is just, from time to time, buy new young males to replenish your herd and let them grow up to maturity.. hunt them or sell them as trophies and then buy more young males to replace. Does will cause them to fight. They go into rut and heat once a year like most cervidae.
Fallow come in three basic colors….chocolate, spotted and white. The bucks determine the color in breeding.
I recommend not buying anything from animal auctions. Those animals are usually somebody else's junk that can be diseased or in poor health. I'm telling you this from 30 years of my experience. Auction animals are somebody else's surplus. You have no idea what you are really getting. You have no health guarantees. If you should bring in a deer or animal with a disease it can infect your entire herd. I just don't recommend buying from animal brokers or auctions. I learned the hard way and it cost me a lot of $$$$.
SGrem on this board raises and sells Fallow deer.
This is just info I recommend…..and my opinions. I made lots of mistakes starting out. Hopefully what I learned in my mistakes can help you in some way. I'm not saying my recommendations are the best or only way by any means……but they have worked for me. There are lots of guys here on the OB that have tremendous knowledge that will help you.
Hope this gives you a start. Feel free to PM me if you got any questions or just to talk for another input. Happy to help all I can.
ETA. For additional content and my bad grammar and spelling.
