I agree that we can't control the weather but strongly disagree that we can't control the protein in the mother's milk.
Here's what I stated above: "Habitat improvement projects on the winter range is a great starting point. Winter nutrition is an important component. Winter ranges get pounded year after year by high densities of deer at the does highest stress period. Fat reserves are likely close to 0 by the end of the winter. To top it off, does also have fetus that is developing through the winter. If winter feed is nutritious the does will use less fat reserves and fawns will start off healthier!"
Healthy fawns will likely be less prone to disease and possibly even predators. Obviously healthy fawns when born will likely gain weight quicker in the spring and be in better shape coming into their first winter."
If doe fat reserves are higher at the end of the winter and early spring that means that their milk protein levels are likely higher when they deliver fawns...especially after rough winters.
If you have large, dense cheatgrass infestations on your winter ranges and they are sprayed I can guarantee nutrition and doe/fawn health will improve.
We have game cameras set up on winter ranges here in Colorado. Rejuvra was sprayed to control cheatgrass at 3 sites. This data is actually 3 years after cheatgrass was controlled, representing long term cheatgrass control. Cameras were set up in adjacent sprayed and nonsprayed areas. The areas where we have sprayed cheatgrass are like food plots to deer through the winter and spring. Most of the deer photos taken from cheatgrass sites are where deer are merely moving through the area. Deer highly utilize sprayed areas where high nutrition browse is released from competition with cheatgrass. Browse leader growth and native forb/grass biomass significantly increases where cheatgrass is controlled.
Early in the spring the deer in our area tend to change diets away from woody shrubs. They tend to target nutritious, fresh, green forb and grass growth. Take a look at the # of deer in the cameras where cheatgrass was controlled in May. There is a spike in utilization of browse in early spring due to the lush new forb and grass growth.
There is a nose dive in deer numbers after May when most deer leave the winter ranges at this site. The does are aware that nutrition is likely better at higher elevation where they give birth and are lactating. This summer was extremely dry with almost no moisture here in Colo. I'm actually seeing even higher concentration of deer browsing this winter where cheatgrass was controlled in a drought year. I'm sure the added stress of drought plus cheatgrass competition has definite impacts on availability and nutrition of natives.
The differences in nutrition between sprayed and cheatgrass infested areas is black and white....and believe me, the deer know it! Hopefully land managers are willing to take this information and use it to the deer's advantage!
View attachment 65546
View attachment 65547
We harvested antelope bitterbrush leader growth biomass. 5 longest leaders/plant and 20 plants at 3 sites. The left clump is bitterbrush leaders where cheatgrass was controlled and right side of the scissors is the same number of leaders from the adjacent cheatgrass infested area. Do you see any difference?
We also took this one step further this year and counted number of leaders/bitterbrush plant. There are actually way more leaders! We were able to combine leader biomass plus total number of leaders/plant to come up with leader growth biomass/plant. When these are combined there are even more significant differences. I'm hoping in the future to compare nutritional analysis (crude protein, etc) of browse.