We talk about breeding as an absolute window, but it’s not that exact.
QUESTION: I’ve been running trail cameras year-round for a while now and never saw a picture of a fawn born in April until this year. Most years, it’s June before I see any. This doe must have been bred early, or she’s got a fast reproductive system. Just wondering what you think. – Tracy C.
ANSWER: More than likely it would have been the former (she was bred early), as the gestation period for whitetails is pretty consistent at around 200 days.
According to South Carolina deer and wild turkey program coordinator Charles Ruth, peak breeding spans from mid-October to mid-November for the bulk of the state, with approximately 80 percent of females conceiving between roughly Oct. 6 through Nov. 16. He further refined that to the last week in October and the first week in November representing the peak.
The important point to remember is that when plotting breeding dates, you end up with a bell-shaped distribution. The high point represents the majority, in this case late October and early November, but there could be does bred 30 days or more on either side of the peak dates. Jumping ahead six and half months from the early end of that curve would, indeed, put you in April.
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