The Whitetail Rut

When the rut season is approaching the actions of the fawns and the does will show the way where you can find the hunting grounds.  You know it is early in the breeding season when you see a heard of deer.  The bucks are getting ready to pollinate a does flower.  The fawns go off they search for a buck as much as the bucks search for them. 

Depending on what part of the country you are in the season may start in late August or early September and last until December.  This is the time where the deer are making their bedding spots and leaving areas where they have traveled make new trails.

To watch a Whitetail deer during the rut is a wonderful experience to see. Their behavior changes in a way you will see a young buck with other bucks going down a trail and their velvet shedding. The buck will catch a sense of a doe that will trigger a behavior change and go find that doe and think of nothing else. 

The different behavior during the rut are this, it seems to change the need for food and it becomes a secondary need in life and the search for the doe to plant the buck seed for the next heard or generation of deer. While some bucks will chase the doe until the doe gives in, others will follow a doe until she is ready to receive the buck for mounting. 

Most adult buck are nocturnal and when the rut comes closes their behavior can and will be more intent and aggressive as there mood changes.

Most alpha bucks are not nocturnal and you will see does more nervous when the young bucks are on the search for the next doe.  The buck will take on the right to breed if a doe that has been chased by another buck approaches.

As the season of the rut is closing the does are seen less and the alpha buck will be watching out for the does with the young bucks tending to the breeding process.  This is when the hunters will go to work to find the bedding ground of the whitetail deer to hunt.

When the whitetail rut is over it is time for the deer to reorganize their family hierarchy and find food.  With all the recent activity the bucks' body mass has decreased by 25%.  It is their time to recharge, regroup and get through the winter.