Episode 199 - Dewormer in Deer Feed, Tractors, Screens, and Windmills

Published: 2023-12-10
Episode page
Duration: 65 min

In this episode

asio-spotlight

• ASIO spotlighted Alan Miller from Ohio, who shot a buck out of a tree stand location Don had flagged for him during a consult. 19:55
• Terry explains that one of Joe Miles’ staff monitors social media for ASIO tags and sends hunter-success photos to the podcast for the spotlight. 20:24

brent-henderson

• Real World sponsors Brent Henderson’s outreach ministry as he travels speaking to men’s groups around the country. 29:04
• Don recommends Brent Henderson of the Unleashed podcast as a great speaker for church men’s events or wild game dinners. 30:15

client-relationships

• Don recalls returning to a Northern Illinois client’s property and finding a sign reading ‘Higgins Wintering Grounds’ on the door. 2:48
• Don describes a caller who explained his neighbor was consulted by Don and now had all the deer while the caller had none. 22:04
• Terry says they call previous clients to confirm it’s okay before consulting on a neighboring property, since maintaining long-term client relationships matters. 25:53
• Terry has a job this year for two cousins with adjoining properties who will get complementary plans and hunt with discipline toward each other. 27:08

client-story

• A Southwestern Kentucky client Terry consulted for hunted the property this year and shot a good buck before listing it for sale. 3:44

community-news

• Terry shares that Real World dealer and friend Todd Covey lost his dad this week. 27:54

dealer-event

• Real World Wildlife Products will hold its first-ever dealer event March 4-5 with Terry and Don doing a live podcast and all dealers attending. 12:57
• Bronson Strickland will give a presentation at the Real World dealer event’s opening evening alongside the live Chasing Giants podcast recording. 13:07
• Real World will give matching logo hats free to dealers who attend the March dealer event. 61:27

deer-health

• Josh from Westphalia, Michigan asks whether deworming deer in spring boosts antler growth, what product to use, and what to feed inexpensively otherwise. 35:00

episode-milestone

• Episode 200 airs next week, but Don and Terry won’t do a joint special since their schedules didn’t align; they will take the week of Christmas off. 17:32

episode-schedule

• The episode is set to air on December 10, closing in on the magic 200th episode milestone as December keeps creeping up. 0:57

event

• A legends roundtable at the Midwest Sportsman Classic will include Don, Joe Miles, Bobby Worthington, Al Foster, and Barry Wensel. 11:27
• Show promoters at the Midwest Sportsman Classic are giving Higgins Outdoors a Lester’s Feet booth. 11:46
• Board members from the Lester’s Feet Foundation will attend the Midwest Sportsman Classic to talk with families. 11:52
• Jay Gingerich will be at the Midwest Sportsman Classic with his apple trees. 12:15
• Andy Andreas, the apple breeder working with Jay Gingerich at Gingerich Tree Farm on new apple varieties, will be a speaker at the show. 12:31

event-logistics

• Don tells listeners not to contact him directly about event logistics and to instead call the phone numbers listed for each engagement. 16:44

food-plot-screening

• Jesse Fromm asks why plant Miscanthus outside tall switchgrass screens instead of relying on seven-to-eight-foot switchgrass alone as the deer screen. 53:57

health-update

• Don mentions hearing from Todd that his girlfriend is also battling cancer. 28:29

hunting-strategy

• Tyler Webb from Lawrenceburg, Tennessee asks why hunters avoid morning hunts in early season, questioning if bumping risk differs between morning and evening entries. 30:55

joke

• Jokingly, Don says he’s accepting hot tips on 200-inch bucks still alive as a gift for episode 200. 18:50 (light moment)
• Terry jokes that maybe the show could be sponsored by Tesla. 64:16 (light moment)
• Don jokes that Tesla might consider sponsoring them, until they listen to the first podcast. 64:20 (light moment)

land-stewardship

• Don says his friend Todd Hewing turned down an offer to sell 600 acres for a solar field, forgoing the chance to retire wealthy. 50:17

listener-questions

• Don directs listeners to submit podcast questions through a form at chasinggiants.com, noting incomplete address info means the question won’t be used. 60:11
• Listeners can also mail questions to the Real World Wildlife Products office at PO Box 55 in Arthur, Illinois. 60:42

live-podcast

• Terry is exploring doing a live podcast the night before the March 23 Indiana remote master class, though logistics are unconfirmed. 16:10

master-class

• Don is holding a remote Whitetail Master Class-style event on March 23 in Spencerville, Indiana, near Fort Wayne. 15:17
• Don’s second remote master class event is April 6 in New Richmond, Wisconsin. 15:33
• The two remote master classes cost $950 per person including a property tour and catered lunch, requiring a $250 per-person deposit. 15:44

merchandise

• An ASIO Camo hat with Chasing Giants embroidery is now in stock and available for purchase on the Higgins Outdoors website. 61:09

neighbor-dynamics

• Don asserts that folks must accept that when he’s hired to optimize a property, the neighbors may pay the price for it. 24:14
• Don told the frustrated caller the only way to stop deer crossing to the neighbor’s property was to build a fence, and the caller did so. 22:59
• Don recalls doing side-by-side neighbor consulting only once, for two friends in Ohio last year who insisted on working together. 26:35

neighbor-trust

• Barry Holt from Gap, Pennsylvania asks what’s more frustrating: a neighbor shooting a buck on your target list, or one you wanted to let grow more years. 51:12

property-planning

• Terry says Don taught him to build the consulting plan around the client’s stated goals and timeline, including flip dates for properties being sold. 4:21

renewable-energy-opinion

• Don calls windmills and solar fields nothing but government money-laundering schemes that do nothing for the environment. 47:28
• Don argues a windmill could run maintenance-free for a hundred years and still never produce enough energy to pay for its manufacturing cost. 48:45
• Jokingly, Don signs off telling listeners to just say no to solar and wind power. 64:07 (light moment)

repeat-clients

• Don says a little more than one third of his consulting clients this year are repeat clients from past years. 1:28
• Terry estimates about one third of his clients are repeat customers hiring him to consult on second farms. 1:44

scheduling

• Wes Delks is full time on the road doing consulting visits for roughly the next two to three months. 5:33
• Don is putting new consulting clients on a standby list because he doesn’t know how much his daughter’s situation will require of him. 5:48
• Don plans to travel to Michigan between Christmas and New Year’s and says that will be his last trip there, so interested clients need to get on the list now. 6:29
• Don mentions Bobby Worthington has some scheduling openings and could take on a few more consulting clients. 7:05

speaking-schedule

• Don is speaking January 5 in Fredericksburg, Ohio at Fredericksburg Outdoors. 9:03
• Terry will speak January 15 at the Area Men’s Fellowship Banquet in Dry Ridge, Kentucky, at his home church. 9:28
• Don will be speaking in Florida on January 20. 9:47
• Don will be in Hopkinton, Iowa on February 2 for an event hosted by two Real World dealers together. 10:13
• Don and Bronson Strickland will appear at a Whitetail Summit hosted by distributor Extreme Custom Food Blots on February 9-10. 10:32
• Terry and Don will both attend the Midwest Sportsman Classic in Shipshewana, Indiana February 15-17. 11:03
• Don will attend another Whitetail Summit hosted by a Real World distributor on March 9 in Greenwood, Delaware. 13:57

tractor-recommendation

• Kyle from Oakland City, Indiana asks Terry what horsepower tractor is good for land management tasks like brush hogging, planting, and general farm work. 40:51

whitetail-master-academy

• Steve has been staying at Don’s house documenting consulting visits on video for the Whitetail Master Academy property design videos. 62:42

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (harvest) 19:55
• unnamed buck (hunt) 31:59
• unnamed buck (management) 51:28

Listener questions

Question: Tyler Webb from Lawrenceburg, Tennessee asks why hunters avoid morning hunts in early season, questioning if bumping risk differs between morning and evening entries. 30:55 — asked by Tyler Webb

• Answer: Don explains that a mature buck is usually already bedded before sunrise in October, rarely still moving at first light, making morning hunts low-odds for target bucks. 32:51
• Answer: Don notes an exception: during the last week of October, cold fronts do increase mature buck movement in mornings compared to typical conditions. 34:33

Question: Josh from Westphalia, Michigan asks whether deworming deer in spring boosts antler growth, what product to use, and what to feed inexpensively otherwise. 35:00 — asked by Josh

• Answer: Don confirms deworming is beneficial and recommends Safeguard cattle wormer in paste or pelleted form mixed with feed. 36:23
• Answer: Don warns that deworming a full wild herd of 50 to 100 deer with cattle pellets will be expensive, not the cheap option the listener hoped for. 37:12
• Answer: Don recommends deworming around March 1, when bucks are shedding antlers and starting the next set, to give them a clean start. 38:06
• Answer: Don explains that with captive deer, dosing must continue for three consecutive days since dewormer passes through a deer’s faster metabolism too quickly otherwise. 40:00

Question: Kyle from Oakland City, Indiana asks Terry what horsepower tractor is good for land management tasks like brush hogging, planting, and general farm work. 40:51 — asked by Kyle

• Answer: Terry says his sweet spot is a 55-to-65-horsepower tractor for general land management and food plot work. 42:02
• Answer: Terry explains staying in the 55-65 horsepower range keeps you under DEF emissions requirements, allowing a simpler three-cylinder engine. 42:26
• Answer: Don recommends at least a 50-horsepower tractor if affordable, since smaller tractors struggle to handle implements like grain drills. 44:07

Question: Barry Holt from Gap, Pennsylvania asks what’s more frustrating: a neighbor shooting a buck on your target list, or one you wanted to let grow more years. 51:12 — asked by Barry Holt

• Answer: Don says managing for big deer is so competitive that you can’t fully trust a neighbor to honor an agreement not to shoot a target buck. 52:18
• Answer: Terry suggests neighbors sometimes claim they’ll pass a buck partly to gather intel while protecting their own interest in it. 53:08

Question: Jesse Fromm asks why plant Miscanthus outside tall switchgrass screens instead of relying on seven-to-eight-foot switchgrass alone as the deer screen. 53:57 — asked by Jesse Fromm

• Answer: Don says no screen compares to Miscanthus, whose bamboo-like stalks withstand ice, wet snow, and wind far better than switchgrass. 54:43
• Answer: Terry counters that switchgrass alone must be planted much wider to stay thick and screening, or the first several feet stay thin. 57:58
• Answer: Don adds that even a wider five-to-six-foot strip of plain switchgrass provides essentially no effective screening compared to Miscanthus. 59:38

The episode covered land consulting logistics, upcoming events, listener questions, and a segment on neighbor dynamics in deer management. Don and Terry noted roughly a third of their consulting clients are repeat customers, and both discussed how consulting one property can shift deer patterns toward or away from neighbors, with Don recalling a caller whose neighbor’s consult left him deerless until he fenced his line. They ran through a heavy winter and spring speaking and event schedule, including the Midwest Sportsman Classic legends roundtable and two remote master class sessions. Terry shared that dealer and friend Todd Covey lost his father. Listener questions addressed why mature bucks rarely move at first light in October, spring deworming with Safeguard cattle wormer, tractor horsepower recommendations around 55-65 for food plot work, and why Miscanthus outperforms switchgrass as a screening plant. An ASIO spotlight recognized Alan Miller’s buck taken from a stand location Don had flagged.

Unofficial fan project. AI-synthesized from public episodes; may contain errors.