Neighbor from Bowie where my land is says his outdoor thermometer hit 110.

Some of my crawfish begged me to take them to a boil so they could cool off.

Gee Dave it only got to 104 today here…. Ugh

Pat, could you please send some of those cool temps North?

How bout 108? We have that also

108° sounds refreshing...

Hey Augie is that temp in a smoker?

My surface water temps are reading 98!!

Wow, Really???

That was in my greenhouse one day last week.

We drove from Tulsa to East Texas on Saturday morning. The sale barn at Emory was packed; cattle trailers were streching 1/2 mile down the highway in both directions. Poor ranchers are feeling the drought...

Sad thing is that the trees are dying, some well over a hundred years old . No rain till late October or later unless that darn high parked moves away…..deer drinking out of bird bath at night. We feed protein and corn year round in free choice feeders and they polish 300# in two days

I have a spring fed creek that has stopped running and is drying up. Hope some fish survive.

What are ya'lls surface water temps reading? With a floating pool thermometer, I dropped it down one foot and am getting 98 degrees during the heat of the day around 4pm. But...I have 8 inch to 3 pound largemouth bass coming to the banks in the evening eating floating fish food. these were NOT original stockers that were feed trained when I got them.! Those fish would be 5 years old by now. So they WILL teach themselves to be feed trained!!!

There were over 3,000 cows up for that auction, and only 1/3 were sold. No rain+very expensive hay=dump cattle. Talked to a neighbor last week, and right now it's taking 7 acres per cow.

Pat, I've had to put out plastic tubs full of water for the deer. They were emptying the birdbaths every night.

I'm surprised the deer aren't making paths to the pond to drink from it.

Water temp here is between 87 and 84 depending if you are in the lower part of the state or the upper part of the state.

It took 2 hours last week to acclimate (temper) the water in the haul tanks before I could stock fish in the ponds.

I walked a little stretch of our (still flowing) creek. I saw four spots where the deer are coming down the bank to drink.

The sand on the shorelines is absolutely covered with raccoon tracks. I have no idea what they are eating, but it appears they are catching something tasty with the water level down.

109 heat index here

110 heat index here right now

111 with 117 heat index. What little motivation I had this morning is gone.

Most of the deer do. The one's that are hiding fawns tend to not roam much, and they stay closer to the house.

Anybody in central and north Texas need to feed the deer, they are in a bad way now and need our help or we will lose a lot of them. Our free demand feeders are getting hammered like never before. 300# last less than two days

Pat,

What is the correct/optimal feed for the deer in July/August?

I can see them browsing on the new growth on our small volunteer trees (mostly Siberian Elms).

I am currently visiting the farm a lot to water my newly planted trees. Might as well help the deer while I am out there!

We use a16% protein deer feed in our free choice feeders and corn in our timed sling feeders. The corn is good for lactation of does plus they like it

Pat, how much of that feed is going to fatten up the 'coons? I have a bad coon problem here, a neighbor "loves" them and has critter control drop off any that they catch. Between another neighbor and myself we trap and feed maybe 40'/year to the buzzards. I have trail cam video of them keeping the deer away from the food.

We get a lot of coons….. a lot…. Sometimes you will see 7-15 at a time at four locations at the same time. They don’t hinder the deer much, hogs were a bigger threat so we made pens around drop feeders and let the pigs go to sling feeders. Corn is $11 for fiftylbs and protein is $15 a bag now. Very costly. Know anyone who wants coons?

Thanks for the confirmation, esshup. I only run pics, but have seen many shots where it appeared that raccoons were keeping does away from the feed. I also have pics where it appeared that a buck arrived and was driving off the raccoons.

Judging by their girth, the raccoons are eating a significant portion of my feed. I have checked my state's (Kansas) regulations for eliminating them by various means, but I cannot find any clear rules.

What is effective for you? Do you think you are making a significant reduction in the population to justify your effort?

esshup has a ton more experience than me, but here's 2 options. Foot traps are great if you don't have squirrels digging in them. I started using Freedom Brand traps, and they're much easier to set. Maybe esshup will remember, but IIRC, I caught over 30 raccoons last year. Cages work too, and that might be an option if you had rather relocate them. Cages aren't picky, and I've caught cats and opossums in those cages too. They're unharmed, but moving them can be a pain.

I moved the evening feed to 5:30, and the deer are cleaning the corn up before dark. That greatly reduced the raccoon issue here.

Coons are classified as furbearers in KS but can be trapped, shot, destroyed by any means if in or around buildings, damaging property or otherwise problematic in nature. It is recommended that habitat be made unsuitable for them if possible. Of course they have to say that for obvious reasons but bottom line in KS Rod is if they are causing issues you can take action. Eating feed put out for deer is not considered just cause to kill them. Getting into the feeder is just cause.

SSS

Just mowed the lawn. Not too hot, upper 80’s but brutal humidity. I’m drenched.

109 at home and also in the country. 109