How to Prepare Your Land for Hunting

How to Prepare Your Land for Hunting

Preparing your hunting land can be a dangerous game. This is mostly due to livestock potentially ruining the perfect opportunity for a hunt or the hunters try to draw in may actually be attracted to the produce grown on the farm, which could reduce the farmer’s crop production and even damage it if the wild game were many. These are all common concerns for a landowner attempting to do both, but if much thought is put into the preparation process, any landowner can have fruitful land to harvest produce, raise livestock and attracting wild game to hunt.

Hunting Land Purchase

Those who are looking to start a farm and hunting operation have a great opportunity to start off on the right foot when they browse the many hunting and farm options for sale. It begins with searching for the right land that will serve all of your needs. The ideal land for farming and hunting will be spacious with a nice blend of fields, forests and healthy soil.

For those who can’t afford to purchase a new piece of land or simply want to adapt their current one, then they can start this process at the next preparation step; land designation. Either way, the next step is the same for both parties.

Land Designation

The next step to prepare your land is to designate a purpose to each area; hunting, livestock farming and crop production. You need to decide what percentage is best for you; split evenly or favor an area that you know will benefit you more in the long run.

  • Hunting Land: Designate at least one large open field to hunting, as far away from livestock as possible. You don’t want the livestock to scare away or intimidate any potential wild game with their noises and scents. Plus, you don’t want to mistake a cow for a deer.
  • Livestock: Depending on the livestock, such as cattle or horses, you’ll need a large enough range for them to roam, while also having enough space to contain them, such as fields and corrals. Other farm animals won’t need as much space and will most likely be in their own secluded areas and pens.
  • Crops: No matter what you’re growing, crops should be grown away from the food plots you’ll be hunting. This is so any wild game won’t be attracted to the produce. This also depends on what you grow and what other methods you have for attracting wild game in the designated hunting area.

Fencing

The best way to ensure your cattle and other farm animals stay away from your hunting land or even out of your crop beds is to establish boundaries through fencing. If you think you need more field room for cattle to graze, build additional fencing to create other smaller fields. That way, you can rotate the cattle for a more sustainable approach to grazing, while keeping them away from your hunting location simultaneously.

Some animals, however, can’t be contained through simple fencing, such as chickens. If they’re free range, then there’s a good chance they’ll roam wherever. A great way to prevent certain free range animals from interfering with your hunt is to schedule around your hunting for when these animals can roam freely.

Planting/Feeding

Another great way to ensure animals don’t intervene with your hunting is to entice them to stay away. You can do this by feeding them before you hunt or always keep certain foods around that they’ll want to eat. The latter half also applies to keeping them away from produce while they roam. For keeping deer out of your crops, make sure you treat them the same way as your livestock. In your hunting area, plant food plots and set up vegetation that is comforting to them. If it attracts and keeps them fat and happy, then they’ll have no need to go picking around your crop beds.

Before you know it you won’t just have hunting land and farmland, you’ll have an entirely new land ecosystem. An ecosystem that works together to give you, the hunter and farmer, the most out of his/her land.

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