How many is too many?

[mattman5183]

I may have placed this in the wrong forum section, if so, my apologies. I've been lurking the forums and website for over a year now and finally decided to register and post a question that I've wondered.

I own almost 40 acres of wooded and farm land and am working on building our home. I would like to supplement our food with some game that is found on the property. Squirrels, Rabbits, Deer, Turkey and possibly other animals are found on the property so my question is this. In a healthy, wooded area, what would be a good number to "harvest" in a year? Right now it looks like all are plentiful but I don't want to take too many and ruin a good thing. I live in SC, are there other "edible" animals that I'm not listing that I can be on the lookout for on the property? Always willing to try something new ;D

Thanks for any advice or actual numbers that can be given :)

[MHinFox]

Mattman that can be a togh question that is really determined by a lot of things. How many animals in local area, what are food supply they have, how many other hunters ect. Probaly your best resourse for the type of information is your local game and fish commission, wild life conservation group for your state here is why. They have long term data on specific areas about food supply, land carrying capacity, number of harvested animals. They use this data often to set hunting seasons and and kill limits. So many things can effect this they can only offer average data for regions. Who knows when a rough winter is going to come in and make the turkey population horrible for a few years?...they are your best bet for average numbers. I personnally watch the numbes of squirells I see from year to year to make sure I dont kill just the few if I dont see many..but in this area they migrate around some. These guys are great sources of information and they really appreciate folks out trying to do the animals right for harvesting reasons. It is in their interest since it is their living so to speak. Also many will load you up on information for types of food plots and often even free materail to help you plant them...worth talking to, and all of them i have met were really nice ,good down to earth folks very willing to help out. hope this helps some.