01/08/2026
Here is a great quick read on Hing cutting trees on your land . Hinge cutting has many values and can help your deer herd greatly .
Discover The Difference Real Estate Only Better Brett Videon Owner / Designated Managing Broker RE/MAX INTEGRITY
Farm and Ranch
The naysayers can say what they want, but that doesn't change the fact that hinge-cutting trees for deer works.
Hinge-cutting is not some haphazard concept that I dreamt up some random weekend cutting trees. It has been around long before I ever fired up a chainsaw and it will be around long after I'm gone. And, as we found out this past year, it has made its way into mainstream academia.
Dr. Craig Harper, out of the University of Tennessee, had his students take an in-depth look at hinge-cutting. In his study, Dr. Craig Harper had his students hinge-cut all trees under 10" DBH (only hinging trees that hinge well) at 4 1/2 feet off the ground as well as utilized girdle and spray to kill larger undesirable trees to allow sunlight to reach the newly hinge-cut trees. Here is what they found:
- Deer detections in the hinge-cut areas compared to the non-treated area increased by 76% overall (dropping by 12% in the control areas), spiking to 146% during fawning periods (dropping by 6% in the control areas) and increased by 78% during the hunting season (dropping by 24% in the control areas). So hinge-cut bedding areas actually PULLED deer out of the unmanaged forest. So there are some implications here for being able to actually pull deer off of neighboring properties that have unmanaged woodlands.
- Predator detections fell by 41% in the hinge-cut areas. The misnomer that hinge-cuts create predator traps proved to be completely false, they actually helped to decrease predation.
- 72% of hinge-cut trees survived after the first year. When you hinge-cut trees, you'll always lose a few, which is fine, but if you focus on species that hinge well and leave a lot of "meat on the bone" you can have a high survival rate with your hinge-cuts. You need to make sure that sunlight is hitting your hinged trees to ensure survival so removing the overstory trees by killing them (like they did in this study) or felling them (my preferred method) is absolutely crucial.
- Dr. Craig Harper quote: "I want to point out that this method does not degrade forest stand quality. High-value trees for deer are left standing while undesirable species or desirable species with poor form are hinged, cut, or killed." I say this all the time, hinge-cuts tend to work best on trees that are not great for wildlife standing and have little to no timber value. Hinge-cutting turns what was perceivably a "junk" tree into a high value wildlife tree tipped on its side.
*** One final note. They didn't hinge-cut every tree in these bedding blocks, nor do I ever hinge-cut every tree when I create a bedding area. I'm pretty much always traditionally felling over 50% of the trees in any given bedding cut. And honestly, more often than not I'm not hinge-cutting any trees just because I often don't have the types of trees to work with that hinge-cut well. A combined approach of techniques will result in the best, overall bedding area you can create. And as always, if you don't care for hinge-cuts, by all means don't use them. Just make sure you manage your forested ground in some way. A managed forest will always result in better overall deer and wildlife habitat than an unmanaged forest.
