Collin County land goes fast, and much of what stays open is held in a hay or cattle valuation. When the cattle go or the hay contract ends, wildlife management is how many owners keep the land in a 1-d-1 valuation.
Last reviewed October 2026. Your appraisal district has the final say, so confirm the details with them.
We walk your Collin County property, look at what the deer and other wildlife are using and what they lack, and write a plan around that. The plan names the practices, where they go and when, and who does each job.
We prepare your plan and help you file it with Collin Central Appraisal District. After that we can help with the yearly practices and prepare the annual report from your records.
What is left of open country in Collin County is mostly in the east and north, around Farmersville, Josephine, Blue Ridge and the land above Lavon Lake. It is Blackland Prairie: heavy clay, hay meadows, old crop ground, and timber along Pilot Grove Creek, Sister Grove Creek and the East Fork of the Trinity.
Deer here live in the creek bottoms and the brushy draws and move into the open at the edges. Because so little native prairie is left, restored grass, cover along the creeks and a few acres managed for food can change what a 20 or 40 acre tract holds.
Converting part of a bermuda or fescue meadow back to native grasses and forbs is habitat control and gives fawning and nesting cover.
Leaving and widening wooded strips along drainages, and controlling privet and other invaders, keeps deer travel routes intact.
Shelter practices that fit small tracts well, recorded each year for the annual report.
Camera surveys or walking counts, done the same way each year, are the census practice and tell you what the place is actually holding.
Every property is different. These are starting points, and the plan for your land comes from walking it.
Collin CAD's agricultural guidelines place the district in the Blackland Prairie region. For a tract that has been made smaller since the year before, the district uses the strictest end of that region's range, which TPWD's table puts at about 16.7 acres. Tracts that have not been reduced have no minimum.
Collin CAD mails a wildlife management annual report to owners on wildlife valuation, usually around November 15.
To hold an ordinary ag valuation in Collin County, the district's guidelines ask for at least two animal units on pasture for most of the year, or a marketable hay crop of two to three cuttings on at least 5 acres. Beekeeping needs six hives on 5 acres. When an owner can't keep that up, wildlife management is the usual alternative.
District website: Collin Central Appraisal District.
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LVG Wildlife Solutions prepares wildlife management plans and supporting records. We are not attorneys or tax advisors, and nothing on this page is legal or tax advice.
Plug in your acres and land value. The estimator uses Collin County's typical 2025 rural tax rate and the productivity value its appraisal district reports, then shows a rough yearly range and every figure it used.
Remember what it measures: the difference between full market-value taxes and an ag or wildlife valuation. If your land already has an ag valuation, a wildlife plan is how you keep that difference, not add to it.
See what goes into a wildlife management plan or ask us about your property.
Only if the tract got smaller since January 1 of the year before. In that case Collin CAD applies the Blackland Prairie requirement at the strict end, which works out to about 16.7 acres. A tract that has not been reduced has no minimum. Confirm the current figure with Collin CAD.
Yes, if it is appraised for agriculture now. You file the 1-d-1 application with a wildlife management plan on the TPWD form before May 1, then carry out at least three of the seven practices each year. We prepare your plan and help you file it.
Collin CAD mails the report form around mid-November. The completed report goes back to the district with your records for the year.
More questions and answers · How the Texas wildlife exemption works
Maps, practices, a year-by-year calendar, cost estimates, and the forms ready to file.
Read moreTHE FIRST STEPWe walk your Collin County property, find what it's short of, and tell you straight what would help most.
Read moreTHE PROCESSFrom the first call to the site visit, the plan, filing help and every year after.
Read moreSERVICESAssessments, plans, annual reports and habitat work, in the order your land needs them.
Read moreWHY USWhitetail and habitat specialists who walk every property and stay with you after the plan.
Read moreGET STARTEDTell us the county, the acreage and your goals. Plans are quoted to the property.
Get in touchTell us the acreage, how it's used now and what you want from it. We'll tell you plainly what would help most and what it would take.