Sunflowers..?

[Paul/KS]

It's been so wet here this spring/summer that I have sunflowers sprouting under one of the songbird feeders. That got me wondering if deer ever show any interest in sunflowers, either just the seeds or the plants ?
Anybody..?    :confused:

[David M. Mathis]

They love eating the tops of sunflowers. It's hard to plant a field of sunflowers with a high deer population.

[hedgetree]

Yep, what David said. Some of the best hunting Ive had has been over sunflower fields.

[Pat B]

I knew a guy that would bait with sunflowers. He said they didn't show up like corn but attracted the deer like crazy.

[Rollie]

They never let mine get more than 3 or 4 inches tall then wipe them out in one night!

[58WINTERS]

The deer rob my hanging bird feeders of black oil sunflower seeds on weekly basis. Had a beautiful 5x5 buck destroy a feeder 2 yrs ago with his rack. The feeder company replaced it for free.
58

[Paul/KS]

Well they are growing pretty well and one has flowered so I'll see what happens with the plants. Been such a wet summer that the deer have plenty of plants to browse on around here.

[Cootling]

Sunflowers were a major agricultural crop here in the late 1970s and 1980s.  The oil seed fields were a magnet for deer, foxes and coyotes, tree squirrels, and upland birds.  I even watched a badger carrying heads down a burrow one nice winter day.  Confectionary seeds, not so much.

Seeds are rare, now.  Blight and blackbirds.  They are more common further west.

[Recurve7]

I sowed about a 1/4 acre with Sunflower seeds, the deer won't let them grow.