Thoughts on feeding deer???

[gregg dudley]

Absolutely great thread.  I have learned a lot.  I have never hunted north of the mason-dixon much, but for the two years that I bowhunted PA I was absolutely amazed by what I saw in apple orchards.  When the apples came in to season, the deer would absolutely gorge themselves on the things.  The sign looked like cattle had been in there.  I have never seen so many deer droppings in my life and most of it was loose.  

Their systems couldn't handle the overload, but they liked the apples too much to quit.  I imagine that is the same thing that happens with corn that is suddenly introduced to their diet.  If it happens in the winter under stressful circumstances, the impact could be quite devastating.

[killinstuff]

Geno, pasture hay, the stuff most people would feed to horses is another food deer have problems with. Alfalfa, clover, treefoils in hay is good deer feed but most fields have a very small % of that.

[kennym]

Good thread guys! I feed approx. 7000# +/- of soybeans right in the pod,in 6 or 8 food plots,thats after they eat em all summer! Looked yesterday and they are bout cleaned out. Come on spring!

[whitebuffalo]

CJ,, or John,, would it be ok to feed them clover bails right now? if I'm not mistaken (and I could be) I beleive you can buy clover bails, I baught some years ago when I picking up some bait for a late season hunt and the guy there said they needed it to help their digestion,,J

[Sticks only]

If you can get them to eat a bale of hay would initially show what kind of shape they are in. It seems deer in good physical shape (not on the verge of starvation) will not eat baled hay here in this part of Michigan. They use to use it quite extensively in supplemental feeding programs up north. Again, good points have been made in staying with a pasture mix of hay and not something too hot like pure alfalfa or clover. So, the moral of this story is if you put out hay bales and the deer wont use, they are in no danger whatsoever. Though there were a number cases in the past when sportsmans club in the UP where getting worried about the deer in the yards. They started seeing starving deer. They went and bought a semi load of pasture hay. Gave it to the deer and they ate it. Their confusion came when the deer continued to die. The necropsies showed these deer to be dead with bellies full of hay. Two theories on what occoured. 1) These deer where too far gone to save. 2) Their conversion was too long intact to use the hay. Most of the time when deer are starting to starve here in Michigan you will see the size of the browse ingested increasing. Instead of just eating buds and tips of shoots and limbs. You will start to notice these browse limbs to be as large as you finger. That is the sure sign of deer in trouble. Fat reserves in the area where Labs4me lives are more than adequate to carry these deer through the winter. Very minimal if any natural die off in that area.

[Sticks only]

Soybeans!!!!
For those of you that do food plots. This is really the magic bean. The afformentioned posts regarding them are right on. I do recomend you plant at least three acres here in Michigan to have any sustainability of the beans. Deer will eat the plants all summer while growing at the times when the bucks need protein the most. The plants themselves while green produce protein levels of 25-35% depending on the variety. Hard beans will produce 30-40% protein. Opposed to natural bowse with a level of less than 12%. 16% protein will allow a buck to grow the best possible set of antlers he can, given age class and genetics. Sending the deer into spring with high fat reserves and extra protein to use on antlers and give unborn fawns the upper hand fromthe start. In my seminars I tell people Corn is like Ice cream to deer, they love it. But, you dont feed your kids ice cream every day just because they like it. Corn is high in carbohydrates and good energy for them, along with increasing fat reserves. Nutritionally it is minimal. Anyone who hunts the midwest corn belt konws the place to find the deer in the fall is around the corn fields. Corn has its advantages but, as we have pointed out in certain circumstances it can be detrimental.

[finger lakes bowhunter]

my 50 acres has over 400 acres of corn around it and 60 of soybeans.  The 50 acres I am on has apple, cherry, hawthorn, oak and hickory trees on it.  The few herds that hangout here have more food than they can eat.  When I field dress a deer I always hold my nose and cut open the stomach to see what they are eating.  Everytime it is just packed with corn.  I have watched them pass up apples from my McCoun tree (very sweet apples) and go for corn. Out here they plant two rows of sweet corn arround their animal grade corn.