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We have pretty deep snow here in Northern WI. Is there a problem in starting to give the deer some baled hay at this time of year? They are deep in browse mode. Is hay digestable at this time of year? They are still pawing in the areas blown out by the wind.

It's digestible but only if their digestive microflora adapt first. You need to start feeding in very small amounts and slowly work up over several weeks. If they eat too much to start with, it can't be digested. You need to read up on it as my knowledge isn't enough to do it right.

We've gone out and dropped some trees during a hard winter before. They will eat the buds that they normally couldn't reach.

Also read an article a few years that touched on this. The conclusion was that feeding hay does more harm than good unless they are used to eating it.

In good habitat, white-tailed deer going into winter should be carrying enough fat reserves that, energetically, they really don't need to take another bite until some time in April. In the northern parts of their range, they basically find habitat that allows them to minimize heat loss--places that provide protection against wind and an overhead canopy to mitigate heat loss to the night sky. In the areas where I worked up north, deer would spend most of their time in sheltered places like sumac thickets and eat sumac (which had virtually no real nutritional value) to keep from feeling hungry. This also kept their rumen microflora and microfauna alive.

Supplementing them with coarse supplemental forage such as hay really doesn't help and, as Rock Chuck mentioned, it can cause them more harm than good. What protein and energy there is in hay is pretty much all tied up behind the lignin in the cell walls and a deer's digestive system is not set up to effectively get at it. Providing more nutritious and digestible forage (such as alfalfa) probably doesn't hurt, but most deer really don't need it. They're living off the fat that they stored up in the fall.

We had a heavy, wet snow in the middle of November that flattened most of the brush around here providing the deer with a foodsource they normally don't have and boy, are they taking advantage of it!

The snow is getting deep, but with the additional browse provided by the flattened brush, they should make it through. It has been a blessing for the deer under such deep snow conditions.....

A good old January thaw would go a long ways to making sure that happens!!

A deer has the microflora necessary to digest hay in it's stomach but not in sufficient quantities to do the job. It needs a couple weeks with just a little hay to give the bugs time to multiply. If they've been eating grass, using grass hay will speed things up considerably but I still wouldn't go whole hog on feeding them.

It won't be digested. It will be masticated and passed on through. It can't stay in the rumen long enough to do them any good. The passage time is too short. They will eat some grasses when they first break dormancy, but after the first 4-6 weeks of growth, digestible nutrition value declines to just about zero.

And if one starts feeding, he will never get rid of them in subsequent winters. Youngsters will have learned that the feed lot and surrounding ground are where they are supposed to winter.

Game folks fed on the edge of town here in about 1993. Up until that time, one could raise gardens, shrubs were fine, as were folks hedges and fruit trees. Since then, we have year round deer, can not grow a garden with out a high fence, and the complete town has a browse line up to about 5 1/2 feet. They are a year round pain in the ass.

They yard up in our cedar swamps. We also do some small scale timber stand improvements, cutting mostly maple, and they browse hard there for a long time. But that project is quite a ways away from the deer my dad was considering giving the hay.
Thanks for the input!

Do this, I cut close to a hundred soft maples the last couple of days, and the deer are hitting them already.

Heed what Mudhen is saying. Deer can have a full stomach of hay and still starve to death.

Don't know what county you are in, but be aware that in some counties you can't feed deer.

Several years ago when the CO, Game department tried feeding deer,they actually found deer starved to death and having full bellies of hay.They developed a special processed pellet for them and also for the elk. Although elk can do well on hay.

Here in CO ,it is illegal to feed any wildlife.Since they congregate into close big herds, the spread of CWD is made worse.

There is a big push to raise money in the Gunnison Valley at present to buy feed. The CPW will not feed and te snow is 5+ ft deep,covering any food.We might have a big die off this winter.

Of course , besides the possibility of disease spread, the CPW is saying they have no money which helps their push to raise resident license fees double for 2017.

Illegal in Montana

Illegal in ID, too.
Last winter a bunch of elk died in Sun Valley when they got on the golf course and ate yew bushes. All parts of yew are highly toxic. The city council was considering outlawing all new plantings of yew but I never heard how it came out.

I often see big old bucks breeding in late January with hips and ribs showing pretty prominently while Im out "working to save deer" (coyote hunting, but folks love to hear of hunters giving back).

The does will look to be in good shape. I cant help but to put out some alfalfa in several places. They usually wont mess with it if they havent been around it for quite some time. I throw small patches around water holes. Often its 2 years before they start nibbling at it as if letting gut flora adapt and then only after all green growth is well gone. The desert muleys here wont mess with apples either unless you keep them around for 2 or 3 years either.

Where they have gotten used to it from previous winters they will hit it well, early in the winter.

I figure starvation for big older bucks isnt all its cracked up to be and i am nowhere near any cultivation areas where i notice the deer populations are greater and bucks generally bigger than in the boonies.

If deer can travel a couple of miles from mountain top to alfalfa fields in Co and NM i figure those in the desert deserve some candy.

Depending on where you live, you might want to consider that lots of deer in your back yard may draw a cougar to your back yard.

Illegal in NY also

Plant food plots, wheat or oats, we feed protein year around

Yea, I planted some oats as a cover crop for new grass in the pasture this year. Almost had to go out and direct deer traffic there were so many