Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Winter feeding?

Oats are certainly the most favored winter crop on small "ranches" in Central Texas. They ensure that you will have deer on your property, no matter how small it may be.

I have a 1/4 acre at the house, deer are in it every afternoon.

The whitetail are hitting our haystacks and feed yard big time in the last month.


We live on the edge of town and I noticed mule deer tracks on the front yard yesterday morning. That is a first since we moved here 6 years ago. The uber cold snap and snow got 'em in close.

Not totally true it is legal in Sullivan County where I hunt. We have not tried to use hay or alfalfa as they are low in protein . We on occasion during only the most severe winters will supplement with grains along with our annual trimming of fruit trees on our properties . Our woods have been in a rotational logging program for around 5 years now and this usually takes place during the winter months so browse is relatively everywhere. This is especially helpful when the snow has an ice crust on it that is not penetrable.

I have land in Price co . Wis . so I am interested in this subject. I dont think feeding the deer is a good idea this late in the year. If they are not in good enough shape now, they most likely are a weaker gene pool and sometimes I think this is mother natures way of keeping the toughest , healthiest deer in the herd. It also may over populate with s subsistence of food and over browse some tree species. In Price co. there is not a cedar tree that is not 50 yrs old. White pine get browsed to death there. The neighbors feed them all the time too , thinking a hay bale is going to help when the winter gets long. I believe their best friend id a chainsaw this time of year, and next year there will be young poplars by the millions . This is what we need in northern WIs, Mi. and Minn. One time I found a dead fawn buck in March on my neighbors yard up north. There was nothing wrong with it , no bullets , no nuthing. I can only conclude it ate too much grass cause of a very fast snow melt that year. It was a time when there were just too many deer and little browse in the woods. You are most likely better off leaving them alone, or shoot a coyote. Later, Ihookem. Also, the snow is getting deep in some places but the winter will most likely be a short one and 40 degree temps are called for most of this week. It is summer time for those deer. Laying in the sun with those coats, you could put a thermometer on their backs and it would be 70 in the sun.

Sam, it would be interesting to see if you start finding big bellied dead w tails in the area. Grass hay?

I have read years ago where in deer yards in the north with red cedar, deer would starve to death with bellies full in bad winters.

There are grass bales but of course they walk past those and chew out the centers of the alfalfa bales.

The welfare whitetail eat alfalfa all summer and fall out in the field so they must be conditioned to it?

Hell if I know but they love the alfalfa.

And they love to eat pea/wheat pellets out of an open ended storage shed as well.

Only dead ones I ever see are laying in the road ditch.

I always laugh when I hear folks say deer don't eat grass. Tell that to the 12 head in my grass hay field right now. And not eating alfafa is even worse. While they for sure have preferred foods their rumen can absolutely adjust over time. It is the same process as cattle new to a feedlot. Cattle don't start off with high grain or alfalfa diets either, not if you want to have a low death loss anyway.

Most of the grass deer eat probably is new spring growth or fall regrowth, but they eat a ton of it and do well. We had a good fall here so that fall regrowth under the snow is what they are eating on my place. And I have a lot of browse here too.

Alfalfa is a forb, not grass, forbs and browse are usually listed as their preferred diet. But rapid changes in diet especially during stressful times are bad. Even if changes are among the same class of plants but different species.

Decent alfalfa hay is very high in protein and good alfalfa is sky high with it. That's why dairys feed so much of it. Grains can be pretty high but are usually high in energy too. New grasses can be high. The deer around here chase cheatgrass every spring and fall and it is because if you test it while it is young and green it'll be 10-15% protein. This is in an area with lots of browse.

Lignin is more abundant in woody browse species than grasses and forbs so they can handle it.

You also have to consider what's in the plant that makes it unpalatable, toxins, secondary compounds, even lignin and cellulose. Some browse species have decent protein and energy, but also tannins or terpenes that llimit digestion.

Yes starving animals will eat anything but I see wildlife all the time with many choices that are doing well ignoring the rules that my friends at the game and fish set for them.

The ethics of feeding wildlife is a different discussion.

Several counties of Missouri as well

No feeding and no salt/minerals

Thanks Sam. Im not figuring they will starve on alfalfa. Mulies dont.

A person can put alfalfa under a corn feeder and get the whitetails used to it. After all the vegetation is winter kklled the bucks will come to green alfalfa from miles away.
Of course, they will probably come in to it after dark, but at least they are in the area.

They need time to develop the bacteria in their stomachs to digest any feed. If they've had alfalfa during the summer and fall, they have what they need.

CPW just put a blurb on their web site that they are going to start feeding deer in the Gunnison valley,but this will be the prepared feed they developed years ago, not straight grass for the deer.

Alot of the prob isn't what they might eat, it seems that it is how much, once an animal is empty and starving, if you introduce an instant food source they will gorge so full it won't digest and they are plugged from end to end and thus will die with full stomachs!! Introduced slowly you might get by in very small quantities to start out!! MAYBE!!!

Took a ruminant nutrition class from the guy that wrote the book (Church). One of his favorite phrases was that one could run them on newspaper, nitrogen fertilizer, and a few minerals if a person seriously watched what he was doing. Fairly plastic diets among all of the species, but single source feeds and sudden switches do not work well.

Non ruminants like horses can get by on poor groceries by simply eating more and pushing it through. One can look at horse poop and often identify the components.

Ruminants have to digest their food or it will not move down the tract. Mostly the digestion is done by micro-flora (bacteria and protozoa) with the animal absorbing generated gases and then subsequently digesting the bugs. If anything kills the bugs or the groceries are so poor the bugs can't survive, everything stops.

The OP though is solely related to a toxic issue.

Idaho Fish and Game has just started feeding elk and deer about 50 miles north of here to protect ranchers' hay stacks and to keep them off the highways. They've developed a special feed pellet that can be digested. I haven't been able to find any info on what they have in it but it has to contain bacteria that can do the job.

Gunnison Basin is always the first place CPW feeds. Mostly to keep them out of haystacks and off the Hwy 50.

As I mentioned in another thread, from the ungulates standpoint, most harsh winters are preceeded by harsh summers (drought) and the ungulates go into the winter in poor shape. That's not the case this year, critters had a pretty good summer and fall. Remember, we had a very late and warm fall.

Also, deer (and elk) survived the 70's in the Gunnison Basin with higher snow totals and MUCH colder temps than they are currently seeing.

In the harsh winter of 83-84 we fed for the CPW on our ranch. They provided the feed and we provided the labor.

Fed a total of 40,000 lbs of deer pellets to upwards of 400 head of deer and 105 tons of moderately poor hay to upwards of 200 elk from late December to early April.

Casey

Winter of 83-84, an hour before feeding time.



Looking out the front door.