Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Salt Licks?

Do salt licks help with the overall development of a whitetails antler growth during the summer months? all replies welcome..thanks!!

Mineral licks do, not just salt licks. Les

Salt is an attractant for whitetails, especially in some soil types. You should have a soil analysis done by your extension agent--they can tell you if your soils are mineral deficient.

This is not a trivial matter. Soils on the King Ranch in south Texas are phosphorous deficient and the cattle used to develop a syndrome called "the creeps" in which their feet curled under and caused them to limp painfully. Back in the 1930s, they finally figured out what the cause was and installed phosphorous dispensers on the livestock watering points. When I worked down there in the 1970s, the bucks with the biggest bodies and antlers were in areas in which all of the available water was equipped with these phosphorous dispensers.

Deer and other ruminants require calcium and phosphorous in their diets in a 2:1 ratio that comprises approximately 1.5% of the dry weight of their forage. If the forage is deficient, they need to get the minerals from supplements. The only way to really tell if this is a problem used to be to take some rumen samples and have nutritional analyses done. Now it can be done by gathering fresh pellets (feces) and having nutritional analyses performed on these. The last time I had these done, it cost about $24 per sample, but it has been a few years and may be cheaper now.

Again, get together with your extension agent and ask him or her about running NUTBAL analyses--they can set up a sampling routine and help with the interpretation of the results.

Probably more than you wanted to know...

I wouldn't dare!