Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Mineral blocks for deer

Do deer frequent mineral blocks? I’ve never put them out, always had some type of stock on the place I’ve hunted. The East Texas paper company land I’m on now does not. What’s best to put out or am I wasting my time?? Thanks in advance!!

I have tried Grainiac blocks. They seem to like them.

I put out powdered minerals, salt, calcium and molasses a couple times a year for deer. Recipe from youtube and cheap to buy at the feed store.

The does sure like it this time of year.

I tried a variety, but finally decided that rock salt worked the best.

Dig a trench. Poor it in. Put back the dirt, The salt will seep into the dirt, and the deer will worry the dirt. For one thing, done this way, the salt lasts longer. Second, the deer get trace minerals out of the dirt. Third, by keeping the deer from directly eating the salt, you keep them from overdoing the salt. Too much salt is bad for the deer. They fill up on salt and then fill up on water, which then leaves them less room for food.

I use mixing salt, because it is the cheapest, but I've used rock salt and conditioner pellets as well.

Most parts of Texas have more than enough Salt in the soil to support wildlife, do a soil test on your lease, it should tell you what you need to know Texas A&M will test your soil samples and send you a report on the results, look up the process on the A&M web site. Rio7

I use a combination of "Trophy Rocks" and salt blocks rom the feed store.

The issue you might have is when they're hitting them. I see the most activity in spring and summer, fall not so muck. They're useful to keep deer around in the off season, and when you put a camera on them, you'll get an idea of what's around.

I get more activity on my ground licks than with blocks on my lease in AL. I either find depression or create one with a shovel or an old rotting stump and pour either fine mixing salt or trace mineral in there. If you can find an evergreen with shade that is a good place as well as it will hold moisture better.

Best just before a rain. The rain soaks it into the soil. Even after the mineral or salt is visibly gone they paw around in the hole making it bigger.

If you have water at your lease i guess you could dissolve it a drum of water and dump the water in the hole.

My best ones hold a bit of water. I refresh the licks with a bag once a year. I have several the deer have dug out two feet deep and 6 feet wide. There is usually a bit of water in the hole after a few years. I just just dump it right in the water.

Keeps the deer coming year round for the price of one or two bags of corn. This year I paid $10 for a 50lb bag of fine mixing salt and about $16 per bag of trace mineral from the local co-op.

Mule deer and WT like the reddish brown trace mineral blocks, elk too.
Cheap at the feed store.
They are a little better than straight salt for the wildlife they say.

I leave the red mineral blocks out for our goat herd. I've got them near water sources in multiple pastures that we rotate stock through. I often see deer at them. Occasionally I've seen them circled around it with 3 or 4 does/young ones working on it at the same time.

We put out trace mineral red brown blocks. The deer where we hunt come to them often in spring and summer. The deer will dig a hole down into the rocks when the block melts into the ground. It seems like the antler growth is a little better when they have minerals. It might be my imagination though.

Illegal here in Colorado.

I usually use the red trace mineral blocks, but I have used the white ones or occasionally bags of pool salt.

I sometimes have to put a bucket of clay in the resulting hole to keep it from turning into a tank trap.

I set Mineral salt blocks and sulfur salt blocks side by side. The deer eat the dirt where the rain melts them. They create a hole next to them, and in late spring the doe will stand and drink the water a lot. Yes, i have camera's on them. miles

I keep one out in the backyard through the winter and early spring. They. seem to prefer the ones with a higher molasses content with some corn mixed in. The first time I put one out, I put my trail camera on the back porch and had a ten point on that block within two hours. I tried a Purina block with ground up corn in it and they didn’t like that one at all.

I had a place way back when on Int. Paper land.
If it's the same, I hope things have improved since
I was around there. Didn't matter if things were
bolted down or chained up. If the pinheads
wanted something, it disappeared. Always the
neighborhood people. If they couldn't get it
they'd vandalize it. And the fence hoppers waiting
until you leave to take advantage of your work
and hunt your stands and shooting lanes.
Hopefully it'll be way better for you though.

Some guys at our lease, put mineral blocks near their feeder, black bears carried them off.

Hunting over bait is illegal here in Wyoming too so we put them out before and after season and do not hunt the sites. They are to supplement the herds not hunt over.
Had the biologists recc. we put out minerals for the deer and bighorn sheep as long as we didn't actively hunt right over them.
Been supplementing with mineral for about 25+ years now. All species seem to use the blocks.

We've done the trophy rock and salt blocks. Did them over a period of years. While they were utilized by the deer, I can not say if we saw any difference in the quality of deer it created. Antler wise.

The old saying "you can't out exercise a bad diet" seems to apply "you can't out mineral bad genetics"

We have been on that place 4 years. I got on 2020, hunted, 2121, off 2022, back on 2023. No theft yet, cellular game cameras everywhere. That may help.

Illegal here if you plan to shoot/hunt the deer

We have used trace mineral blocks.

They use them. Probably helps with any deficiency they may ha e and can't hurt antler growth.

Not sure with the CWD going around these parts I want to have multiple deer using them anymore.

It is legal where I live and If I put them out now they will be gone by hunting season. I do put a couple close to my stands but put some out just beside the.woods trails to make some available to deer on all of the.property we hunt.

Well that's good
FWIW every place I've hunted in this state
on every compass point had issues with
either theft or trespassing/poaching or both.
Some more so than others. The majority of
those I hunted with west and southwest
would swear up and down that there wasn't
any problems at all, but I always had to remind
them that you most likely aren't noticing
anything different when you only show up
3 times in a year if that. Usually one of the
neighbors/neighbor's kids, or one of the
oil gaugers.
There's really nothing to be done if you're not
on the property full time.
I've hunted/fished in the adjacent states, and
they're not any different. Some notice it.
Some don't

In places that don’t have a salt source, like ranchers salt blocks or natural licks, a salt block and game camera in the late spring to late summer will tell you exactly what lives there. It becomes the hub of game movement. Moose will live on it, or next to it. Come fall the animals dissipate and hunting over it is useless, nevermind illegal in some spots. It’s incredible how they smell it out within a few days of it being there.

The places I have hunted my whole life wildlife comes to the salt so I assume they need it. My dad always poured rock salt on or in stumps. Deer will dig a stump out of the ground here in a few years.

It's legal here. We use Southern States Corn-A-Plenty blocks. It's not a salt block per se, it's more like mashed together corn, soy, minerals, salt, molasses, and other good schit. They don't lick it, they chew on it. I've seen deer that might just walk up to it and take a nibble and continue on. A block might last a couple of months in the early season when there's a lot for them to eat. But once the fields are cut and the leaves come off the trees, they tend to go through them quicker. If we get snow cover, a block might only last a week or two. They're the size of a salt block, but they only weigh 25 lbs. It'll fit in my back pack and I can just carry them out to where I need them. It always helps the throw some corn around when I go hunting to keep them digging around.

https://rockbridgefarmerscoop.com/c...es-rainshed-corn-a-plenty-wildlife-block

I use to put out granular mineral salt mixed with some calcium for deer on old stumps along well used deer trails….they loved it! I would put out maybe 10 or so sites along the perimeter of our 500 acre hunting ground. They would chew up the woody part of the stump and lick up the dirt around these stumps. I’d refresh these sites yearly. However, I quit this practice a couple of years ago because of the prevalence of CWD in our county. I have a CWD scientist friend who advised me to stop the practice…..something to consider. He also told me that they have tested the soil around some mineral sites and the prion(cwd) was present in the soil in enough quantity to infect the deer. Furthermore, he stated that they have even found traces of the prion in plants that grow at these sites. CWD is a nightmare disease for our deer! My friend said as well that in areas where cwd is prevalent that the deer population will remain young….meaning that most deer will succumb to the disease before they reach their 3 yr. I have found this to be true on our ground as I only see young bucks anymore where in the past we used to annually kill mature bucks……sad, very sad.

I might further add that a lot of deer killed in hunting season in our county are tested for CWD and the test returns “positive” and the deer appeared outwardly healthy. Deer can be infected with the prion responsible for CWD and not show clinical signs of the disease! However, when they do, onset of death is rapid. My CWD buddy also admitted that after all these years of studying this disease in the U.S. and Europe, they don’t know a whole lot about it.

It’s been awhile but I’ve had good luck with them. It’s what the farmer was getting in bulk shipment for his cattle on the farm I hunted back in the day so we just chipped in on the shipment and used them. We’d put them on an old dead elm stump and after a few rains they’d start chewing the stump down to a hole in the ground over time. Can’t say if they’re any better than regular salt blocks just that it’s what I used and the deer liked them.

As others mentioned the trace mineral blocks get hit hard in spring through summer. Logically since this coincides with antler growth for bucks and pregnancy through nursing for does I’d say there’s something there deer need. Read the label on various livestock mineral supplements and they contain quite a bit more minerals than the blocks. Deer will eat a waterhole in the ground where these are dumped.

To illustrate the cloven hoofed love for salt I’ll go into Way-Back to my deer hunting start as a teenager. A place our gang hunted was the site of an old old homestead long since gone, except for the obvious outline of a smokehouse. An almost perfect outline 8” to a foot deep where generations of deer had come for the salt that dropped off the meat, onto and through the floor, and leached into the soil beneath.

Find a nice big oak stump or log and set a trace mineral block on it and pour a bag of cattle mineral over the block. The deer will gnaw and eat the wood after the salt and mineral leak into it.

I would mix rock salt, brown sugar and a packet of strawberry jello. Pour it into a shallow trench and cover it with dirt. Definitely got action.
Funny story.
Dad thought it was more internet bs so I put some out in a field and drew an arrow in the dirt to where I put it. Next morning sure enough deer were all over the tip of that arrow. We saw one doe fending off others from it. I handed him binoculars to look and asked if he saw the arrow on the ground. He gave his look of surprise I was hoping for. He asked what my mix was made of (because I was dramatic about hiding the ingredients). I said I call it "internet bullsh*t" and wouldn't tell him for a while- we both got a laugh out of it. Damn I miss that kind of stuff.

Bringing deer together where they would frequent that salt etc. gives more of a chance e for CWD to become prevalent.So putting it out may be doing more harm than good.

I use Trophy Rocks as well.... I don't know how much they do for antler growth but I do know the deer can't seem to go more than a few hours without licking them....

Here too.
Baiting has always been illegal, but you could “feed” wild animals as long as all traces were gone 30 days before you hunted the area.

With CWD, they have made feeding totally illegal.
Trying to keep deer from congregating in one small spot to feed.
And every damn feed store, gun store, Walmart, and tractor supply still sells all kind of deer miracle bai..treats!

I use the red mineral blocks here and at camp. They have to get pulled prior to season, but I see a lot of use by does in the spring. I believe it really helps with their health, and their fawns' health.

I put two of the 40 lb mineral blocks out each year.
Get them from the Agway.
Last 2 cost about 25.00.
They last a year.
Always have cameras on them.
If you change where you put the block.
The deer will still visit the old spot and actually dig a hole in the ground where the block used to be.
Tried one of the fancy blocks from sportsman's wearhouse.
Coons ate it up in a week.
dave

That is why I don't put the mineral blocks out anymore.

CWD is too close to home for me.

Where did CWD come from??

At least in Mo some claim from the elk farms in Northern Missouri. Who knows where it started before those.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

I've used Trophy Rocks for quite a few years, but not for hunting. They hit them everyday, so apparently they either need it or want it.
The most activity is in the spring & summer. Fall / winter taper off, but it seems like does with fawns hit them year round.