Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting School me on Sorghum

Sogghum is not typically planted in our area of Central Wisconsin. This year I am hunting an area that has it planted for the first time and i believe it was harvested a few months back and is now re-growing to about 2' high. Do deer use this as a food source and does it have to freeze first? Doesn't seem to be getting hit like all the other crops that are available for them right now. I am not sure if it's used for brewing but the craft breweries around here are paying big money to have some different things planted.

Freeze first? No, I often see deer browsing on it in September.

Couldn't resist...

I’ve never seen deer be particularly fond of sorghum. Some farmers here plant it cause it’s less susceptible to deer damage. Maybe they like it better in other places?

Deer will hit it later in the fall and through winter.
Also known as milo

They seem to like it a lot in the west .

Elk and pigs around here love it. I don’t see deer on it as much. Pigs like it when the grain is milky and elk like it when it’s hard. It is good cover that they’ll hide in when pressed, I’ve jumped many a big buck out of milo stalks while hunting pheasants.

Here in NC deer love Milo and although I have seen them in it in every month of deer season, they really kill it after a good frost and can wipe out the seed heads in a field in a few days.

Deer will eat the seeds but don’t see them touching the leaves. I would think WI would have better feed locally. Are any seed heads left?

We planted several acres of it a number of years back. The deer completely ignored it. Never planted it again.

We have not had a frost yet and have soybeans, alfalfa, corn , wheat and a lot of oaks so the deer have plenty to eat. A small area of the sorghum does have the seed heads but I haven't seen a deer in it.

Makes a great bedding area. Check out barricade from antler king. Pretty good habitat improvement if you need more cover.

I've never thought that deer were very interested in milo and would feed on waste grain in cut bean and corn fields before they'd eat standing milo seed heads. Turkeys seem to like milo a lot more than deer do.

Doves LOVE it.

Was probably made into sileage for dairy or beef operation versus going to brewery. Have known a couple of dairies that occasionally grow it. Looked it up, looks like they use it for problem fields(nematodes, certain diseases and muck soils.)

Deer love milo when it's mature especially. In Kansas, they will live in and around it until it's cut. After they cut it, deer will still come to pick through the stalks.

In eastern CO, a type of sorghum is grown for forage instead of hay. It is not milo which is grain. Good years it can get 6 ft tall or more.It goes by several different names Most popular is Hay Grazer.After cut it can take considerable time to cure before baling,but makes great cattle forage. Baled, it looks like corn stalks,but not as big stalks. It can be a problem for equines. If cut right after a frost , it can cause poising in equines.I think it is nitric acid poisoning.Sort of like grazing stokc on freshly frosted alfalfa

Forage sorghum can get high in nitrates or prussic acid, usually when stressed. Johnsongrass can get the same, which can kill cattle.

They get fat on sorghum.