What White-Tailed Deer Eat
- • Fruits & Nuts. Also known as mast, all the shrubs and fruits from forest trees and “hard mast” such as beechnuts,...
- • Grains & Mushrooms. While it is not the easiest to find, white-tailed deer love rye, wheat, soybeans, pecans, and oats.
- •Woody Browse. Woody browse refers to anything related to twigs, leaves, and buds, things that fall off...
What is the best food for whitetail deer?
[36] Douglas Fir: In the west, fir needles are commonly the best available food where whitetails, muleys, and blacktails take winter shelter. Deer seem to have a special fondness for red maple leaves.
What is a whitetail deer favorite food?
- Mouth The teeth structure, jaws, and stomach of the white-tailed deer are strong and very useful for masticating & eating vegetation, but they don’t use them for thick grass. ...
- Stomach Another reason is that white-tailed deer have a different set of microbes in their stomach. So they don’t process mature weed as normally. ...
- Fruits & Nuts
What is the best protein for whitetail deer?
Product Overview
- High-quality protein content
- Pellet form feed that is useful for use in most types of deer feeders
- Apple Flavour to attract animals from far
What is the best gun for whitetail deer?
What is the best caliber rifle for whitetail deer hunting?
- 7mm-08 Remington.
- 280 Remington.
- 7mm Remington Magnum.
- 30-30 Winchester.
- 308 Winchester.
- 30-06.
- 300 Winchester Magnum.
- You might be surprised by the number of hunters that use the 300 as their primary deer rifle. ...
What can I feed the deer in my backyard?
Oats provide deer with a healthy mixture of fiber and carbohydrates without disrupting their digestive system.A wide variety of fruits and vegetables – including apples, grapes, cherries, pears, carrots, and snap peas – are eaten in nature by deer. ... Acorns are another safe food source.
What is the best thing to feed deer?
What To Feed:Natural Food. If possible, it is best to feed natural food. ... Deer Pellets. Most farm feed outlets carry a specially formulated ration for deer or can tell you where it can be bought. ... Cereal Grains. ... Hay or Alfalfa. ... Fruit & Vegetables.
What do whitetail deer like to eat the most?
They love pecans, hickory nuts and beechnuts acorns in addition to acorns. A couple of favorite fruits are apples, blueberries, blackberries and persimmons. Deer occasionally enter yards to get their mouths on flowers, vegetables and ornamental trees -- quite often to the surprise of the homeowners.
What can you feed deer instead of corn?
Some good fall food sources include hard mast (e.g., oak acorns, beech nuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts, etc.), soft mast (e.g., apples, pears, persimmons, etc.), and agricultural crops (corn, soybeans, brassicas, cereal grains, etc.).
Is it OK to feed deer corn?
Using only corn or other fermentable carbohydrates as a primary deer food can be dangerous. Eating a large amount of corn can affect the deer' digestive process and cause a flush of lactic acid in their stomach. In most severe cases, this leads to the dehydration and death of the deer.
Is corn bad for deer in the winter?
Although corn has poor protein, it has high carbohydrates. Whether it's planted in a food plot, or fed at a feeding site, corn can be a great benefit to whitetails during winter. Most deer managers are more than willing to plant their plots in the spring and summer.
Do whitetail deer like peanut butter?
Deer love peanut butter, so it is an excellent bait. You can use peanut butter alone or in a mixture to lure deer into an area for hunting or just to enjoy watching them. Peanut butter is much cheaper than most commercial deer attractants and works as well or better.
What foods do deer love?
Deer will primarily eat browse (woody portion of leaves and stems), forbs (broad-leaved plants), mast (acorns, apples, etc), and grass. Although these are the main foods deer like to eat, the quantity of these different foods differ throughout the year and the region you are hunting.
What is the cheapest thing to feed deer?
An inexpensive way to feed deer is with corn. Deer love corn and many hunters rely on it for supplemental feeding. That being said, corn is not an excellent source of protein, which is essential for antler growth and the nursing of fawns.
Will deer come to sweet feed?
Yes, it works well. It's grain with molasses on it. Of course they like it. I think you'll find that most people don't use it because it cost so much more than just a bag of whole corn, and corn works as well as anything.
Are salt licks good for deer?
All hooved mammals love salt, so licks made only of salt do a fine job of attracting deer. Licks with added flavors, minerals and nutrients can be even better, especially if you find one the deer in your area really love.
What can you feed whitetail deer in winter?
Deer eat woody browse in the winter. This can be leaves, berries, saplings, bulbs, or buds. In wintertime, they will take their pickings from the ground. They can also have some lush forage such as kale, radish, turnips, apples, or cabbage if it is available.
Where to put mineral supplements for deer?
Where should you be placing your deer mineral supplements? The most obvious and beneficial spots include food plots, bedding areas, and near water holes. When deer enter food plots ready to feed, they will usually seek salt and minerals as well, so placing a mineral site just off a trail entering the food plot will create a natural stopping point for them. Similarly, providing a slow-releasing mineral block near or within a summer bedding area will make it easy for deer to get ample minerals during the day without you having to constantly replace it throughout the summer. Finally, combining water holes and mineral sites can be a dynamite option. After consuming salt and minerals, deer will crave water and vice versa.
What are the minerals in deer antlers?
Once the antlers harden in the late summer, they are roughly half protein and half minerals, according to the QDMA. Calcium and phosphorous are the two most common minerals found in hardened antlers, and so it makes sense that they are the best deer minerals for antler growth.
How many mineral sites do you need for a deer farm?
Some farms with limited deer herds or abundant natural mineral sources may only need one mineral site per 200 ac res, while others with high deer densities or no natural mineral sources could use one site at each field or bedding area.
What are deer attractants?
Deer attractants are by definition, very attractive to deer and tend to concentrate them in close quarters. This can produce a lot of nose-to-nose interaction and it is believed that bodily fluids (e.g., saliva, urine, etc.) are the primary cause of spreading the disease.
How to grow mature bucks with headgear?
To grow mature bucks with impressive headgear, you need to provide food and shelter and let them get older. If you can’t do those things, providing minerals probably won’t produce those dreams, although it will still help individual deer. Here’s what you should know about deer minerals.
What are the seasons for deer?
As with nutritional/caloric needs (see the section below), a deer’s need for minerals changes throughout the year too. The spring and summer are the most critical times of year for deer to get enough minerals in their system, while fall and winter don’t offer as much of a benefit.
Why do deer starve in the winter?
Through the process of acidosis, deer might actually starve if you feed them corn or other high carbohydrate/low fiber foods in the winter. Winter deer feeding problems mostly occur in areas without a lot of agriculture and so the deer aren’t used to eating waste grain throughout the winter.
Deer Supplemental Feeding
Many landowners use supplemental feeding programs on their property as part of their management plan. Most supplemental foods designed for deer are high in nutrition and can be important during periods of drought or extreme cold.
Types of Supplemental Feed
Corn is probably the most popular deer feed on the market. Hunters have used corn to attract and feed deer for many years. Increasingly, more and more states are making hunting over feed legal and corn has high attraction for deer. Unfortunately, corn is one of the least nutritious feeds you can provide to your deer.
Should You Feed?
Rather than telling you to feed or not, I will discuss the positive and negative aspects of feeding and let you decide. Supplemental feeding has inherent benefits and risks that should be considered before making a decision for your property.
Summary
The benefits and risks listed above are universal, but specific risk factors, especially disease and predation, can differ significantly by region.
What do whitetail deer eat?
While it is not the easiest to find, white-tailed deer love rye, wheat, soybeans, pecans, and oats. This gives the deer particular protein, phosphorous and carbs that they won’t find anywhere else. So it is common to see antlers in high-weed places where most of the plants that give these grains grow.
What do deer eat?
Things such as leaves, fruits, nuts, twigs, grass, mushrooms, alfalfa, lichens, and fungi are parts of the principal diet of a deer, especially the white-tailed species. This animal prefers eating in the darkness, but it loves some light as well, so you are most likely find it at dawn or dusk. The food they eat also tends to be more visible ...
Why do whitetail deer like poison ivy?
But white-tailed deer love them, maybe not because of the flavor but because this toxin helps them get the most fiber and antler-growing nutrients. Poison ivy is also among their poisonous diet foods, giving them substantial phosphorous quantities that they use for their antlers and carbs for their energy.
What are some good foods to grow antlers?
Blackberries, plums, mulberries, and grapes give vast amounts of carbs that they use for growing their antlers fast. Chestnuts, hickory nuts, and acorns are filled with protein, fats, carbs, and tannin (mostly acorn) – perfect for easy digestion and absorption.
What do deer eat in winter?
Vegetation and trees grow almost nothing in this season, so it is pretty standard to see deer eating anything from hickory nuts and acorns, to woody plants if needed.
What to feed a deer to get their antlers?
You may also add wild fruits, rose hip, drupes, berries, and even flower buds, known as “soft mast.”. All these foods are ideal for this type of deer because they give instant energy to their bodies that they can use for heating their bodies rapidly and improve growth on their wholes bodies, including their antlers.
Do deer like to stay close to water?
YouTube. Remember that summer is also hotter than other seasons, so deer tend to stay close to waterways so it can hydrate. This will also make it easy to find for predators, so it is essential to be careful around this season.
What is the best food for a whitetail deer?
When the whitetail is lactating, high calcium and high phosphorous food are preferred. The calcium is necessary for milk production. Mushrooms are perfect sources of calcium and phosphorous. The deer will also prefer the mushrooms during antler growth. Increasing the mushroom presence increases antler quality.
What do deer eat in winter?
It is, therefore, a time when deer are least selective. They will eat acorns, hickory nuts and buds of available woody plants. When hunting during the winter, try protein foods like soybeans and fruits like pears. In short, what the deer cannot source elsewhere.
Do deer eat mushrooms in spring?
That is what the deer will want to avoid in the spring. Deer seek out nuts and phosphorous rich mushrooms to replenish all the winter exhausted. The return of weedy plants is also met with a lot of excitement. Deer will munch away for extended periods of time on the growing weeds.
Can whitetails eat pecans?
Pecans are not as loved as acorns and fruits. Whitetails, however, do eat pecans in the combination of forbs and other plants. A pecan only food plot will not be as appealing as a plot with mixed goodies.
Do whitetail deer eat meat?
Whitetail deer do eat meat. They will eat hatchlings and dead animals occasionally. They do this when they are desperate for calcium. You cannot, however, use meat as bait. They do not like it that much. Now, armed with the knowledge of "What do whitetail deer eat" map your hunting grounds.
Do deer like soybeans?
There is hardly a time that deer will overlook soybeans. They love them. They will walk past a cornfield to reach soybeans. Never leave them out of a food plot.You should not assume that a green food plot is an attractive food plot. Deer look past the green. Deer will rank potential food as either :
Do deer eat pumpkins?
Nuts that have high-fat contents are also sought out by whitetails. At this time, deer will also eat pumpkins for their vitamins and carbohydrates. Mushrooms are also very important at present. They replenish the phosphorous used for growth from spring through summer.
What do whitetail deer need?
Just like humans, whitetail deer need a well-rounded diet throughout the year. During different seasons, the nutritional requirements of bucks, does and fawns will vary slightly, but all three need water, protein, energy (fats and carbohydrates), calcium, phosphorus, sodium and fiber. The key for managers is to provide the deer with ...
What to feed deer in spring?
Supplemental feeding, food plots and mineral supplements are all very beneficial to the deer herd in spring. Provide a high-protein (17-20 percent) feed in trough or gravity feeders (so as not to limit the deer's intake). I like to start my protein feeding program around May 1 and continue it throughout the summer.
What is supplemental feed?
As the name suggests, supplemental feed will supplement new browse and spring food plots by providing additional minerals and fats that native browse and most food plot species lack. When planning food plots for the spring, it is beneficial to look backwards at fall and winter.
What is the best food for deer in summer?
High-quality food is the name of the game in summer. Productive, high-protein food plots in peas, beans or lab-lab can provide up to 35 percent protein when properly fertilized and are also very palatable, so your deer are able to digest most of the protein and nutrients that they consume.
What is the most brutal season for whitetail deer?
Summer in the South can be the most brutal season of the year for a whitetail deer herd. Drought conditions, temperatures in the triple digits, nursing fawns and parasites combine to make it difficult for a deer to survive, let alone grow.
What can you use to help a deer plot?
Snow and ice can impact your herd's access to food plots greatly, and in some cases you might be able to help out by using an all-purpose plow, rock rake, bucket, or even a snow plow to increase the accessibility of your food plots.
When is the best time to feed deer?
Supplemental feed in summer is also extremely important. If you have to pick one time of year to provide your deer with supplemental feed, summer is it. Be sure that your feeders are accessible by fawns, as they are the most critical deer in your herd to feed.
What do whitetail deer eat?
White tailed deer will eat foods such oats, soybeans, rye, pecans, and wheat whenever they’re able to find them.
What do deer eat in winter?
Some foods you might see deer eating during the winter include acorns and hickory nuts, as well as woody plants. White tailed deer browse for their food. They do not graze in the way that sheep or cows do. This is why deer aren’t compelled to find food hidden by the snow. They’re able to do this when required, though.
What are some good foods for deer in spring?
In this season, deer will be especially attracted to foods rich in carbohydrates and phosphorus. Examples include mushrooms, fruits, and nuts.
What are some good foods for deer to grow antlers?
Mulberries, plums, blackberries, and grapes provide lots of carbohydrates, which supports rapid antler growth. Pears and apples provide a fantastic energy boost. These foods are also great for helping deer store as much energy as they can for the winter. Woody browse is a category of food that includes buds, leaves, and twigs.
Why are whitetail deer so difficult to find?
The first step you can take in finding white tailed deer is to understand their behaviors and diet . They are herbivores, don’t eat meat, and instead, they munch on vegetation.
Why do deer eat in the fall?
The reason why these animals have to eat as much as they possibly can at this time of year is the necessity of fattening up for the winter.
What are the two chambers of a deer's stomach?
The protozoa and bacteria in the deer’s digestive system are essential in fermenting the food and breaking it down in the necessary way. The chambers of a deer’s stomach are: Bile is mixed into the food in the first two chambers of the stomach (the rumen and reticulum). This is what creates cud.
What is the best food for whitetails?
a balanced mineral packet specifically aimed at whitetails. Based on the author’s research, most of the best whitetail feeds are alfalfa-based pellets that include other ingredients to promote a balanced diet.
Why do deer need rescue feeding?
Rescue feeding takes place when local deer are starving due to some terrible climatic event, such as a blizzard, drought or flood. Feedstuffs are carried in on a regular basis in an attempt to save the lives of affected deer.
How hot should a steel feeder be?
Steel feeders should be placed in shady locations, as our research has shown that temperatures exceeding 140 degrees F. are easily achieved in steel feeders exposed to the sun. Heat degrades protein, and any feed that remains in a feeder over 45 days in warm to hot weather begins to degrade.
How many feeder tubes do deer have?
We prefer to have three or four feeder tubes, thus allowing more than one deer to feed at a time. Looking into another deer’s eyes is a direct threat, so if feeding simultaneously, they tend to turn their heads in opposite directions to avoid direct eye contact.
What is a timed feeder?
The next important attribute is the type of delivery device. Timed feeders that dispense a set amount of feed at preprogrammed intervals are especially popular where used for hunting. However, they often limit consumption and discourage 24-hour use by deer. For that reason, we generally prefer free-choice feeders.
How far apart should a raccoon feeder be?
These feeder tube heads should be no less than 42 inches off the ground, and feeder support legs should be 40 inches apart at the feeder tube level. This height virtually eliminates use of the feed by “non-target” animals such as raccoons, which have been shown to consume as much as 50 percent of pelleted feeds.
What is a good feed?
A “good” feed is usually a pelleted ration and has the following characteristics: crude protein ranging from 16-18 percent, delivered mostly from an alfalfa base. crude fiber roughly matched to protein, range 12-15 percent. carbohydrate source, such as corn or cereal grain, to provide adequate digestible energy.
Is it Bad to Feed Wild Deer?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. It depends on how and what you’re feeding the deer and your geographic location.
What Should You Not Feed Deer?
Sadly, many wild deer are killed each year by well-intentioned humans. Many people assume that it’s fine to give deer any leftover scraps they have on hand.
What Can I Feed the Deer in My Backyard?
If you’re going to start feeding wild deer, it’s important to try and replicate their normal diet. One of the safest ways to do this is by planting and maintaining trees and plants that attract deer.
Final Words
The bottom line is if you’re serious about helping your deer visitors stay healthy, do it responsibly. Take special care not to interfere with the deer’s natural habits. And remember that once you start feeding them, they will depend on you to make it through the winter.
What do deer eat?
Therefore, the diet of a deer consists primarily of forbs and browse (80 percent or more), and to a limited extent, grasses (5 percent or less). The only grasses deer use to any extent are ones that are rapidly degraded in the rumen, such as the small grains, ryegrass, and some native species.
What is the best forage for whitetail deer?
Several forage species are suitable for white-tailed deer. These forages are either warm-season or cool- season and both of these can be either annuals or perennials. Most white-tail forages are annuals. In Texas, warm-season forages include cowpeas, lablab, soybeans, and chicory.
How much protein do deer need?
For growth and reproduction, deer need 3 to 5 percent of body mass per day with a protein concentration of 12 to 16 percent. If available native forages cannot provide these requirements, deer can be considered under nutritional stress and unable to achieve optimal growth and reproduction.
How do deer affect habitat?
Habitat degradation. Large deer populations can severely degrade an area’s vegetation. When supplementing white-tailed deer nutritional requirements, a conscientious manager will manipulate vegetation and soils to increase growth, or remove herbivorous animals— otherwise the area’s vegetation will be devastated.
Why do deer feed?
Reasons to feed. Reasons to feed deer include: • to bait deer for enhanced harvest potential or viewing opportunities • to supplement deer during times of stress such as summer, winter, or during drought • to increase carrying capacity above that of native habitat. Baiting.
What is the best way to attract game animals?
Baiting. Using supplemental feed or forage as bait to attract game animals has been practiced for many years. Native Americans routinely burned vegetation areas to encourage grazing ungulates such as bison or white-tailed deer to choose one area over another1.
What animals are at deer feeding stations?
Coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, black bears, red and gray foxes, and wild pigs all make frequent visits to deer feeding stations. While those who place cameras at their feeding stations may enjoy viewing these animals, the added risk of predation may run counter to their wildlife management goals.
