Deer stopped eating beans

[Nova]

I know that as the ag beans start to yellow and dry down this time of year the deer find other things to eat, but I have 2 plots of eagle forage beans. They don't stop growing and dry down with the shorter day light hours like ag beans do. They continue to grow until they get hit by a frost. That is how mine are. My ag beans are almost fully dried down but my forage beans are still dark green and growing strong. The deer have been hitting them all summer, but it seems when the ag beans started to dry down they quit hitting the forage beans too.

I know that acorns are the preferred food right now, but we don't have hardly any acorn production at the farm this year, and almost zero mature oaks at home, and all the acorns that did drop have been eaten already. Both the plots at home and at the farm 200 miles away with forage beans have seen the same drop in activity. I don't think the acorns are the reason they left the beans.

Is this a diet change for them that just happens to occur when the ag beans stop growing? Do they just stop hitting green browse and go to more high carb food? I have a hard time believing that because they are still hammering the alfalfa at our farm every morning and night. Just having a hard time figuring out why they left the beans...

 

[WTNUT]

A biologist or someone more knowledgable than I might know the answer. My guess is that at that time of the year more preferred food source becomes available i.e. Acorns. However, it happens all over and one thing you can be certain of is they will be back for the beans when it gets cold and later in the season. Nothing draws them like standing beans.


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[S.T.Fanatic]

There is a good chance they are hitting every acorn they can find. I would guess with the hot, dry, and breezy weather we have been having they may be on corn.

 

[j-bird]

My thought is along the same line as the others. The deer are still eating.....they have just switched to something else for now. Maybe they found acorns someplace or some soft mast or even someone if combining beans or corn. Once other food sources are consumed they will return or shift to the next thing. Where your forage beans rank on that list is hard to tell. In my area that is why I can't get deer to eat brassica....too much beans and corn around for them to want to "stoop to that level" if you will. When they have choices you have to figure it out, once there are no longer choices then things get pretty simple.

 

[JFK52]

I had something similar to your situation happen on my land. In this case, it was the acorns that caused the deer to switch food sources. It is a BUMPER crop of acorns in Central Wisconsin. I did not even see a deer in any of my other food plots for about 3 to 4 weeks. Just lately, the deer seem to be filtering back to the alfalfa and Eagle beans. This was not a bad thing in my mind as it gave the Eagle beans time off being browsed and they responded by putting on a great growth spurt. They will be a preferred food source as my ag beans have yellowed.
So as others have mentioned, the deer are eating just not the Eagle beans. They will return.

 

[bbcoach]

ACORNS, ACORNS and more ACORNS. #1 food source for deer. As others have said, they will return once the acorns are gone.

 

[yoderjac]

Acorns!

 

[BobinCt]

I agree with the Acorns as well. I don't think any food plot will top the white oaks, but if any can match it, I think it would be the beans.

 

[bowhunternw]

There diet seems to change so much, they were in my rye pretty heavy for a while. Last Friday I watched a doe with 2 fawns go right past without any interest. Now at least around here they seem to be attracted to whatever standing beans are left. There should be plenty of acorns left around here but still seem to prefer the beans.

 

[Peplin Creek]

Acorns!

If Jack gives a one word reply, you must certainly need to take it as gospel. He's 100% correct, they are on acorns.

 

[yoderjac]

If Jack gives a one word reply, you must certainly need to take it as gospel. He's 100% correct, they are on acorns.

:) To expand....

I run a 24/7/365 wireless camera system. Most are on small fields but one is in a riparian buffer of mostly white and red oak species. Every year I track deer in fields night after night and almost nothing in that riparian buffer. Come sometime in the middle of September, usually after a storm, suddenly field pictures dry up and the camera in the riparian buffer takes off. There is usually a reversal in a week or two. That first drop of acorns is probably premature and storm related. Deer generally seem to clean them up quickly and then get back on the fields. Then in October, depending on how good our mast crop is, deer head back into the hardwoods. How long they keep feeding there and when the return to the fields depends on the acorn crop that year. In bountiful years, deer become hard to hunt on our place. Instead of the normal move between bedding areas and fields, the simply bed directly in the hardwoods. The easily detect you approaching or climbing a tree. When they want to eat, they stand up and suck acorns. They don't move more than 20 to 40 yards before they lay back down and chew their cud.

Deer (and turkey) seem to turn on a dime at our place for acorns.

(Hope that meets my minimum word count)

Thanks,

Jack

 

[JFK52]

My helpers teenage daughter took a 2 1/2 year old buck with a crossbow on the opening weekend of the WI archery season this year, September 16 or 17. They looked at the stomach when they gutted the deer. It was 95% acorns with a spattering of something green like clover or alfalfa. Proof positive the deer are eating the acorns.

 

[Peplin Creek]

(Hope that meets my minimum word count)

Thanks,

Jack

That's more like it. Very informative like always. My fall grain plots are out of control right now because the deer aren't touching them with all the acorns in the woods. Can't complain too much though. More food available in the fall means a better chance of survival up here in the north.

 

[Nova]

Acorns you say, nah....

I do realize that they move to acorns this time of year as I wrote in the original post, BUT there are 25-30 deer in the alfalfa morning and night consistently, so they have either not moved to acorns or they have eaten them all. My point is they are still eating green, but not the forage beans. I wonder if their diet just shuts down the craving for beans this time of year.

 

[yoderjac]

Well, keep in mind that different food sources peak at different times and their attractiveness changes. I've had deer walk through a clover field ignoring it to get to another field with a different kind of clover and gorge themselves. Several weeks later they may do the complete reverse. There are lots of factors involved and as the seasons change and their hormones and needs change, their diets change as well. Here the answer is acorns but that may not be your case.

 

[bueller]

Many bean fields in my area are nearing harvest. My farmer neighbor planted his beans late this year and his fields are still green. Surprising to me is that the camera I have on a funnel to/from one of his green soybean fields went ice cold a couple weeks ago. If it doesn't pick back up soon I'll be moving that camera.

 

[Peplin Creek]

This past weekend I had doe group after doe group eating acorns about 80 yards away from the tree all morning. Took me a bit to figure out what the cracking sound was for the first hour until I finally saw a deer or two. Most definitely if deer aren't in the plots. They are on something they find better for the time being. They'll be back once everything gets picked clean. While it's frustrating for hunting, it's a good thing for the herd.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I was out on stand last night over looking a plot planted labor day weekend to WR, WW, sunflowers, and brassicas. The weather wasnt what I thought it was going to be based on the last time I looked at the forecast. I didn't see a single deer.

As I was leaving the property 5 deer ran out of a bean field that is dried down an waiting to be harvested. It looks like they are back on them again. I'm going to try to hunt Friday afternoon and you can bet it will be over beans.

 

[Nova]

The deer at our farm are back on the dried down ag beans, but still haven't returned to the forage beans that are still green and growing. I guess my experiment to try forage beans to have green beans in early bow season is a bust.

For the increased cost of forage beans( 4 times the price) there isn't enough of an advantage for me to use them again. The plus side of them was they didn't get overbrowsed and killed off. They did get hit hard in summer, but a single acre of them in high deer density was enough to keep up.