Made an interesting observation today.

[JackTerp]

I have a Durana Clover plot about 80 yards behind my house. I also have a protein feeder on the very back end of this plot. It's only about 1/8 acre in size. I can see most of it from my back door. Never have had much daytime activity in it except squirrels. Last week they had predicted rain so I spread about 25# of 0-20-20 on the plot.

We got a good rain two nights in a row and the clover exploded. I just pulled the cards out of two cameras I keep on this plot all year long. Now normally I have between 6 and 12 deer in this plot all night, every night. Since I spread the fertilizer, not one picture of any deer until early this morning.Not even at the feeder which is almost full.

That's almost 4 full days with no deer at all. Has anyone else experienced this? I can't ever remember not having deer in this plot at night. EVER.


Thanks,

Jack

 

[BuckSutherland]

Human scent + acorns falling = No deer for a few days??

 

[dipper]

Human scent 80 yards from the house?
Come on
They just moved on for whatever reason a wild animal would.

 

[JackTerp]

I might agree with that if it wasn't for the history I have here.

I have lived here for almost 30 years. I cleared that area by hand about 25 years ago. I use it as a staging area to work on cutting firewood for my own use. Deer are very used to me and my activity there. I began feeding deer as a hobby about 20 years ago and have been running cameras of one sort or another ever since. I get pictures all the time within an hour of me shutting down my firewood activities. These deer are very used to me being there.

I began keeping very detailed records of my observations throughout the property 9 years ago as a sort of diary. Until I lost a computer to a lightning strike a year ago, I had over 30,000 pictures cataloged of everything from mushrooms to bear on this little 25 acre parcel. I can find no record of EVER going 2 days without getting pictures of deer, at night, in that area since I began planting it as a foodplot 9 years ago.

It might seem strange or normal to others, but my records tell me it is a first.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

As mentioned earlier - do you have acorns ?? Here ...... When the acorns drop, no matter what we have in food plots - the deer are on the acorns. If you've always had acorns and have never had deer totally vanish - you may be on to something. Fertilizer alter the taste of the greens for a few days ??? Or leave a foreign odor for a few days ???

 

[j-bird]

They are wild animals and even though they may be very used to your activities.....things change. It may be related to your activities it may not be.

I would bet it's one of two things:
- a hot food source has become available
- repeated disturbance in their bedding location has caused them to move

It doesn't have to be related to your activities - either they found a prime form of mast that they know is limited in supply, or yotes, humans or dogs have disturbed the prime bedding area and the deer have moved to avoid that disturbance (does are notorious for bedding as close to their food source as possible as it is) - so in either case the food and bedding are connected and can influence the use of your plot - regardless of your activities and history. More than likely this is a short term "blip" and things will return to normal.

Keep in mind we are not alone out there. In my area bait piles are notorious for showing up this time of year (they are NOT legal here). All sorts of things can come along with the start of hunting season - including more folks in the woods. You may have someone bumbling/hunting around a neighbors property that wasn't there in the past that may have pushed the deer as well.

 

[bueller]

Outside chance the MN DNR trapped and relocated them to inflate their population estimate????

 

[Fall guy]

That can happen when you put down fertilizer initially (especially with humid hot weather can really get volatile). Chances are pretty intense odor when deer goes to eat and no way do they like. It is just temporary thing I go with some of your deer will be back with in 10 days if not already.

 

[JackTerp]

That can happen when you put down fertilizer initially (especially with humid hot weather can really get volatile). Chances are pretty intense odor when deer goes to eat and no way do they like. It is just temporary thing I go with some of your deer will be back with in 10 days if not already.

This is my assessment as well. Normally I have put fertilizer down at this time of year but it has always been triple 13. Now that I have Durana established, I am using 0-20-20. It is even a different brand. I wondered if the odor of that simply put the deer off. As of last night, about 10 deer have shown up again including a couple new bucks. I had thought about acorns falling but this plot is surrounded with some of the nicer red oaks in the area as well as persimmons which are beginning to fall. It just seemed strange that in 25 years I have never seen these deer disappear like this.

 

[Fall guy]

Yes the odor . I have burnt my own nose bad when spreading potash in hot conditions and humidity when using my three point I always wear mask now. I also used to compete with tracking dogs when encountering hot temp and humidity along with fresh cut fields or recent fertilizer application on lawns do poorly . Most dogs are trained to keep head down in track (more points and loss of points for high heads). I was in track competition Minneapolis about 5 years ago only 2 out of 16 dogs went more then 60' in fresh cut alfalfa field. It was close to record temps 98 and humid.I new from prior experience after seeing first 2 fail miserably I put my dog on regular harness so he could keep head high and we were one of the lucky 2 to pass but was not pretty. Potash in it self is nothing more than a salt and deer like but spread it out and vaporize it over large area creates temporary issue depending on conditions.

 

[chummer]

I agree it was the smell. My neighbor fertilized his lawn this week and we had to close the window the smell was so strong.

 

[JackTerp]

Funny thing about this is that when I first planted this as a foodplot I spread milorganite on the plot as soon as it started sprouting to keep the deer out. These deer never paid it a danged bit of attention. I thought it smelled so bad I couldn't stand it but they walked right in and kept the PPT and GHR eaten to the ground. I should have used 0-20-20 instead.

 

[SD51555]

We spread heavy milorganite on a spot of our beans to test the repellent. It didn't slow them down one bit. We also spread AMS on our beans when we overseeded with brassica and that didn't seem to cause any delay either.