Buckeye, Horse Chestnut and deer

[BenA]

I didn't believe deer would eat buckeyes, but believe I saw one do just that. This deer went well out of it's way to feed under this tree and didn't enter the clover plot just a few feet to the side. It then went off into the direction of a pear tree to feed. It very well could have been something else it was feeding on, but I'm not sure what else it could have been to draw it that far out of its way. It circled around the head of a hollow, fed under the tree, then went back the way it came and cut off in the direction of a pear tree. Has anyone witnessed deer eating them? I thought they would be poisonous to deer?

 

[Native Hunter]

Ben, I don't have any on my farm, so I haven't witnessed it. Everything I have read says that mammals will "...rarely consume..." buckeyes due to them being toxic. However, when I was young and squirrel hunted, I frequently saw squirrels eating them. I doubt that deer would eat many of them, but it wouldn't surprise me to see one sample a few. Anything that can eat poison ivy might just also be able to stomach a couple of buckeyes......

 

[OakSeeds]

the YES asnswer ..... https://neeness.com/are-horse-chestnuts-and-buckeyes-the-same-thing/ says deer/squirrels can eat them
the evasive answer .... https://csuvth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/Plants/Details/62 refers only to domestic animals
the maybe/probably answer (under certain conditions) https://naturesmace.com/do-deer-eat-buckeyes/ maybe, in limited amounts

 

[Telemark]

It wouldn't surprise me. Animals have different sensitivities to toxins. And within a species, individuals have different sensitivities to the same toxins.

Horses, for example, are sensitive to a lot more plants than most other mammals. Many small animals shrug off a dose of pharmaceutical pills that would kill a human. Red deer often eat buttercup leaves that are considered to be poisonous.

I would check out the area you saw the deer feeding to see if you can confirm it was eating buckeyes and not the leaves of the tree. I have seen deer go out of their way to eat yellow mulberry leaves that a tree was dropping. Maybe set up a camera too?

 

[H20fwler]

I’ve got hundreds of buckeye trees of all sizes in my big woods.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a deer eating buckeyes, squirrels will chew on them. Deer might try them I don’t know.
The ones you saw may have been eating leaves, I’ve watched deer graze on dropped leaves on the ground like it was hay. Deer are about like goats and will eat all kinds of stuff.
I see them feed on hickory leaves on the ground for whatever reason when the leaves look dead and dried up to me, they act like pregnant women with weird cravings at times.

 

[Native Hunter]

Something else interesting - when I was young, the old timers said that one side of a buckeye was poisonous but the other side wasn’t, and that squirrels had a way of knowing which side to eat. That, of course, isn’t true, but I believed it for many years. They told it for the truth.

 

[b116757]

Just watched some videos of deer eating horse chestnuts the other day my brother-in-law was considering planting some of those for deer. I don’t think it’s a preferred food for them if Chinese Chestnuts where available or other high quality foods but they do not seem to have much of a problem eating them.

 

[Charles Clear]

Yes. Deer do eat them. I had a huge yellow buckeye at my first house. They were always there eating them. A farm I used to hunt also had an Ohio Buckeye, deer ate those too.

 

[weekender21]

We have hundreds if not thousands on our place. I’ve never witnessed a deer eat them but squirrels gobble them up.


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