Food plots for feeding deer

[S.T.Fanatic]

Do you have a link for this information? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

Co-worker told me about it. I'm guessing from a podcast maybe even the video above?

 

[SD51555]

NO-TOX,
Nice buck. In the one picture---is that two feeders? The one is a feeder on the right---what's in the white box? I'm Thinking of adding some type of feeding program for the winters here in Minnesota. I would want to go with something to help the deer in the severe cold months that we get but not sure where to start or what feed would be the best fit for me.

The MN strain of CWD is spread by deer using feeders.


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[jsasker007]

Yes feeding is part of the problem in Minnesota. Not saying I'm doing it right now. Gravity feeders makes all the deer put their noses in the same place to feed from gravity feeders but broadcast feeders might be an option spreading the food out away from the feeder and not having one big community pile. Broadcast feeder would be creating a similar situation of a corn field after it's picked. Weighing my options.

 

[No-Tox]

NO-TOX,
Nice buck. In the one picture---is that two feeders? The one is a feeder on the right---what's in the white box? I'm Thinking of adding some type of feeding program for the winters here in Minnesota. I would want to go with something to help the deer in the severe cold months that we get but not sure where to start or what feed would be the best fit for me.

The MN strain of CWD is spread by deer using feeders.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Luckily, CWD isn't anywhere near me and they can all stuff their faces in the same tube for protein.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Luckily, CWD isn't anywhere near me and they can all stuff their faces in the same tube for protein.

You mean there hasn't been one test positive yet.

 

[No-Tox]

Luckily, CWD isn't anywhere near me and they can all stuff their faces in the same tube for protein.

You mean there hasn't been one test positive yet.

Not in North Texas. I talked to a TPWD biologist that is taking samples locally and he says closest is up in the panhandle and one area around the hill country.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Not in North Texas. I talked to a TPWD biologist that is taking samples locally and he says closest is up in the panhandle and one area around the hill country.

There are deer in your area that have it. They just haven't tested the right deer yet. It is everywhere and the sky is not falling.

 

[No-Tox]

Not in North Texas. I talked to a TPWD biologist that is taking samples locally and he says closest is up in the panhandle and one area around the hill country.

There are deer in your area that have it. They just haven't tested the right deer yet. It is everywhere and the sky is not falling.

If you say so.

 

[Mortenson]

I agree with S.T. As soon as they want to find one hard enough, they will. I know others get mad when people say such things, but we're all entitled to our opinion.

 

[hillrunner]

I don't know where the paper is, but it was talked about in one of the episodes of The Back Forty. It was based off research by Luke Macaulay from UC Berkeley. They mentioned in the video it was 20% of private lands were owned or leased for hunting. I don't remember if they were specific on what type of hunting. It's a pretty good series too. It's from the MeatEater series. They bought a 64 acre parcel in Michigan and are managing the habitat primarily for deer hunting.

That's interesting and surprising to me. Probably cause I'm in Iowa where only a very small percentage of private ground has timber on it much less used primarily for deer hunting.
It's amazing how Iowa is considered one of the destination deer hunting states when in reality we probably make up a couple percentage points of all deer harvested every year in the country.

 

[SD51555]

I agree with S.T. As soon as they want to find one hard enough, they will. I know others get mad when people say such things, but we're all entitled to our opinion.

They find it where they need it to be found. Where there are no "non-deer" stakeholders to be satisfied, it won't be found. But if there are soybeans, flower gardens, pine farms, or moms texting in minivans...

 

[FarmerDan]

Can we all agree that creating habitat, food, bedding, and generally anything else whitetail related (which is an incredibly adaptive species) can look very different in different parts of our country? Whitetails exist from the florida keys to darn close to the arctic circle. Habitat and a deer's utilization of that habitat will have to differ a ton because of what's avaliable.

Hunting whitetails in virginia will be different than in arkansas, texas hunting is different than alberta hunting...

Heck in Ohio here, if you have a large timber area, it'll be very different hunting than if you're on a big dairy farm full of fields and edges.

There's probably truth to all of the positions here, but for a guy in the south to tell a guy in the midwest that how he's hunting whitetails and their food, based on his area, seems pretty short sighted and closed minded

No, I don't think there's much we can agree on! Otherwise this thread would have stopped at page 1. Without the guy in Virginia, or the guy in Louisianan, or Iowa, or Minnesota, this would be a really dull place. What's wrong with listening and then presenting your own positions and opposing views? Why can't a guy in the south (and what would you know about the south), suggest some common themes? To believe that we should cut-off such discussion seems pretty short-sighted and closed minded. Maybe its more in how it's said or how it's presented, but if we were good with composition we'd be somewhere else.

 

[FarmerDan]

Do you have a link for this information? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Macaulay_berkeley_0028E_15432.pdf

See Chapter 2. This is all part of his PhD dissertation. I didn't try to decode his explanatory language or understand his conclusions, but I am familiar with the sources he used. Understand, it's not his original research, just a re-interpretation of something conducted by selected federal government agencies like Fish & Wildlife. I would be tempted to say that 20% of privately owned land is hunted. Whether or not it was purchased for that purpose isn't something the studies cited explicitly asked -- if my memory is correct. But, I stand to be corrected.

 

[SwampCat]

How long in an adequately stocked food plot does a deer have to feed to be completely full? And how many times a day does a deer fill its belly. Right now, I notice at my place that the deer I see in morning or mid day will come into a food plot and feed across it and may exit out the other side. The deer that arrive in the evening - often the same deer I saw early in the day, commonly stay and feed for 45 min or an hour. Surely they get full in that amount of time. I have cleaned deer this year that were killed in a food plot in the morning with all matter of material in their stomach. I have cleaned deer killed in a food plot that had a stomach about to bust with nothing but clover from the food plot. I think the deer in my area do a lot of wandering around, nibbling on a variety of food sources - but I also think they commonly hit a food plot for at least one big binge feeding at sometime during the day or night

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I notice the does stay much longer, then go bed within 50 yards of the food plot in the mid mornings. Then to return about an hour before dark, and feed mostly until dark, and I have no clue what they do after that. During mid winter, I know they hang out under my pines, and just have a few trails from food plot to food plot, back to the beds in the pines, until the snow gets to deep, or the food plots have been eaten down to nothing.

 

[BenAllgood]

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Macaulay_berkeley_0028E_15432.pdf

See Chapter 2. This is all part of his PhD dissertation. I didn't try to decode his explanatory language or understand his conclusions, but I am familiar with the sources he used. Understand, it's not his original research, just a re-interpretation of something conducted by selected federal government agencies like Fish & Wildlife. I would be tempted to say that 20% of privately owned land is hunted. Whether or not it was purchased for that purpose isn't something the studies cited explicitly asked -- if my memory is correct. But, I stand to be corrected.

From page 42: "Results show that approximately 440 million acres of private land, an estimated 22% of the contiguous land area of the U.S. and 33% of all private land in the U.S., are either leased or owned for wildlife associated recreation."

 

[yoderjac]

Yes feeding is part of the problem in Minnesota. Not saying I'm doing it right now. Gravity feeders makes all the deer put their noses in the same place to feed from gravity feeders but broadcast feeders might be an option spreading the food out away from the feeder and not having one big community pile. Broadcast feeder would be creating a similar situation of a corn field after it's picked. Weighing my options.

Only slightly better. Not the same as a corn field. Deer are distributed over a much wider area than a feeder. CWD is not a nose-to-nose specific transfer vector like some diseases. We don't have a full understanding of the vectors but clearly concentrations of deer increase transfer possibilities. I'd avoid it all together as a best practice. Supplemental feeding is completely outlawed in CWD areas in our state all year long.

 

[jsasker007]

Feeders that broadcast have to be much better than one community pile. Looks like maybe they should ban all types of mineral sources also---that is like a room full of people taking a lick off a lolly pop and passing it around. Our dnr is a very political group that isn't doing a good job now and hasn't for a very long time. Don't put too much stock in following or believing what they tell the public. SD said it correctly above.

 

[FarmerDan]

From page 42: "Results show that approximately 440 million acres of private land, an estimated 22% of the contiguous land area of the U.S. and 33% of all private land in the U.S., are either leased or owned for wildlife associated recreation."

Yes, and I probably misinterpreted the proposed meaning as it was presented here on this forum. Somewhere (http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/food-plots-for-feeding-deer.11603/page-4#post-212366), it was suggested that the leased land was used strictly for deer hunting (I just heard that 20% of all private property across the US is used STRICTLY for deer hunting). If we were to dig deeper into the primary research I believe we would find something different.

It's not about deer, but, I have an acquaintance who owns farmland that has a premier Virginia trout stream running thru it. The local fly fishing shop guides, and proposed a deal whereby they would pay my acquaintance for exclusive access to the stream. But, the reason my acquaintance owns the land is not for the income produced by leasing fishing rights.

Also, here in Virginia, entities own timberland for a multitude of reasons, and, yes, one of them is for the income produced by leasing the land for hunting, but it is not the sole reason (nor the primary reason) they own the land. There are many financial and tax benefits associated with it.

So, if we looked closely at the data and statements offered in the young man's dissertation, I believe we might find a different twist than was presented here.

 

[roymunson]

No, I don't think there's much we can agree on! Otherwise this thread would have stopped at page 1. Without the guy in Virginia, or the guy in Louisianan, or Iowa, or Minnesota, this would be a really dull place. What's wrong with listening and then presenting your own positions and opposing views? Why can't a guy in the south (and what would you know about the south), suggest some common themes? To believe that we should cut-off such discussion seems pretty short-sighted and closed minded. Maybe its more in how it's said or how it's presented, but if we were good with composition we'd be somewhere else.

You miss my point. The conversation is great. I'm saying what works in 1 area, may not work in another. We're dealing with different climates, different soils, different styles of woods and habitat.

I'm not saying the guy from arkansas is wrong, for arkansas. I'm not saying the guy from south georgia is wrong, for georgia. But the way we hunt deer varies incredibly from area to area. It's not a 1 size fits all. Thats what I was saying.

And I was laughing/making fun of how dogmatic some people are that the way they hunt their deer and how their habitat is laid out defines how everyone across the country interacts and hunts/habitats their deer. To the point of being combative and not conceding the point that there's different ways to skin the cat. That's the issue i was pointing out.