My deer friends

[Greg Baehman]

The photo below taken just moments ago of the 8-pt. on the right and the smaller 10-pt. buck on the left that've been running together for the past year or more visit our mineral block and mineral/salt licks. It's a tough time for them to find the nutrition needed to sustain them through our long winters...you've got to wonder how and where they find it.

[Dean Romig]

They get it from buds, twigs and forbs. Their metabolism changes for the cold months when there is no greenery. In fact, I’ve read that feeding them the wrong kinds of supplemental foods at this time can actually be detrimental to their winter survival.





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[Greg Baehman]

If their metabolism changes and they have a never ending supply of twigs, buds and forbs available to them here in the northwoods of Wisconsin, I wonder why then so many die of starvation? A 2014 study reported this: Winter kill rates of deer in the northern study area of Wisconsin: Of deer that died, 18% of female deer, 24% of yearling male and 11% of adult male deer died of starvation the previous year.

[Dean Romig]

It’s the cycle of life in the natural world.
Their range couldn’t support their numbers, however sparsely populated they were.





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[Greg Baehman]

***...snip...*** In fact, I’ve read that feeding them the wrong kinds of supplemental foods at this time can actually be detrimental to their winter survival.

If either of these two products are detrimental to deer, I'd like to know about it.

[Dean Romig]

No Greg, don’t misunderstand, I was not criticizing you. But there are a lot of folks out there who feed them grain and other things.





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[Greg Baehman]

I agree Dean, if deer or whatever wildlife become solely dependant on food put out for them can and will be detrimental to their wellbeing.

[Garry L Gordon]

If either of these two products are detrimental to deer, I'd like to know about it.

Greg, products like that are banned in Missouri counties where CWD has been found. The idea is that the disease is passed through saliva. The minerals are good for deer. CWD is not.

I will point out that in our county, which is a CWD county, you can buy mineral blocks intended for deer and WalMart, and you can buy mineral blocks for cattle at any farm store (ironically, not banned, but used by deer).

It's like so many other things in life it seems, there are few clear cut answers.

[Bob Brown]

Up here the big die offs are usually in heavy snow fall years. The deer yard up in good forage areas and have a network of trails to access the food sources. Some years there is a cold snap that increases the herd's need for food. Sometimes good conditions in previous years led to over crowding. The food sources run out and they need to find new sources. I don't know if you're ever tried to walk in waist deep snow in the bush, but it is darn near impossible and burns huge amounts of calories. Deer aren't tall. Between waiting until they're starving and the snow covering the low brush that gives them most of their food they don't have a chance when they're forced out. Easy targets for coyotes and wolves too. Walking through a deer yard area in the spring after a bad year will just make you feel sick. One year when I lived in northern Alberta I had 48 deer that would come out of the bush and feed in my field every night. We had a terrible winter and in spring there were hardly any left.
A quick google shows the snow belt area of your state gets around 125" of snow. A bad year and a cold snap, especially late in winter, would be brutal on the deer numbers.

[Stephen Hodges]

Brownville, Maine; Done correctly it can be very beneficial to the local deer herd. They feed 400 to 500 lbs of native oats per day to about 200 deer all winter.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjym-pZOz5Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpzfhagzPVA

[John Dallas]

Michigan had issues 40 years ago when they air dropped hay bales into yarded up deer. The deer quickly ate the hay, but their digestive system didn't have the right "bugs"(?) to digest the hay, and the deer died with bloated stomachs

[Stephen Hodges]

Michigan had issues 40 years ago when they air dropped hay bales into yarded up deer. The deer quickly ate the hay, but their digestive system didn't have the right "bugs"(?) to digest the hay, and the deer died with bloated stomachs

Yes, as you and Dean have pointed out that can happen if there gut has already switched to woody browse. In the case of Brownville Maine, the deer are fed the native oats early in the winter, beginning in December, and all through the winter so there gut is tuned into digesting the oats and apples. This is also done in Pittsburg, NH, Wilson Mills Maine, etc. The trick is to feed early and completely through the winter. The deer yards are pretty well gone in Pittsburg, NH and in a lot of areas in Maine.

[Ed Norman]

I read an article years ago showing dead deer laying around where someone started feeding them shelled corn late in the winter. Just like mentioned their diet had been twigs and buds, then suddenly changed to corn. I have a deer food plot for fall hunting, we got about 12 inches of snow in late november this year. I took my snowblower and cut a couple of 7 foot wide paths where the clover and turnips etc. were planted. The food was still green. The deer suddenly started coming back to the food plot.

[John Dallas]

Ed - The incident I described occurred on the Manistee between the 3 C's bridge and Sharon