Inexpensive Way to Feed Deer – Feeding Deer Corn Year Round (2024)

FAQs

What is the cheapest food to feed deer? ›

An inexpensive way to feed deer is with corn. Deer love corn and many hunters rely on it for supplemental feeding. That being said, corn is not an excellent source of protein, which is essential for antler growth and the nursing of fawns.

Mix equal parts corn and whole oats.

Cracked corn, whole kernels, or ground corn all work well for deer treats. Mix an equal amount of your corn with your whole oats. Amounts will vary depending on how much deer food you want to make.

The best corn to plant for deer food plots is field corn. Choose late-maturing varieties if you want to leave corn standing in the plot for winter feeding. Avoid white corn and silage corn.

So as far as what to feed deer in winter or what to feed deer instead of corn, stick to more natural sources like cutting a small patch of forest down to bring browse to deer level. This is a very inexpensive way to feed deer – all you need is a chainsaw and a couple hours of your time.

Along with quality food plots, supplemental feeding can really help improve overall herd health and help your deer reach their genetic potential. Most people who assume their deer have “bad genetics” would be surprised with the kind of deer they could grow if they had better year-round nutrition.

As ruminants, deer have a specific blend of microbes in their stomach that break down their naturally high-fiber diet. Large amounts of carbohydrate-rich, low fiber foods like deer corn can disrupt this microbiome — leading to bouts of severe diarrhea and dehydration that could be deadly.

Whether it's planted in a food plot, or fed at a feeding site, corn can be a great benefit to whitetails during winter. Most deer managers are more than willing to plant their plots in the spring and summer.

When food is scarce, deer eat just about anything, including prickly-stemmed okra and hot peppers. Vegetables that deer seem to prefer include beans, lettuce, cabbage, and cole crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

The soybean oil based deer mineral and feed supplement “GYT90” gives hunters the best of both worlds when mixed with a standard bag of corn. GYT90's crude soybean oil content is thick enough to cover the corn kernels with a glaze and acts as an attractant enhancer from its soybean aroma.

What do you feed a winter starving deer? ›

The best option is to give them more of the winter foods they are already adapted to eating: winter browse. This includes buds and twigs of woody plants. Introducing new foods in the middle of winter, especially in high quantities all of a sudden, can actually be more harmful to deer than not feeding them at all.

Clovers mixed with cereal grains and brassicas are great winter food plot seed for deer that will produce good forage into the spring. Various seed blends do well in colder weather and will provide nourishment for deer and other wildlife.

With that said, some folks will still feel the need to help out "the poor wildlife." If you decide that you simply have to feed the deer, at least feed them the right foodstuffs. Whole kernel corn and course cracked corn are good. But the best supplementary food might just be horse pellets.

I agree with your observations that deer readily use corn. They do tend to prefer it shelled or at least mowed versus standing. However, so do turkeys, crows, mice, squirrels, etc.

-‐ Once you start, feed the corn or pelleted feed consistently. Feeding once every 1 or 2 weeks may not give deer the opportunity to adapt to eating these foods.

On average, a deer can eat anywhere from 6 to 8% of its body weight every day. That means that a 150-pound deer can eat up to 12 pounds of food per day!

If we are an average food plotter who produces an average level of forages per acre (4000 lbs) you will be able to feed about 9 deer per acre. In areas with larger body weight deer you would feed less than that 9. In areas of the south with much smaller body weights you would be able to feed 11-12 deer per acre.

In addition to being low in protein and minerals, corn is very high in starch, and the rapid consumption of two to three pounds by a deer not used to it is enough to cause serious problems.

Don't feed the deer! Corn is what most wildlife lovers offer deer, and even if it's labeled “deer corn,” feeding corn to deer is about the worst thing you can do.

Consider Perennial Crops

You plant this crop one time and, with management, it provides a green food plot on an almost year-round basis for five years or more. Crops that fit this category include Durana clover, Ladino clover, Alsike clover, red clover, and alfalfa.

What attracts deer better than corn? ›

Peanut butter has physical properties that will help deer hang around in front of your trail cameras better than corn. It tends to leave a longer-lasting residue than corn, so whitetails stick around wherever you smear it.

Among them were wolves, bears, mountain lions, coyotes and bobcats. As you will learn below, each of these developed specialties in predation on deer.

Deer that die with full stomachs are regularly hauled away from neighborhoods throughout Bend, killed by well-intentioned people who think they are helping by putting out food, including bird seed. “It's not a well-known thing that birdseed can kill the deer and that we shouldn't feed these animals,” Chase said.

Deer eat a variety of food types, including browse (leafy parts of woody plants), forbs (herbaceous broad-leaved plants, including agricultural crops), hard and soft mast (seeds), grass and mushrooms/lichens.

Several years ago, I got the answer when we began testing our deer's ability to smell and find food beneath snow. What we discovered was that when an adult deer walks within five or so feet of a corn cob buried under a foot of snow, they could easily detect it.

While many hunters value agricultural fields as reliable food sources for deer, one negative aspect of standing cornfields is that mature bucks rarely leave them. Standing corn makes for secure bedding, feeding, and breeding. These reasons give bucks little reason to stray very far.

If deer cannot access high quality natural forages around your feeder, they will not thrive. As a winter supplement, cracked corn, oats, or barley are an improvement over veggies and fruit, but single diets of grains are not optimal.

Deer are attracted to the smell of soil as is, but if you want to up the attraction factor, pour some buck or doe urine, or scrape starter into it.

Food Plots

From larger plots of forage soybeans covering 10 or more acres, to small parcels of broken tree canopy planted to brassica; various crops including corn, milo, turnips, peas, clover, and alfalfa will attract and keep deer. One of the surest ways to attract deer is through their stomach.

Jimsonweed, a nightshade, is so toxic it often grows in cow lots untouched. Deer resistant vegetables in the nightshade family include tomatoes and tomatillos, potatoes, eggplant, and some peppers. Other plants toxic to deer : Rhubarb and cucumber leaf are toxic to deer.

What is the best partner for corn? ›

Deer do not recognize protein pellets as food, but they are accustomed to seeing corn as a food source in the wild. Entice them to the protein pellets by initially mixing corn with the pellets (start with 75 percent corn, 25 percent pellets). Deer do not like abrupt changes in feed, so make them gradually.

Changes in diet caused by the introduction of rich, unnatural foods during this season can cause disruption in the microorganisms of the digestive system. Even hay can cause problems in a digestive tract that has geared down for the winter. Supplemental feeding of deer may actually decrease its chance of survival.

Remember that deer are designed for times of accumulating fat and lean times for living off of it. They can lose 20 to 30 percent of their body weight over the winter, and can actually go up to a month without eating.

Soybeans are arguably the king of deer feed. These offer 25 to 30% protein, a high carb count, and even provide two stages of food sources: green forage and dry grain.

Red clover is the Easiest Food Plot for Deer. Spread the seed and spray the grasses to act as a mulch for the clover, or spray in the fall and frost seed in late winter right on top of the snow. The freeze thaw patterns of spring creates cracks the seed falls into to germinate.

Autumn Quick Plot Seed is a fast growing blend of annuals and biennials formulated to be planted from late Summer to early Fall. It is one of our best food plot seed for deer in the Fall.

MORNING STRATEGIES

Keeping it simple, the deer tend to bed on the ridges and feed in the fields either on the same level (where the ridge widens to allow agriculture) or in the bottoms below. So you want to be out on the ridges in the mornings and you want to get there before the deer do.

What Should You Not Feed Deer? Wheat, barley, and corn should not be fed to deer. Unfortunately, deer are not sophisticated enough to know not to eat things that are especially bad for them. The high starch content in those foods can kill a deer because their stomach cannot digest and break down those starches.

Typically, farmers are asked to leave entire passes across the field so the adjustor can get an idea of conditions in the entire field.

How long does it take for deer to find a pile of corn? ›

It takes between 1 or 2 days for deer to find corn, but in some cases it can happen sooner, if the area is well traveled.

Deer love soybeans, but no single crop can meet all of a deer's year-round needs. Diversity is best, both in your food-plot options and in natural forages that occur outside food plots. Overall, this means that there is no magic crop that will always best meet your deer's needs throughout the year.

Corn is a cheap source of food for deer. Many hunters rely on corn for supplemental feeding because deer love corn. Corn does not contain enough protein, which is crucial for nursing fawns and growing healthy antlers, so many people add deer mineral attractants to corn in order to increase the nutritional value.

Deer will primarily eat browse (woody portion of leaves and stems), forbs (broad-leaved plants), mast (acorns, apples, etc), and grass. Although these are the main foods deer like to eat, the quantity of these different foods differ throughout the year and the region you are hunting.

Oats provide deer with a healthy mixture of fiber and carbohydrates without disrupting their digestive system. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables – including apples, grapes, cherries, pears, carrots, and snap peas – are eaten in nature by deer. Therefore, it is safe to feed deer these fruits.

Fill your feeders with high-protein feed that also includes minerals. Pellets, depending on the brand, can contain anywhere between 16 and 21 percent protein. The ideal amount of protein depends on the conditions.

With that said, some folks will still feel the need to help out "the poor wildlife." If you decide that you simply have to feed the deer, at least feed them the right foodstuffs. Whole kernel corn and course cracked corn are good.

Corn. The other big Midwestern crop, corn, is a top pick for deer food plots. Standing corn during deer season is an absolute must if you have the acreage. If you're not arguing that soybeans are the number one food plot species, you would probably be voting for corn.

Deer love soybeans, but no single crop can meet all of a deer's year-round needs. Diversity is best, both in your food-plot options and in natural forages that occur outside food plots. Overall, this means that there is no magic crop that will always best meet your deer's needs throughout the year.