Supplemental Feeding With A Deer Feeder
Supplemental feeding can provide the deer essential nutrition during the cold winter months when it is needed the most.
We have several on our deer hunting property. Several years ago we started practicing supplemental feeding. Since that time I would say that the health of our deer herd has improved and the size of the trophy bucks has gotten bigger each year. There are many contributing factors and aspects of quality deer management, using a deer feeder is just one way to help the QDM on your property. There are many different types of feeders out there on the market, in many different price ranges. Or you can make some great ones fairly inexpensive yourself.
There are many different opinions on supplemental feeding.
Supplemental feeding programs are very common in clubs practicing QDM.
There have been some cases of chronic wasting disease in some states that possibly linked to the deer eating out of feeders and spreading it that way. I know that the DNR is keeping a close watch in every state and taking precautionary measures.
We have a deer feeder in several locations on our hunting property and you can tell that it has definitely changed the deer feeding patterns. They have to depend on the acorns and browse less and now they use the feeders and food plots more. Although I believe that a deers favorite food is acorns, especially White Oak acorns. I think since we started feeding the deer and created more food plots the deer population on our property has increased tremendously. It seems like the deer are coming off of the surrounding properties to the abundant food sources on our property. This past deer season we harvested a lot of does and probably needed to harvest more than we did. It seemed like there were does everywhere. I think for that reason we didn’t see as many mature bucks but we also logged less hunting hours this past year. There are many opinions on buck to doe ratio but I believe if the food sources are abundant the carrying capacity of the land for deer increases and having a more abundant deer population can be a great thing if you like seeing a lot of healthy deer while deer hunting.
I do believe that supplemental feeding is a good thing although I personally am not set up to do that.
With the discovery of CWD in our state, we can’t bait at all in our entire Lower Peninsula. Actually, regardless of the CWD baiting ban, we could never supplemental feed anyway. Baiting was only allowed during the hunting months.
It looks like a pretty cool setup you guys have though.