just curious , thinking about trying it on some private land in texas with low hunting pressure
just curious , thinking about trying it on some private land in texas with low hunting pressure
Been doing it since 2002 here at the ranch. Yes it helps..a lot. You need to do it year round with a 17 to 20% protein, I use a 17% pellet. You need to have a protein feeder for every 350 to 400 acres. Horn and body size is a lot better, and it holds the deer on the ranch good. The deer devour the stuff from May to Sept. in the winter they slow down on it , probably half what they eat in the summer. I believe this is due to does fawning.
i know people who use it with good results. mix 50/50 with corn to get them started coming to it,then go all protein.....
I have planted in small plots during the summer. Found out later that it wasn't worth it unless you commit all year to it as Stompy said or it would be a waste of time and money.
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thanks for the replies, what brand of feed are you using? hoping to run my cameras in the next week or two to see what is still running around out there, but I have one deer in mind for next year, he looks 3 1/2 by he way I am reading and probably would go high 120s or low 130s this year, but I read that they can gain a ton between 3 and 4. Actually have lots of good prospects, just gotta hook up with them to get pics to get better idea what they might grow into.. saw a 10 point that looked like he was 1 1/2 , little bitty deer, small rack, but thought that he had ten points was promising, most were doing good to be forked in the age range . but i dont really know much about aging deer either, trying to learn to be a better long term goal hunter
I used purina deer pellets for a while exspensive but the automatic feeders busted them up to bad needed to build a trough feeder instead but never did they seemed to eat it but ate the corn better still I now put out rice bran its 6 dollars a 50lb bag and its 12/12/12 protein they love it in south arkansas
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I use a product from Gorman milling..Red Chain 17% Deer Protein Pellet...Cost is $7.10 a 50# bag..From 3.5 to 4.5 you can expect the buck to add about 12 to 16 inches of antler, on protein... Need to get started, it's time. If your interested I have a 300# protein feeder in good shape I will sell you for $125.00. It's ready to go, just put feed in. I went to the big 1000# feeders a few years ago and have this one left over.
I would be interested in the feeder, but I dont know when I would be able to come get it. might be a week or two. Are you able to judge deer very well from pics? I have a few pics of decent bucks that need to grow , but I am not even 100% sure on my age estimations. thanks for the replies
Yea I'm pretty good at scoring and aging deer. 2 or 3 weeks would be better for me on the protein feeder. When you come out I will take you around and show you my operation. I'm only about 1.5 hours for Weatherford.
well worth the cost, unfortunately or fortunately you decide but it does give them more abnormal points and nontypical racks. We use antlermax and love it also plant biologic for them as well. they are well fed along with our soybeans in the fields on the farms
feed them heavy heavy protein from March 1st to september 20th or so. that is when they are growing their antlers. after that, keep your food plots around for winter feeding and plant high protein foodplots to keep them healthy during those cold days and rough times during the rut. its a lot of work but it pays big time.
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I would really like to start planting now, but all of the best places to buy your seed say not to plant it in the spring, Biologic, whitetail institute, etc. Any ideas?
you can plant in the spring, but it wont do you as much good probably. We usually plant a 3-4 acre garden every spring, and the deer around here have almost wiped us out 3 years running. It seems like they really prefer the peas/ beans but they nibble on evreything . we have had watermelons where they bit vine running to the melon , and ruined them. I have actually thought about planting just peas this spring for the deer, but we are so thick on does I doubt I would notice much antler difference because the peas wont get to last long until they are wiped out. Even better we are starting to have pigs move in to the area, GREAT! o well.
I was talking to the biologist that scored my pronghorn , he works for state of TX, drives around and establishes game management plans for ranches, and he said around my part of the country it is best to get the generic wheat and oats that guys plant for their cattle, because the clover and other stuff doesnt grow as well as the wheat/oats. I would have to agree with himin my 5 years of trying to get a clover patch like you see guys up north with, wheat /oats grows easy , germinates fast, and really draws in the deer. Do you have a tractor and implements?
Anything you do, you will see benefits from...the question is just how much benefit you will see, and how much you are willing to spend versus how much property you have to do it on...
Deer are browsers...that is no real surprise to anyone...but what you have to factor with that is what other browse is on the property to supplement what you are feeding them..
The way their digestive system works, feeding them say 20% protein, and having them eat half of their diet on that feed, you would think they would get the full benefit from that feed....this isn't the case...think of it more as an average of what they are browsing on for the day...If they are eating native vegetation that is in the 9% protein range, and half of what they consume is that (which would be really low...chances are they are consuming far more native vegetation than feed pellets), then they would have a diet of 14.5% protein...Maximum growth is achieved at a rate of around 16% protein intake with adequate mineral needs....so your feed did help, but didn't get them everything they need......however.......if all they were getting before was the 9%, then you are going to notice a big change...but how many deer are using this? Whitetails on average eat 8 pounds of groceries a day....so if they are eating half of their diet on high protein feeds, then just to feed 25 deer per day, they would be eating 100 pounds of pellets per day...you see where I am going with this......You are either going to pay a small fortune if you were lucky enough to have them eat half of their diet in pellets, or you won't be giving them quite as much protein as you thought you were, although, again, some is better than none...
As far as planting something, it is said that you need at least 10% of your property plated in a high quality food source to achieve maximum benefit....for some people, that is an awful lot of land...if you have smaller land tracts, then 10% isn't very much, but the number of deer you can assist goes down dramatically...its a catch 22....biologic does say that you can get by with only 1% planted with their seeds, but not sure that this has really been tested, as many of their seeds they use are already readily available at your co-op in individual form, and fall under the original high quality seed category...the benefit with their blend is that almost all of the seeds they use are browse tolerant, meaning that it will be difficult for the deer to eat it at a rate faster than it can regenerate...but again, you can get many of these seeds at the co-op for much cheaper.
One thing you also have to consider is the digestibility of any feed or plot you do....because something is 25% protein doesn't mean the deer get 25% protein from it...if only 50% of it is digestible protein, then you will only be feeding your deer 12.5% protein in essence...and really be spinning your wheels on a very expensive product...
IF you have enough land to plant, and for the above reasons, you simply can't go wrong with either iron clay peas or soybeans...both are in the mid-30s on the protein scale with over 80% of it being digestible...meaning you are hitting them with straight 28 to 29% protein...and being in plot form, deer will browse it very readily, increasing the protein % they consume in a day...the down side to them is they do not regenerate very fast, and the deer can eat them out if you do not plant large enough plots or enough total acreage...BTW...they absolutely love them too...If your land doesn't allow enough to be planted in that, you can go the clover route, but more along the line of an Alyce variety....the regeneration rate on them is far better, and while they are lower in protein (maybe in the 18% range digestible), the tonnage of food they put out per acre is pretty good...
On the protein pellets, again, I am a bean fan...soybeans will beat nearly every single protein pellet out there in protein %, both crude and digestible, and are much, much cheaper....they run through feeders very well, and even if they get wet, deer still love em...combine all of this with several strategically placed mineral licks (something that again has not been proven to make a difference in the wild, but surely can't hurt), and you will have tackled one very small part of the chain in growing bigger bucks...
Age
Nutrition
Genetics
And in that order...with genetics being the one factor that you have zero control over, but that most people have never seen the potential of because they skip the first two...
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