Feeding of the deer

[thecfarm]

Not food plots,just grain.
I've been feeding them for years here. Last year I had 40,only seen 25 this year and the last week have only seen 10 at one time. But no snow,well maybe 4 inches here.
There are a lot that feed the deer. I work in a hardware/grain store. We go through some grain for the deer. I just throw it on the ground,like feeding chickens. I put the grain in a bucket and put my hand in and throw it as I walk. I feed them in a line,about 50 feet long. This keeps them from driving off the small ones and fighting so much.
We do sell that Record Rack grain. But most shy away from it,40 pounds and more money than a bag of cow grain and 50 pounds too. Than we have a Wildlife blend,but again more money. We have 2 customers that buy a ton of cow grain and we deliver it to them.
I have seen four bucks this year!! Two have,or had some nice horns,two was just spikes horns. My Grandson girlfriend found a shed here. So they are dropping thier horns.
Yes,I may have 40 deer when there is snow on the ground,but I have no idea where them 40 deer are during hunting season. I don't hunt,but the step son sure does try. He says they are here,but can not even get a good shot at one.
Probably the best one he saw was when I had my sawmill going. Deer,me and house. Not a good shot.
I would like to just scratch up some ground in the woods and plant some beets and carrots for them. Should lay down some lime for these areas. Just about as wide as a rake or two wide. Maybe 6-8 feet long. These will be left in the ground for the deer to eat all winter. Works in the garden.
One year I cut some of the bog off. There was some cedar trees in there. I would drag them out and back up a few times,to break of some limbs and bring them out to the landing.The deer really liked that. The deer would be eating down at the bog when I got back. Than at night they would come up to the landing and eat.

[Southside]

Just be careful with the grain. Like a cow you can create acidosis in a deer, even easier actually given how much lignin is in their normal diet. I don't think a little world cause an issue, but buckets full this time of year probably would be bad. 

[Old Greenhorn]

In our state(NY) this is illegal and the DEC will summons you if caught  ;D ;D. Now in all honesty, it's a fine line and depends on the Ranger, but mostly this is intended for fringe areas where bringing wildlife into a neighborhood would not be helpful for anyone. My Dad in his last years really enjoyed getting a hundred pounds of corn to put out for the deer during the bad winter weather and he would sit in his den and watch them. I don't see that planting a small crop of something in the woods is anything like "feeding the deer" just because they happen to find it and eat it  :D. Some may think the law here is stupid, BUT there is always that one person who such laws are written for. This past summer there was a woman about 2.5 miles through the woods from me who got several citations and a very stern one-on-one educational program because she was feeding the bears dog food ........ on her deck...... her second floor deck...... outside her sliding glass door ..... next to her kitchen. One of her neighbors called the DEC about unusually high bear activity that was just about every day and seemed to be increasing. The reason the woman was doing this was because she felt that feeding them dog food would keep them from tearing her garbage apart (which she was apparently leaving out in spite of the fact that EVERYONE around here knows you can't do that without cleaning up a mess every time you do) I don't know if she had some kind of written agreement with the bears, it was not mentioned in the police briefs section of the paper. 
 I am thinking of putting in some kind of easy, healthy food crop for the deer in the hopes they may leave the saplings alone. I also expect it will never work out.

[thecfarm]

I am not a rich man. Maybe three gallons a night is not much for 25 deer. The state of Maine discourage feeding the deer too.
And yes,I have heard of game wardens telling someone to stop feeding the deer. They was trying to cross the road. Notice the trying word. Was a high number of deer kill in that area. :(  So yes,must be careful. I am on a dead end dirt road,and by the looks of the not many tracks across the road from me,the deer come from behind my house.They have a couple beat down trails to follow. But they was here long before I was. I use to snow shoe in to see how they was doing. They kinda go in the same area.

[gspren]

Some areas don't allow deer feeding because it can spread disease quicker with CWD (chronic wasting disease) being the biggest problem. Apparently the disease can be spread by saliva so bunching the deer to a pile or feeder is the problem, I would think by spreading it out farther would lessen this.

[thecfarm]

Not to argue,you,they are right. But either they eat 100 feet from the house of a ½ mile down in the bog. ??? That is one of the trails they have. I followed it into the bog the other day. Just about the same trail that I use to follow before I built a house here.
Just came in from the nightly feeding.I saw that nice looking buck with the nice set of horns. So there is at least one with horns.

[Pulphook]

DO NOT FEED DEER....please. Look at the Maine Fish and Game and Game Biologist data.
Any wild animal becomes dependent on being fed artificially. We have too many deer in Maine, too little culling by hunting recently due to prosperity,
lack of interest from kids sitting on their butts on indoor electronics, and the usual ill informed anti hunting groups.
Feeding them doesn't help deer survive the wild.
P.S. We don't hunt (had my time with firearms and ordinance). We do encourage hunting on the woodlands here.
I don't want to start a fire fight....but.............
JMNSHO

[Jeff]

Keep right on enjoying those deer Ray. If i were you, id be doing exactly what you are doing. Those deer are not retarded and not surviving on what you feed them. Its like giving sugar cubes to a horse. They enjoy it, and you enjoy it because they do, but they aint going to die without it.

Not a thing wrong with recreational feeding no matter what those over educated but lacking of common sense officials say.

[Southside]

We have too many deer in Maine

Have you ever read any of Helen Hamlins books from back in the '40's?  The deer population in Maine was much higher then and the moose population was much lower.  Has a lot to do with the makeup of the forest and the available "edge" area that transitions from open ground to wooded land - habitat - more than anything.  

[thecfarm]

I am not a rich man. Maybe three gallons a night is not much for 25 deer. The state of Maine discourage feeding the deer too.

@Pulphook,I quoted myself,did you miss it?? I have read that page too. :  Last year I had 40 deer and still feeding 3 gallons a night. I was not a rich man either last year. ;D
As I said my stepson hunts on my land,and paper company land on top of the hill. He has brought his Father and a few friends and they bring thier Fathers. I have had 6 hunters in my house wondering where all the deer are.And it's kinda odd in April the deer will stop feeding. I go out to check and the food is still there.

[Pulphook]

Maine increased the deer hunt this year from their pop. survey. Deer have large territories, ranging for miles. It's fun to track BTW.
There are hunters who have the skill to hunt and then those who don't; too many.  Deer hear and smell us. The skilled hunt with knowledge of what they are hunting. No scents, quiet stands, no smoking, unwashed clothes, moving silently; sounds a little like you learned in training ?
We even have the "heater hunters" on our back roads.
Don't feed.
JMNSHO

[Jeff]

Your Maine deer must defy the longtime knowledge of whitetails in other regions. It has always been widely documented that a whitetails home range is usually no more than one square mile. They are creatures of habit and once they find a home where they have what they need, they will spend their entire life there unless given cause to leave.  FEED THE DEER.  Putting a little corn out is a treat for your deer. most all landowners that try to maintain a deer population know you don't feed large amounts of grain to deer in the winter its just a little bonus for them for living on your lands. It attracts them to where you can see them and when you can see them you have a good idea on how they are doing by their numbers and appearance.

[Pulphook]

Too many deer, too little browse at here in northern Maine.  Deer range further than said IF there's no browse...much further.
Deer feed where there's salad such as the many many new built homes in their territory with new rich plantings that deer see as "salad".
Read Jim Sterba: Nature's Way about how we build where perhaps we should not ( e.g. CA fires ).
Wildlife biologists universally recommend NOT feeding. ( Inconvenient truth: we do feed birds ).
It's illegal and unethical to feed from stands anyhow.
JMNSHO

[Chuck White]

Something must have changed here in New York with regards to "feeding deer"!

There is a local who another local turned in, to the DEC for feeding the deer behind his house!

Game Warden visited the accused and promptly issued him a ticket which read "Feeding deer within 300 feet of the road"!

So, I guess it's legal unless you're within that 300 foot mark!

[Texas Ranger]

The managed land down here put out minerals and protein, corn does little more than make happy deer.  That is the source of some of the horns I posted elsewhere.

[petefrom bearswamp]

About the distance deer range.
Especially bucks in the rut in the vast untracked adk wilderness areas.
The Massett brothers, Joe Dinitto from Central NY, the Horn Hunters from the Glens Falls area and several others are trackers and very successful.
I have hunted a little with Tom and Jim Massett when I was somewhat younger and they say it is common to track for many miles and they sometimes stay overnight in the woods., not my cup of tea.
The does and fawns are of course another story.
It is still illegal to feed, bait or put out salt for deer here, but food plots are OK.
I have a small one with clover and it is seldom used, too many corn and alfalfa fields close to me. 
No CWD in the wild herd here yet but it is only a matter of time.

[braucher]

IMHO After rut I use tube feeders with 20% protein pellets .
Keeping mineral sites going , I quit feeding in April 

[Old Greenhorn]

Something must have changed here in New York with regards to "feeding deer"!

There is a local who another local turned in, to the DEC for feeding the deer behind his house!

Game Warden visited the accused and promptly issued him a ticket which read "Feeding deer within 300 feet of the road"!

So, I guess it's legal unless you're within that 300 foot mark!

I have been sick in the house for 4 days now. Going nuts watching decent weather slip through my hands. About the only thing I have been able to do is spend MANY hours reading new and old threads here on FF. Chuck's comment about the NYS law made me go look it up because I thought I knew the rules, but then realized I had never really read them. Baiting of course, is alwasy illegal, but here is a quote from the NYS DEC site: 
"NYS Environmental Conservation Law prohibits:

NYS Codes, Rules and Regulations Part 189 further prohibit feeding of wild deer or moose except for several specific circumstances (e.g., agriculture, wildlife food plots, raising livestock, DEC permitted research, or management activities)."
 So thanks Chuck, this was very useful information.  Now I have to get out the tape measure. Up to now I only drop off very occasional treats like apples and such. But if the winter gets tough with very deep snow, I don't mind pitching in a little to help them stay healthy until the regular food sources come back. It's not a regular thing though.
 You learn a lot reading this forum.

[Jeff]

Bucks in rut can hardly be used to determine an average home range.

[Texas Ranger]

Bucks in rut can hardly be used to determine an average home range.

Kinda like teenagers

[Pulphook]

I don't range far in rut. :
...nobody feeds me.

[petefrom bearswamp]

I wonder what the definition of "management activities" is.

[Jeff]

"management activities"

Meddling

[Texas Ranger]

"management activities"

Meddling

Management activity are those activities that manage the health and sex ratio of the herd.  Most unmanaged areas have an over population of does to buck because of the macho "gonna get me a big buck" while does keep growing in number.  In a managed area a count is made throughout the year, to get an idea of the ratio, and then a number presented to the members as to how many of what to kill.  Usually, here in Texas anyway, there is an extended season, longer than the regular season, to achieve those numbers.  One ranch here in Polk County has a 3 to 1 ration of doe to buck, 90 some odd doe to maybe 30 bucks.  The results are bigger body weights, better trophy horns for the "gonna" group, and a healthy herd.  All under the advice and control of the Texas Parks and Wildlife.  Good for meat hunters, and horn hunters alike.  Ratio is important due to the carry capacity of the land, to many does and the herd eats itself out of home, browse lines on trees show those areas where the "gonna" hunters don't take out enough doe.

There is still a little subsistence hunting in east Texas, but leased land and private hunting areas restrict the number of places for the less wealthy to hunt, so the state runs open lands for anyone and they are well used.  But not managed, so success rate is low, and the crop is the old style lighter weight animals.  Night hunters take care of themselves.

Average hunting lease rates are going up, unmanaged land is around $10 an acre, high fenced managed land is what the market can bear.  To draw those prices the lease has to be productive with good animals.

[Jeff]

I'm talking the gubermental variety of meddling.