Deer Salt

[Walnut Beast]

Very nice. Pretty awesome what your doing. What your doing will make a big difference and payoff 👍👍👍. Also trying to keep a eye on everything 

[mike_belben]

Learning as we go.  Mostly trying to make sure boy has some quality memories of 'us time' before its over.












Its a half mile of sidehilling so hes gotta switch sides to leave!






Trail gets so tight that nothing can stick out the side.  That 2stroke tiller is another gem someone couldnt be bothered to put a fuel line on.  No idea where i got it but i know it was free and ill never part with it.



First time ive gotten to check the sun quantity in this foodplot site.. Looks like we're gonna be good thanks to a microburst or wind storm that broke off 3 mature tree tops recently.

[Skip]

I do not do it for the trophys  just trying to help em out a bit , can't eat the rack any way. Know some guys that put in some serious plots . Figure every little bit helps .

[mike_belben]

me either.  with all the worldwide craziness and brand new "survivalists" flooding out into the rural areas.. rising food costs.. certainty of a future economic contraction.  there could soon be a legion of new hunters pouring into my neck of the woods every fall.  i guess i just want to secure the situation in advance and keep my stew full of chunky meat. 


i have decided i will not give any supplement with any selenium in it at all after reading this case study of rapid herd poisoning in a canadian veterinary journal. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3003580/#b2-cvj_01_70

its and autopsy report written in doctorese.  all i can understand is that selenium eats deer alive from the inside rapidly and painfully.. that the animal suffers and dies.  these experts (who i trust) here say that a normal feed ration is .04 to 1 ppm ... not 10, 30 or 80ppm.  why risk harming the herd youre working to grow?   

[Jeff]

My brother in law had  small deer mineral business back before it became a thing. Trapper Pete's Grow em big.  He never took it to the level he should have. The packaging thing for retail ticked him off and he quit. We use to deliver it in plastic milk jugs. I still have about a 100lbs mixed up.  I inherited the recipe and the cement mixer to mix it in.  


The Forestry Forum members did a wonderful thing for my best friend when he was dieing with all the cards from all over.  I know, he would not mind that I know give you that recipe he created.

@mike_belben 



 
It needs some sort of anti predator ingredient in it for the cabin.

[mike_belben]

wow thats a recipe.  i have laid out a mix of the the first 2 and think i am happy with helping them knock off the macros. 

how did your BIL come up with it?  what was his background?  

[KEC]

On a similar subject, I put out crushed eggshells for the birds. I put them on my gravel driveway and sometimes at places I go that I think birds might benefit. Also, I bought some commercial pigeon grit; Pricey stuff. Helps them grind seeds in their gizzard and to make eggshells. With all the things some people do, whittingly or un-whittingly,  that negatively affect wildlife it seems only right to help them here and there.

[mike_belben]

eggshells also make a good organic garden calcium too.  theyve gotta dry first and then you can run them through a blender or "mill" them between two chunks of cinder block. 

i put them in my compost pile. 

[Jeff]

Pete was a life long woodsman and a student of all things wild. He was vietnam vet, a stone mason,, a cop and retired from being animal control officer for 25 years. He dealt with vets and farmers and was good friends with the incredible Dr. Pohl who attended his funeral. 

[Magicman]

With the Chronic Wasting threat, I am very hesitant to provide anything that would tend to congregate deer.

[mike_belben]

that is a big thing to consider lynn.  deer covid would really bring me down. 


thanks for sharing jeff.. i can imagine that was something he kept quite secret. 

[Jeff]

I put it on stumps at the cabin. It gets rid of them over time.  Deer are in constant nose to nose activity naturally. Don't people watch them?. LETS PUT A MANMANDATED MASK ON EM! THAT'LL WORK!

I thought I had a pic of one of the current mineral sites in the corner of the cabin yard but cant find it yet. May have to take another.

[mike_belben]

i stumbled onto this gem recently.  penn state deer forest blog.  this one on mountain laurel is a revelation to me.  

https://www.deer.psu.edu/mountain-laurel-the-living-legacy/



winter of 16/17 i started my hikes all over the deer woods i abut, and remember sending my brother a picture of stripped mountain laurel clear to the hind leg browse line, saying look for this stuff, it draws deer.  

i did not know that the glycosides in them are toxic and laurel browse is indication the herd is starving.  great news is i have not ever seen that again so it signals an improved condition (even if thats just from herd reduction.. its still better for the living.)  


well.. turns out that deer browsing reduces competition and lets mountain laurel take over. looking back, every time i have discovered a buck bed its been in or right next to a mountain laurel thicket. red cedar sapplings and mountain laurel trunks are where i find the most rubs.  so i whip up the satellite view and sure enough, all the evergreen laurel thickets are visible from satellite without foliage.   The mountain laurel density is highest in all the circumstances that a buck favors. so now ive got an aerial buck mapping tool for any nearby woods. 

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen that stuff so thick in the Miramachi woods, the caribou had made deep trails (think snow) through the stuff over 100 years ago and the deer still used those trails decades after. Used to have to walk through that to get to some good dead water fishing for brook trout. It was worth it in those days, because the water just boiled with trout. After awhile your fly hook was just bare. ;D

[mike_belben]

Well that got pretty immediate results.  This porker likes the salt and looks like shes certainly eating for two.. Or three! 

[Walnut Beast]

What are you feeding them now Mike. The deer are usually lean now 😂

[Ron Scott]

Jeff, 
Pete kept me supplied with his "Grow em Big" product. Had good results with it. He provided me with milk jugs of it. Believe that there are still some large racks running around here from it. Also enjoyed his wines. ;)

[mike_belben]

What are you feeding them now Mike. The deer are usually lean now 😂

Nothing.. Im lucky we can feed ourselves!







Shes living in woods that are between two farms.  Well three actually but this just shows the two.   One is just tall hay, the other may have a crop out, i should go meet them.  

Anyway this aerial shows a dark green band of dominant mountain laurel in the understory coating a steep south facing hillside and hollar that is one of the last spots i havent explored because its just a nightmare of tangles in the creekbottom.  



My theory is that band gives away the rugged lane reclusive deer are using between the two farms.  I saw a big buck tending a gaggle of does i couldnt see in a dip out in the pasture at sunset from afar one night and i thought it was a big shrub until i threw a coyote howl and the whole gang bolted right for that trail that im now working, when they had any direction to choose from and not one deviated.

  Colar'd bucks have shown that during heavy hunting pressure they just shrink back harder to core areas until dark.  Well that ridge peninsula not having much mountain laurel on the north side except at the east facing point, tells a story.  During the winter day theyre sitting tight on southern exposed slopes in any warmth they can get, rifle cracks all day in every direction, chewing anything that aint laurel.   

This parcel is hunted extensively but no one is set up anywhere near that laurel ridge, its very hard access.  theyre all on the eastern side (not shown) because of any easy skidder road.  No laurel there at all but many deer are taken when they go foraging an oak rim.



Now look at how dense and dark the laurel is on all banks and all directions of creek bottoms around another farm where hunting has never been open to more than a few people and atleast crop stubble is always around.  This is extensive, and obviously older than the above patch.  The above is chest high.  I expect the below to be overhead by a few feet based on aerials of known laurel patches.



 I got a dozen vids of what i think are the same doe over 2 nights at many different times.. Shes tearing that salt up, but only nocturnal.  No other deer.  Im eager to see a buck that well fed.

[Walnut Beast]

Pretty neat area 👍

[dogone]

   Years ago raised white tailed deer. I wasn't very successful as they seemed intent on committing suicide.

    I bought every horn growing potion made. It was generally ignored. Sat in the tubs for years with no more than a lick.
   
     But I learned one important fact from a knowledgeable vet. All/most deer have worms. Tame and wild. One type of preventative is called safe-guard.Also used for cattle. It is granular and sprinkled on the feed. It will give you healthier deer. Check with a vet.

[Jeff]

Here is a current mineral stump first picture was at about a year, this one is I think the 4 year. Keep in mind we have a very low deer population, but there are fresh tracks to it.



 

 

 

[thecfarm]

I need to get another salt block. I have bought the white ones. But those can be seen a mile off.  ;D  I buy the TM ones now. They are like a rust color so they don't stick out as bad. I have put the block on a stump too. All animals like salt. We like it too!!! Around the stump was barren.

[Texas Ranger]

You leave it on the ground, and in a year or two there will be a hole where they have worked over the residuals.

[Walnut Beast]

Trophy rocks as they are called are excellent. They are natural and are only mined in one place. I think Utah 🤷‍♂️

[mike_belben]

Last year i planted 6 tiny test patches of imperial bowstand the size of a matress or less on my back woodlot in varying conditions.  Im very pleased to say that its lusher than any hayfield around and there are many to choose from. 

 No lime or fertilizer, just planted into pushed up hills of topsoil i bladed off into small piles when roadbuilding.  Let the pile decompose a while then hoe it out and stamp some seed into it. Came up as fall plots but the perennial action is even better. 










The yellow flowers chest high behind the soda can are turnips going to seed.  Theres crimson clover, chicory, wheat, oats and a few grasses.  I havent done anything to it since planting late last summer.  It stalled out but stayed green over winter then came roaring back in late march.  






Anyways i put some of that mineral salt mix down in a small puddle spot near one of the bigger patches where a few does are known to visit overnight and worked it into the clay.  theyre already digging the top layer off.