Do a lot of you guys use sugar beets for deer bait? Wondering how well the deer like them? Michigan had them for sale everywhere.
I left some in the ground in the garden. I just never got around to digging them. The snow was stained purple where the deer chewed on the beets. Where there was a carrot, they dug at them too.
I plant a mix of sugar beet, purple top turnip and white clover in 3 two acre fields, deer love them.
Lots of sugar beets grown in central Michigan. They are grown under contract to the sugar processors. Some farmers grow extra to sell as deer bait. Many folks scavenge them from harvested fields. Deer really love tem in cold weather, they will paw at the frozen dirt to get any left in the field. In areas without crop fields they will clean up bait piles.
I still find it hard to believe baiting deer is accepted behavior.
Some folks do some don't. Depends on your style of hunting. My grandfather always went on foot to hunt. Never had a tree stand, deer bate or a 4 wheeler. Always got his deer every year. I've walked enough ground in my day to know I wouldn't starve if I wanted a deer or grouse for the stew pot. You just gotta go where they are. :D
I don't do it but an old guy told me what is the difference if you set your stand in an apple tree or where there is acorns or plant a food plot you know the deer is going to come and eat :) I thought about it long and hard and he is 100% right do the beets need rich ground or are they like potatoes and grow any place I cleared about 21/2 a of old field this fall and wanted to plant it with some thing will the beets come back every year if so was thinking of clover and beets together
No one grows sugar beets around where I am wondered how well deer like to eat them. How hard are they to grow, do they need any special conditions? I cant disagree with anyone who doesn't like baiting to each their own but ill ask this. What is sporting and not? Its not sporting to shot a duck on the water it has to be flying. You have to shoot a deer standing still not running. Scoped rifle vs iron sights, recurve vs compound crossbow, trail cameras, scent block etc. Something to think about.
I grow the beets in basically pure sand, I do add 300lbs of pelletized lime per acre but the the turnips and beets grow in my gravel driveway from seed blowing around, the deer munch on them a little in the fall but after a hard freeze, thats when the deer go crazy for them. One bag of seed goes a long way...
I still can't believe all hunters don't stick together despite there're ideological differences. United we stand divided we fall, and that's just what HSUS and PETA are counting on.
I'm lucky enough to have 9 acres of tillable to grow what I want, but I don't think a guy that gets 2 weekends a year to hunt is a horrible hunter because he dumps out a bag of apples to hunt over, no different than watching over a cornfield, just on a smaller scale.
My herd prefers shell corn and sugar beets to apples and carrots. I fed 700 lbs of corn and 500 lbs of sugar beets last season.
How much sunlight do they need to grow? Wondering if they would grow for a food plot in the woods.
They need sun.
What is the return of Protein per bushel/acre?
Corley is right about the sun,but they will grow enough to make the deer happy and whatever else eats them. I have never done it,but went to a 2 hour course about food plots. Had 2-3 speakers that sold the product and another that went around and planted stuff where the paper company would go in and cut and they would plant the landings.
They would use beets,clover and other stuff that was a "special mix" that worked the best. I did ask about carrots,that they did not mention and they said it did not do good. One use to use a drag behind rig to help with the planting. He gave up on that and just drives the 4 wheeler around. He thinks it does a better job. They was saying just go out in the woods with a rake and make a few places here and there for planting.
They love just the greens to. Swiss chard, spinach, carrots, cucumber vines and the cukes, string beans, lettuce. Just try to fence the buggers out of the garden without it being electrified. ;D
Must be less selective deer up here because they'll take the tops right off the carrots. :D
Quote from: WH_Conley on February 26, 2016, 11:35:47 PM
What is the return of Protein per bushel/acre?
Depends on how many deer you shoot over them............Upper
I may have to look for them (beets) here and use them next year. I put out feeders with whole kernel corn but my biggest problem is the doves carry it off so bad. I wonder if I could dice them up to fit in my feeder? Probably not worth the effort.
WV did not allow baiting when I moved here almost 26 years ago. Started allowing it several years ago. Our state still rates as the one most likely to have a deer/car accident in the nation and our insurance rates reflect this.
We have a large state park (Pipestem) near us where there has been no hunting for years and the biologist is an aquaintance of ours who says she nearly cries during poor mast years due to the starving deer she sees. There will be over 100 at a time out on the golf course and other areas. Last year they opened up special highly regulated hunts to help thin the herd. I think the park put up stand, lottery winners were placed in their designated stand and had to remain there throughout the hunt. Not sure how many deer they killed this way.
As mentioned above we all largely hunt over bait whether natural or artificial. Whether a harvested bean or corn field on a lone oak, apple, or persimmon tree dropping nuts or fruit these are all bait of one type or another.
Probably never a topic everyone on this forum will ever agree on. Ethical hunting in my opinion is making sure the game is legal, you have a clear safe shot at the vital area, you make every effort to retrieve any wounded animal, and you use the animal killed in whatever fashion is appropriate. I have no problem with a trophy hunter killing for large antlers as long as they also use or give the meat to someone who will use/needs it.
I worked and vacationed for many years in Africa and one thing I learned was the legally killed trophy animals killed there brought a lot of income to the area, the meat went to local tribes/peoples, and the animals killed were nearly always past their prime and no longer breeding stock. I don't and won't be hunting there but don't begrudge the ones who do.
You may want to try feeding the deer a certain crop before you spend the time planting a field. For example, my uncles deer on the west side of Michigan will eat pumpkins, ours won't touch them. I put out lots of carrots, deer won't touch them. Our deer like apples but not sugar beets. We have loads of pears, but the deer don't touch them.
I think hunting ethics can change based on animal population as well. Not many people have a problem baiting, trapping, killing as many mice and rats as possible. But nobody wants to see a rare animal killed by any method. In some states, deer are so overpopulated that baiting helps control the population by allowing less experienced hunters-and less able bodied- hunters to harvest deer. Baiting can also aid in spreading disease, though.
Yea its funny how deer in one area go crazy over something and not touch it else where. My buddy has put out salt and the deer have dug a foot in the ground to get it but they hardly touch it where I am. Ive seen deer go crazy on apples but not so much where I am.
I got a kick outta beet juice being used to treat icy roads. They figured it out here after using it and turning folks white cars colors that maybe it wasn't such a good idea. I don't know how it is any where else iffin or not they use that.
We have lots of salt from potash mining (recently closed but still a source) and I think rock salt deposits in SE New Brunswick.
Quote from: Carson-saws on May 17, 2016, 10:03:18 AM
I got a kick outta beet juice being used to treat icy roads. They figured it out here after using it and turning folks white cars colors that maybe it wasn't such a good idea. I don't know how it is any where else iffin or not they use that.
its funny you say that they put fences up around here to keep the deer off the highways but then they put beet juice down and its a magnet for them ??? ??? ???
SD, I think the salt we have around here turns cars a different color too :D, never been around the beet juice but they use some kind of liquid deicer and it's really hard on trailer wiring.
A few years ago Maryland highway administration wanted to try molasses to hold the salt onto the roads out in the western part of the state....don't know what they were thinking.