Feeding of the deer

[Peter Drouin]

With almost 2' of snow I'm going to check the food. I have some farmers selling apples cheap, I was thinking of getting some and dumping them out at the feed spot. I don't think the deer will care if there frozen.

[SwampDonkey]

The deer retreated south of here. I have not seen any, nor a track for awhile.

[SwampDonkey]

Six deer in the field this afternoon. Less snow out there in the field than in the woods. Snow squalls today.

[PoginyHill]

I feed the deer every time I cut a white cedar. They have really enjoyed that this year with 2+ feet on the ground for the last several weeks.

[Ron Scott]

The chainsaw is their "dinner bell".

[SwampDonkey]

Years ago, a good 40 years now, we used to go to a place called the Odell, because of the stream name. Large numbers of deer hung out there in that watershed year around. If they cut cedar or old growth fir with old man's beard on the dead branches, them deer came run'n. This wasn't like the 3, 6 or 8 deer you might see now, more like 50 deer. Staple foods for those deer up here. Those old fir stands are gone and a lot (most) of the old cedar is to, cut down. The old fir also fell down because they got too old, but a lot was cut.

[PoginyHill]

I don't think more than 4 or 5 deer reside on my property. I'd rather not encourage more since they can stifle cedar regeneration. I noticed that on one particular seedling mid-summer in an open area last year and put a fence around it. It was early enough in the growing season where the seedling re-grew leaves.

[thecfarm]

I think the most coming to the grain this year is 15. Most year 15 is the norm.
We have not had much snow all winter. I only had about 5 coming then some snow came and about 10 more showed up.
I feed in a long line and most years, by the time I get to the end, the deer are all ready eating.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen some guestimates of the deer population here. We've gone from around 250,000 deer in the early 80's to maybe 60,000 deer now. It was funny to, I pulled up an old news article from 10 years ago and they blamed it on snow depth and cold and coyotes, never would they admit winter habitat loss. I saw what one winter of a new highway down through a wintering area did to that deer herd, it wiped it out. 

[Peter Drouin]

I have 4 or 5 deer I have been feeding all winter. Now I have a bear coming in.
I don't care, the bear is hungry too.

[newoodguy78]

Hadn't seen a deer all winter long, they've been around just hadn't put eyes on them. 
Was skidding firewood the other day came in to grab a hitch.
 Pulled up beside the maple I was after and the top exploded ,a deer came bounding out startled me pretty good 
Guess she heard the old husqvarna dinner bell ringing and came for a snack was nice to see one. 

[doc henderson]

We see a lot of deer here.  half are dead along the road.  It is good to keep the numbers down overall.  Better to food on the table and not cause an accident on the highway.

[Old Greenhorn]

We see a lot of deer here.  half are dead along the road.  It is good to keep the numbers down overall.  Better to food on the table and not cause an accident on the highway.

Doc, which half is dead, the front or the back?

[doc henderson]

the lower half lying on the ground that rots first!  

[SwampDonkey]

Been 6 deer around here, rarely see them. Usually 0 deer winter around here, then move back up in April.

[Ron Scott]

Our Michigan white tailed deer usually migrate to and gather yearly in favored wintering areas during the snow season. Such areas are mainly northern white cedar swamps of thick vegetation that provide adequate thermal cover and a cedar food source. 

These wintering areas are referred to as "deer yards" where the deer will winter until spring when they leave to feed on the new nearby hardwood growth and spring grasses. 

Our winter logging schedules and practices were usually designed and implemented to benefit and improve the "deer yarding areas".

[SwampDonkey]

Deer will winter in cedar ground here but not tight canopied stands, the stand needs openings for young trees or shrubs like mountain maple to thrive and they feed on small cedar and hardwoods and mountain maples. If there is not much of this smaller feed, they have to stand hind footed to reach lower cedar bows on mature trees. Often close canopied cedar is not good wintering ground, they have all the branches stripped as high as they can reach.  But mostly up here they seek mature to old growth spruce and fir with enough openings to allow hardwoods to regenerate. If the overstory canopy is too closed there is no undergrowth to feed on. They also like fir blow downs in there for the old man's beard lichens.

[SwampDonkey]

5 deer milling around in the back field just now.

[Peter Drouin]

Coming to my yard too. Things are greening up here.
A friend down the road killed 27 coyotes this past winter, another got 12, all within a 1 to 11/2 miles from my house.
There will be a lot of little ones [deer]this year.
Had a bear come 3 times and get into the bird feeders.
I fixed them, filled them, and put them back out.  

[SwampDonkey]

I saw 2 bunches of deer today, 7 and 3. And 12 turkeys with at least one Tom. Been a couple moose around the woodlot that I've seen. No bear tracks around yet.

[thecfarm]

I see the deer in the field this time of year.

[SwampDonkey]

We've had a single hen turkey here all by her self picking around the fields. One did that last year this time of year to.

[thecfarm]

Talking about deer....
I had 16 deer in the fields last night.

Turkeys, we can see 20 at one time.

[Peter Drouin]

They like all the green stuff growing. 16 is a lot. I'm guessing you don't have many coyotes up your way.
Bear and coyotes do a job on the deer here.
39 coyotes near me is too much.

[SwampDonkey]

We have a lot of coyotes up here to. But I did see 4 deer this morning a quarter mile up the road running out of the Christmas trees and across the road as fast as their legs could carry them. Deer are very skiddish around here. I'm not seeing bear tracks yet. Strange because my woodlot is tramped to death by bears at times. Bears are hard on new moose calves. Saw 12 turkeys today, I think the same ones from yesterday, only they were on the other side of the road and heading to Maine. Border jumpers.