bronko22000

Pretty much looks like its in the same family as the chestnut oak. Very similar leaf design as well as a similar bark. With that being said, I would say the acorns are likely to be bitter too. The range map shows it is in all of PA but for the life of me I can remember ever seeing one. I'd sure as heck would remember seeing that crazy looking acorn cap.
As for eating them, I would say that they are consumed by any animal that eats the other types of acorns if there are no other better tasting ones around.

Oldtimr

Saw tooth oak is in the white oak family, as is the chestnut oak. Deer will prefer acorns from the white oak family over those from the red oak family because they have less tannin. The saw tooth was introduced into the US in about 1962 so many of us have never seen one. As far as the OP's question, any critter that eats acorns will eat the acorns. I won't live to see it, but if the work being done now to restore the American Chestnut tree to our woods these will be the trees to hunt around because deer like them better than acorns. My club is involved in the project to restore the American chestnut where scion from native chestnut trees are grafted on to Chinese chestnut root stock. From the trees on my clubs property and property owned by the PA Fish and Boat Commission close to 3,000 chestnuts from third generation trees were harvested. These chestnuts will be planted and should produce a blight resistant native chestnut trees. It would be great to have the native back in PAs woods. Before the blight, chestnut was the predominant tree in our woods.

super_hunt54

Back in the dark ages when Oldtimr and I were younglings, we had Chestnut trees (18 of them) around our farm in Tennessee. 3 in our back yard and 15 scattered around the field edges. And boy let me tell you, Oldtimr sure aint kiddin about deer preferring them over everything. White Oak (most of them anyway) are like chocolate to deer. Chestnut is like crack. We had several hundred Oak on our property with a pretty high number of whites. But as soon as those chestnut trees started dropping the deer would flock to them. Funny as hell seeing the uneductated ones running around with Chestnut burr's sticking out their noses. Guess the momma Does taught them the hard way

rockport

Right, with some exceptions like the Chestnut oak(white) and the pin oak(red)

Any way I can get my hands on these chestnut trees?

super_hunt54

They are slowly starting to make a comeback in the wild Rock. A severe blight dang near wiped them out all across America years ago. If I remember correctly, and I'm still foggy from my surgery yesterday so I may not be, they don't play well with other trees. They need open space to grow and they are a VERY slow growing tree.

Oldtimr

Rockport I can check, I don't know the criteria that they are using for where the trees go, we have six on our club property, we had more we lost a few. We will be planting more in the near future. There are a couple on the Fish Commission property that are 60 ft tall and really produced this year. Super hunt, as late as the early 80s we had some chestnut trees from root sprouts that were producing fruit. They would get big enough to produce for a couple of years and then die until finally they were done for good.

d80hunter

Certain spots are going to barren now and full of deer later and so on. That is the way it is. I recommend staying all day at least once. I was having no luck hunting the mornings and evenings so I tried an all day hunt and shot a doe by noon. I even got out of my stand to stretch my legs at 10 a.m. to stay longer and relieve myself in the creek.

rockport

Ive got some open gentle sloping sandy hillsides I don't know if that is ideal or not. Its where the Illinois river bottom meats the hills. (oak trees love it)

I'd love to be part of a comeback for our future generations if that is an option.

Oldtimr

Rockport I will check, if they do not allow the seedlings to go out of state perhaps the same organization is working in Illinois and you can contact them. I will see what I can find out. I just spoke to one of the guys involved in the PA project and he said there is a national organization as well as state organizations. He is leaving tomorrow for the rest of the week and I am leaving Sunday for a hunting trip and I won't be back until the 22nd or 23. I will let you know how to contact them when I get back.

rockport

Sounds good.