Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
12-30-2008, 10:13 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 67
Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
By Matt Ross, Whitetail Stewards, Inc.
The four basic components of habitat
Habitat is simply the four major components that deer need to survive: food, water, cover and space. If even one of these principal habitat building blocks is missing where you hunt, it is likely that local deer will travel outside of your area at least occasionally.
Food
White-tailed deer have evolved to consume a large variety of foods, including herbaceous material (e.g., grasses, ferns, sedges, forbs), hard and soft fruits (e.g., apples, acorns, etc.), mushrooms, lichens, vines, woody browse (new woody growth and buds of trees and shrubs), and even dry, dead leaves and bark. For this reason, deer are categorized as both grazers and browsers. However, deer are highly-selective feeders and they choose foods that are the highest in quality and require the least amount of energy to find.
The availability of foods preferred by deer changes with each season. In fact, during times of scarcity such as drought or severe winters, any available food, preferred or not, will be consumed by deer out of necessity. Due to regional climatic differences, the foods deer prefer in your hunting area may be different from foods available or preferred in another part of the country.
Food palatability
Palatability is a measure of food preference and is based on the flavor (e.g., sweet, sour, bitter) and digestibility of an individual food item. Palatability is influenced by a number of factors:
[ul][*]Digestibility plays the largest role in determining palatability; foods that are less fibrous are easier for deer to digest and tend to have higher palatability ratings than plants with a high fiber content. Plants that are young and growing quickly are generally lower in fiber than mature plants or plant parts.[*]Taste plays a role in palatability, but it is difficult to determine what tastes good to a deer. Biologists have found that deer possess a series of chemoreceptors in both their nose and tongue that allow them to detect the chemical composition of potential food items. These chemoreceptors may also allow deer to avoid toxic plants. [/ul]
Seasonal preferences
Deer display preferences towards certain types of plants and plant parts that become palatable in different seasons.
[ul][*]During late spring and early summer, young herbaceous plants are usually abundant and often comprise over one-half of a deer's diet. [*]From mid- to late-summer, leaves of hardwood trees and shrubs make up a large portion of the diet. These abundant, easily digestible, and highly nutritious food sources begin to mature and become less desirable by early autumn. [*]By mid-autumn, acorns and other hard mast are readily available and may constitute over 50% of the daily food intake of deer. [*]Throughout the autumn and winter months, a deer's diet consists primarily of woody browse, with leaves and buds eaten more readily than twigs, and new growth eaten more than older growth. [/ul]
Preferred food types
Regardless of the season, deer show preferences for specific food items over others. For example,
[ul][*]Green and succulent herbaceous plants are always preferred over dormant, dry plants. [*]Coniferous browse is less fibrous and is typically preferred over hardwood browse. [*]Agricultural crops are usually used by deer during all seasons; the availability of these foods may significantly influence deer condition and productivity during the harshest times of year. Food plots that offer pastures of legumes, grains, and annual grasses can be important supplements to natural forages.[*]Native fruits are usually relished by deer. Many soft, fleshy fruits (e.g., apples, rose-hips, cherries, raspberries, grapes) are good sources of protein, phosphorus and calcium. By comparison, hard mast (e.g., acorns, walnuts, pecans, beech nuts) tends to be low in protein (less than 7%) but higher in fat content (75-80%). However, because mast production varies from year to year, deer must often increase their consumption of other food sources such as browse during years with low mast availability. [/ul]
As an interesting note, biologists believe that a deer's upbringing may influence food selection. Fawns have been known to mimic specific food selections of their mother; therefore, food preferences may be passed down from one generation of deer to the next.
How much food do deer require?
The amount of food a deer eats each day depends on the season and the sex and age of the deer. However, as a general rule, biologists estimate that deer require enough food to equal 2-4% of their live body weight daily (e.g., a 150 pound deer will consume 3-6 pounds of food daily).
Food consumption by bucks
Mature bucks consume the most food during mid- to late-spring (4.4-6.4 pounds/day). During this time, bucks are in their poorest physical condition of the year, having lost as much as 15-30% of their body weight over winter (mostly in the form of fat). As summer begins, bucks slightly decrease their food consumption. Once velvet is shed in early autumn, food consumption increases again until the rigors of the rut are in full swing. During the rut, bucks eat less and lose weight as they concentrate most of their energy on breeding. Food consumption may increase dramatically for a brief period immediately following the rut as bucks attempt to regain fat depleted during breeding. During the winter, bucks reduce their activity and rely primarily on body fat to sustain them through March. As a result, the amount of food eaten by bucks during winter may be 50% less than that eaten in spring and summer.
Food consumption by does
For does, daily food intake is highest in the two months just prior to the breeding season (3.0-3.5 pounds/day), then food consumption decreases steadily through autumn. Food consumption by does is lowest in mid-winter, a time when a doe's body fat may provide her with 30% of the energy she needs each day. Does begin increasing their food intake in early spring and intake rises slowly through summer, eventually peaking again in early fall.
Food consumption by fawns
In fawns, food consumption increases as their body weight increases. In other words, fawns gradually increase their food intake throughout most of their entire first year. During winter, fawns slightly decrease their food consumption compared to the amount they eat in autumn, but the decrease is less dramatic than that observed in adult deer. The main reason for this is because unlike adults, fawns store very little fat their first autumn, and therefore, must rely heavily on food to meet most of their energy requirements during winter.
Nutrient requirements of deer
Throughout the year, deer require many forms of nutrients for growth and survival. The following lists show the nutrients required by adult deer and the additional nutrients required by nursing fawns.
Nutrients required by adult deer:
[ol][*]Water[*]Energy (fats and carbohydrates)[*]Nitrogen[*]Essential fatty acids[*]Protein or amino acids (e.g., arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine)[*]Minerals
Macroelements (e.g., calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, and sulfur). These are required in large quantities.
Microelements (e.g., iron, zinc, manganese, copper, molybdenum, iodine, selenium, cobalt, fluoride, and chromium). These are required in very small amounts.[*]Vitamins A, D and E (fat-soluble) [/ol]
In addition to the above nutrients, nursing fawns also require the following:
[ol][*]Vitamin K (fat-soluble)[*]Vitamins B6, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, panthothenic acid, biotin, and cobalamin (all are water-soluble) [/ol]
During most of the year, adult deer can satisfy their minimum nutrient requirements when their diet contains 6-8% crude protein, 0.16-0.25% phosphorus, and 0.2-0.3 % calcium (on a dry matter basis). Younger deer and pregnant/lactating does require higher levels of protein (16-20%), phosphorus (0.2-0.3%), and calcium (0.25-0.5%). (Click to read our in-depth article about the seasonal protein requirements of deer)
Water
Water requirements vary with a deer's physiological state (e.g., growth, maintenance, lactation), available food sources, climatic conditions and by the amount of recent activity. Deer obtain water from three sources:
[ul][*]Preformed water - this is water contained in food[*]Metabolic water - produced internally as a product of hydrogen oxidation during metabolic processes[*]Liquid water - found in streams, ponds, lakes, puddles, snow, rain, and dew. [/ul]
Deer will only drink water or eat snow to supplement the water they receive in their food. For example, deer eating a diet consisting of succulent vegetation may drink only half the amount of water that they will when eating a diet of dry hardwood browse. In some instances, such as during pregnancy or in drought conditions in the south, liquid water is a diet staple, with deer consuming between 2-3 times as much water as food.
Cover
Bedding cover
Deer typically choose bedding locations in areas that have dense ground cover (e.g., areas with high stem density or obstructions such as fallen tree tops), that provide a good vantage point for predator/hunter detection, and that allow for quick escape on two or more different routes.
Throughout the country, deer may choose different bedding areas depending on the season, weather, time of day, proximity to food, and the degree of hunting pressure or presence of predators. As a general rule, when temperatures are warm, deer choose bedding cover in areas that provide cooler temperatures (e.g., a dense canopy for shade, in or near wetlands). When temperatures are cold, deer tend to select areas that provide warmer temperatures and protection from the wind (e.g., south facing slopes, dense conifer stands).
Deer tend to bed during the daylight hours in wooded or brushy cover at one end of their range (this is called their "core bedding area") and then move into open fields or other feeding territory at the other end of their range just prior to sunset (possibly one or more hours before dusk during winter) to forage. Then, after eating in the safety of darkness, they will bed relatively close by that feeding area for several hours, only to rise, feed again, and return back to their daily bedding area. Because deer have ruminant digestive systems (much like cows), they are able to eat as much food as they can, and then bed down in safe cover where they can regurgitate, re-chew, and digest their food.
Feeding cover
As discussed above, deer select the most nutritious food available during any given season, and thus, can be found in or near cover types where those favored foods grow.
Daytime feeding areas usually provide deer dense escape cover nearby and/or some type of ground-level visual barriers, which make deer feel more secure than they do in open habitats. For example, deer are more likely to feed in fields and food plots during daylight hours when there is dense escape cover immediately along the edges of the openings. Also, forest stands that have been heavily cut within the past 3-5 years or have a dense understory layer of stump sprouts and root sprouts can provide an excellent food source and daytime cover.
Travel cover
Each day, deer travel between bedding and feeding areas. As a result, some degree of cover within their travel routes is required for deer to move discretely in these areas. Deer often use wetland drainages and sides of ridges while moving between bedding and feeding habitat. Dense cover within these areas are often ideal places to intercept traveling deer.
Space
Spatial requirements of deer must be large enough to provide opportunity for all of life's essential activities (e.g., foraging, breeding, fawn rearing, predator avoidance). The actual physical area traveled by one individual deer during a year's time is known as its home range.
Home range size
Home ranges of deer living in open habitats are usually larger than those of deer living in heavily forested areas. Also, as the size of a deer population increases, average home range of each individual deer tends to decrease.
In any given season, the radius of a white-tailed deer's home range generally does not exceed 1-mile, with most deer requiring about 500 acres of land to satisfy there habitat needs. In general, adult bucks require more space (400-1500 acres) than does (60-600 acres), but not as much as yearlings and young adults. Mature bucks may also temporarily expand their home range by as much as 300% during the breeding season when they are searching for does.
Home range shape
The size and shape of an individual deer's range differs by region and other environmental factors. Typically, white-tailed deer have an oval-shaped or somewhat linear home range. In areas that have distinctly different vegetative conditions, such as a mixture of open field and forestland, deer home range tends to be more linear, with daily movements concentrated between one habitat type and another. Regions that have less diverse habitats, such as northeastern mixed forests, result in deer with more circular home range patterns, with deer moving outward in all directions from a central point within their range.
Home range fidelity
In general, adult deer tend to use the same home ranges year after year. Social rivalry, sexual pressures, human development, and competition for food may cause any deer to abandon its familiar territory and establish a new home range. However, it is competition among yearling bucks and maternal aggression toward male offspring that causes most yearling bucks to disperse away from their mother's home range. Up to 90% of yearling bucks disperse from the area in which they lived as fawns. By comparison, only about 13% of yearling does disperse from their original range; yearling does tend to remain with their matriarchal group (mother and female relatives). Dispersing bucks will generally wander until they are accepted into a neighboring bachelor group of other bucks. Typically, dispersal of yearling bucks varies between 1-5 miles, but some bucks may disperse as much as 30 miles or more.
Regional differences in deer habitat requirements
Because climate, topography, and plant communities vary considerably across North America, so too does the habitat requirements of white-tailed deer in different regions. Areas with similar environmental conditions are typically grouped together into ecoregions. Today, white-tailed deer currently thrive in a multitude of ecoregions throughout their continental range (e.g., eastern mixed forests, midwest agricultural region, rocky mountains, southern plains). However, when discussing general habitat requirements, populations of deer can be lumped into two main categories, northern and southern regions.
http://www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerbiology/seasonalhabitatrequirementsdeer.htm
alt said to shoot the mature deer and not the fawns i believe. now why would you do that when the fawns have a less chance of survuval in harsh conditions than mature deer?
Preferred food types
Regardless of the season, deer show preferences for specific food items over others. For example,
[ul][*]Coniferous browse is less fibrous and is typically preferred over hardwood browse[/ul]
The four basic components of habitat
Habitat is simply the four major components that deer need to survive: food, water, cover and space. If even one of these principal habitat building blocks is missing where you hunt, it is likely that local deer will travel outside of your area at least occasionally.
Food
White-tailed deer have evolved to consume a large variety of foods, including herbaceous material (e.g., grasses, ferns, sedges, forbs), hard and soft fruits (e.g., apples, acorns, etc.), mushrooms, lichens, vines, woody browse (new woody growth and buds of trees and shrubs), and even dry, dead leaves and bark. For this reason, deer are categorized as both grazers and browsers. However, deer are highly-selective feeders and they choose foods that are the highest in quality and require the least amount of energy to find.
The availability of foods preferred by deer changes with each season. In fact, during times of scarcity such as drought or severe winters, any available food, preferred or not, will be consumed by deer out of necessity. Due to regional climatic differences, the foods deer prefer in your hunting area may be different from foods available or preferred in another part of the country.
Food palatability
Palatability is a measure of food preference and is based on the flavor (e.g., sweet, sour, bitter) and digestibility of an individual food item. Palatability is influenced by a number of factors:
[ul][*]Digestibility plays the largest role in determining palatability; foods that are less fibrous are easier for deer to digest and tend to have higher palatability ratings than plants with a high fiber content. Plants that are young and growing quickly are generally lower in fiber than mature plants or plant parts.[*]Taste plays a role in palatability, but it is difficult to determine what tastes good to a deer. Biologists have found that deer possess a series of chemoreceptors in both their nose and tongue that allow them to detect the chemical composition of potential food items. These chemoreceptors may also allow deer to avoid toxic plants. [/ul]
Seasonal preferences
Deer display preferences towards certain types of plants and plant parts that become palatable in different seasons.
[ul][*]During late spring and early summer, young herbaceous plants are usually abundant and often comprise over one-half of a deer's diet. [*]From mid- to late-summer, leaves of hardwood trees and shrubs make up a large portion of the diet. These abundant, easily digestible, and highly nutritious food sources begin to mature and become less desirable by early autumn. [*]By mid-autumn, acorns and other hard mast are readily available and may constitute over 50% of the daily food intake of deer. [*]Throughout the autumn and winter months, a deer's diet consists primarily of woody browse, with leaves and buds eaten more readily than twigs, and new growth eaten more than older growth. [/ul]
Preferred food types
Regardless of the season, deer show preferences for specific food items over others. For example,
[ul][*]Green and succulent herbaceous plants are always preferred over dormant, dry plants. [*]Coniferous browse is less fibrous and is typically preferred over hardwood browse. [*]Agricultural crops are usually used by deer during all seasons; the availability of these foods may significantly influence deer condition and productivity during the harshest times of year. Food plots that offer pastures of legumes, grains, and annual grasses can be important supplements to natural forages.[*]Native fruits are usually relished by deer. Many soft, fleshy fruits (e.g., apples, rose-hips, cherries, raspberries, grapes) are good sources of protein, phosphorus and calcium. By comparison, hard mast (e.g., acorns, walnuts, pecans, beech nuts) tends to be low in protein (less than 7%) but higher in fat content (75-80%). However, because mast production varies from year to year, deer must often increase their consumption of other food sources such as browse during years with low mast availability. [/ul]
As an interesting note, biologists believe that a deer's upbringing may influence food selection. Fawns have been known to mimic specific food selections of their mother; therefore, food preferences may be passed down from one generation of deer to the next.
How much food do deer require?
The amount of food a deer eats each day depends on the season and the sex and age of the deer. However, as a general rule, biologists estimate that deer require enough food to equal 2-4% of their live body weight daily (e.g., a 150 pound deer will consume 3-6 pounds of food daily).
Food consumption by bucks
Mature bucks consume the most food during mid- to late-spring (4.4-6.4 pounds/day). During this time, bucks are in their poorest physical condition of the year, having lost as much as 15-30% of their body weight over winter (mostly in the form of fat). As summer begins, bucks slightly decrease their food consumption. Once velvet is shed in early autumn, food consumption increases again until the rigors of the rut are in full swing. During the rut, bucks eat less and lose weight as they concentrate most of their energy on breeding. Food consumption may increase dramatically for a brief period immediately following the rut as bucks attempt to regain fat depleted during breeding. During the winter, bucks reduce their activity and rely primarily on body fat to sustain them through March. As a result, the amount of food eaten by bucks during winter may be 50% less than that eaten in spring and summer.
Food consumption by does
For does, daily food intake is highest in the two months just prior to the breeding season (3.0-3.5 pounds/day), then food consumption decreases steadily through autumn. Food consumption by does is lowest in mid-winter, a time when a doe's body fat may provide her with 30% of the energy she needs each day. Does begin increasing their food intake in early spring and intake rises slowly through summer, eventually peaking again in early fall.
Food consumption by fawns
In fawns, food consumption increases as their body weight increases. In other words, fawns gradually increase their food intake throughout most of their entire first year. During winter, fawns slightly decrease their food consumption compared to the amount they eat in autumn, but the decrease is less dramatic than that observed in adult deer. The main reason for this is because unlike adults, fawns store very little fat their first autumn, and therefore, must rely heavily on food to meet most of their energy requirements during winter.
Nutrient requirements of deer
Throughout the year, deer require many forms of nutrients for growth and survival. The following lists show the nutrients required by adult deer and the additional nutrients required by nursing fawns.
Nutrients required by adult deer:
[ol][*]Water[*]Energy (fats and carbohydrates)[*]Nitrogen[*]Essential fatty acids[*]Protein or amino acids (e.g., arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine)[*]Minerals
Macroelements (e.g., calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, and sulfur). These are required in large quantities.
Microelements (e.g., iron, zinc, manganese, copper, molybdenum, iodine, selenium, cobalt, fluoride, and chromium). These are required in very small amounts.[*]Vitamins A, D and E (fat-soluble) [/ol]
In addition to the above nutrients, nursing fawns also require the following:
[ol][*]Vitamin K (fat-soluble)[*]Vitamins B6, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, panthothenic acid, biotin, and cobalamin (all are water-soluble) [/ol]
During most of the year, adult deer can satisfy their minimum nutrient requirements when their diet contains 6-8% crude protein, 0.16-0.25% phosphorus, and 0.2-0.3 % calcium (on a dry matter basis). Younger deer and pregnant/lactating does require higher levels of protein (16-20%), phosphorus (0.2-0.3%), and calcium (0.25-0.5%). (Click to read our in-depth article about the seasonal protein requirements of deer)
Water
Water requirements vary with a deer's physiological state (e.g., growth, maintenance, lactation), available food sources, climatic conditions and by the amount of recent activity. Deer obtain water from three sources:
[ul][*]Preformed water - this is water contained in food[*]Metabolic water - produced internally as a product of hydrogen oxidation during metabolic processes[*]Liquid water - found in streams, ponds, lakes, puddles, snow, rain, and dew. [/ul]
Deer will only drink water or eat snow to supplement the water they receive in their food. For example, deer eating a diet consisting of succulent vegetation may drink only half the amount of water that they will when eating a diet of dry hardwood browse. In some instances, such as during pregnancy or in drought conditions in the south, liquid water is a diet staple, with deer consuming between 2-3 times as much water as food.
Cover
Bedding cover
Deer typically choose bedding locations in areas that have dense ground cover (e.g., areas with high stem density or obstructions such as fallen tree tops), that provide a good vantage point for predator/hunter detection, and that allow for quick escape on two or more different routes.
Throughout the country, deer may choose different bedding areas depending on the season, weather, time of day, proximity to food, and the degree of hunting pressure or presence of predators. As a general rule, when temperatures are warm, deer choose bedding cover in areas that provide cooler temperatures (e.g., a dense canopy for shade, in or near wetlands). When temperatures are cold, deer tend to select areas that provide warmer temperatures and protection from the wind (e.g., south facing slopes, dense conifer stands).
Deer tend to bed during the daylight hours in wooded or brushy cover at one end of their range (this is called their "core bedding area") and then move into open fields or other feeding territory at the other end of their range just prior to sunset (possibly one or more hours before dusk during winter) to forage. Then, after eating in the safety of darkness, they will bed relatively close by that feeding area for several hours, only to rise, feed again, and return back to their daily bedding area. Because deer have ruminant digestive systems (much like cows), they are able to eat as much food as they can, and then bed down in safe cover where they can regurgitate, re-chew, and digest their food.
Feeding cover
As discussed above, deer select the most nutritious food available during any given season, and thus, can be found in or near cover types where those favored foods grow.
Daytime feeding areas usually provide deer dense escape cover nearby and/or some type of ground-level visual barriers, which make deer feel more secure than they do in open habitats. For example, deer are more likely to feed in fields and food plots during daylight hours when there is dense escape cover immediately along the edges of the openings. Also, forest stands that have been heavily cut within the past 3-5 years or have a dense understory layer of stump sprouts and root sprouts can provide an excellent food source and daytime cover.
Travel cover
Each day, deer travel between bedding and feeding areas. As a result, some degree of cover within their travel routes is required for deer to move discretely in these areas. Deer often use wetland drainages and sides of ridges while moving between bedding and feeding habitat. Dense cover within these areas are often ideal places to intercept traveling deer.
Space
Spatial requirements of deer must be large enough to provide opportunity for all of life's essential activities (e.g., foraging, breeding, fawn rearing, predator avoidance). The actual physical area traveled by one individual deer during a year's time is known as its home range.
Home range size
Home ranges of deer living in open habitats are usually larger than those of deer living in heavily forested areas. Also, as the size of a deer population increases, average home range of each individual deer tends to decrease.
In any given season, the radius of a white-tailed deer's home range generally does not exceed 1-mile, with most deer requiring about 500 acres of land to satisfy there habitat needs. In general, adult bucks require more space (400-1500 acres) than does (60-600 acres), but not as much as yearlings and young adults. Mature bucks may also temporarily expand their home range by as much as 300% during the breeding season when they are searching for does.
Home range shape
The size and shape of an individual deer's range differs by region and other environmental factors. Typically, white-tailed deer have an oval-shaped or somewhat linear home range. In areas that have distinctly different vegetative conditions, such as a mixture of open field and forestland, deer home range tends to be more linear, with daily movements concentrated between one habitat type and another. Regions that have less diverse habitats, such as northeastern mixed forests, result in deer with more circular home range patterns, with deer moving outward in all directions from a central point within their range.
Home range fidelity
In general, adult deer tend to use the same home ranges year after year. Social rivalry, sexual pressures, human development, and competition for food may cause any deer to abandon its familiar territory and establish a new home range. However, it is competition among yearling bucks and maternal aggression toward male offspring that causes most yearling bucks to disperse away from their mother's home range. Up to 90% of yearling bucks disperse from the area in which they lived as fawns. By comparison, only about 13% of yearling does disperse from their original range; yearling does tend to remain with their matriarchal group (mother and female relatives). Dispersing bucks will generally wander until they are accepted into a neighboring bachelor group of other bucks. Typically, dispersal of yearling bucks varies between 1-5 miles, but some bucks may disperse as much as 30 miles or more.
Regional differences in deer habitat requirements
Because climate, topography, and plant communities vary considerably across North America, so too does the habitat requirements of white-tailed deer in different regions. Areas with similar environmental conditions are typically grouped together into ecoregions. Today, white-tailed deer currently thrive in a multitude of ecoregions throughout their continental range (e.g., eastern mixed forests, midwest agricultural region, rocky mountains, southern plains). However, when discussing general habitat requirements, populations of deer can be lumped into two main categories, northern and southern regions.
http://www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerbiology/seasonalhabitatrequirementsdeer.htm
alt said to shoot the mature deer and not the fawns i believe. now why would you do that when the fawns have a less chance of survuval in harsh conditions than mature deer?
Preferred food types
Regardless of the season, deer show preferences for specific food items over others. For example,
[ul][*]Coniferous browse is less fibrous and is typically preferred over hardwood browse[/ul]
12-30-2008, 10:23 PM
#2
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 67
RE: Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
Winter
Winter in northern regions usually brings deep snow that limits the availability of most foods to deer. As a result, the winter diet of northern deer consists almost entirely (over 80%) of coniferous and deciduous browse and bark. Dry leaves, evergreen ferns, and plants with persistent winter fruits (e.g., mountain ash, hawthorn, rose hips, sumac, and poison ivy) are also important. Following an abundant mast year, deer may paw through more than one foot of snow to find and eat acorns. Once deep snow and cold temperatures are common, any plant that provides food within or near winter cover is typically consumed first, regardless of its palatability.
In winter, northern deer experience what is called a "negative energy balance" as a result of the poor availability and quality of winter food. This means that food quality is so poor that deer are unable to eat enough food to maintain their body weight, and as a result, they loose weight (mostly fat) throughout winter.
(Research has shown that even when northern deer are provided high-quality supplemental food during winter they still loose weight.)
http://www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerbiology/seasonalhabitatrequirementsnortherndeer.htm
Because winter food is of such poor quality, deer rely on stored body fat for as much as 30% of their winter energy requirements. Additionally, deer reduce the amount of food they require by reducing their activity and by selecting winter cover that provides shallow snow depths and warmer temperatures.
Winter in northern regions usually brings deep snow that limits the availability of most foods to deer. As a result, the winter diet of northern deer consists almost entirely (over 80%) of coniferous and deciduous browse and bark. Dry leaves, evergreen ferns, and plants with persistent winter fruits (e.g., mountain ash, hawthorn, rose hips, sumac, and poison ivy) are also important. Following an abundant mast year, deer may paw through more than one foot of snow to find and eat acorns. Once deep snow and cold temperatures are common, any plant that provides food within or near winter cover is typically consumed first, regardless of its palatability.
In winter, northern deer experience what is called a "negative energy balance" as a result of the poor availability and quality of winter food. This means that food quality is so poor that deer are unable to eat enough food to maintain their body weight, and as a result, they loose weight (mostly fat) throughout winter.
(Research has shown that even when northern deer are provided high-quality supplemental food during winter they still loose weight.)
http://www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerbiology/seasonalhabitatrequirementsnortherndeer.htm
Because winter food is of such poor quality, deer rely on stored body fat for as much as 30% of their winter energy requirements. Additionally, deer reduce the amount of food they require by reducing their activity and by selecting winter cover that provides shallow snow depths and warmer temperatures.
12-31-2008, 08:31 AM
#5
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 67
RE: Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
ORIGINAL: DougE
Are you for real?
Are you for real?
12-31-2008, 08:39 AM
#6
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,262
RE: Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
I've never made any statement about any deer being opened up and finding bark and pine needles.
It's easy to see if malnutrition was a cause of death.All you have to do is brak open the femur bone.Bone marrow should be white.If it's pink or red,it means that the deer was starving to death.I have some pictures of the femurshowing red bone marrow on some deer.
You really have alot to learn about deer,the habitat and the relationship deer play with it.
It's easy to see if malnutrition was a cause of death.All you have to do is brak open the femur bone.Bone marrow should be white.If it's pink or red,it means that the deer was starving to death.I have some pictures of the femurshowing red bone marrow on some deer.
You really have alot to learn about deer,the habitat and the relationship deer play with it.
12-31-2008, 10:30 AM
#7
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
RE: Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
About the only thing the current deer management plan accomplished is that it proved beyond a doubt that the habitat could support over 1.6 M healthy PS deer. It also proved that reducing the herd and increasing the amount of food available per deer, does not assure higher breeding rates and productivity as so many claimed it would.
12-31-2008, 03:27 PM
#8
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 67
RE: Seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer
ORIGINAL: DougE
I've never made any statement about any deer being opened up and finding bark and pine needles.
It's easy to see if malnutrition was a cause of death.All you have to do is brak open the femur bone.Bone marrow should be white.If it's pink or red,it means that the deer was starving to death.I have some pictures of the femurshowing red bone marrow on some deer.
You really have alot to learn about deer,the habitat and the relationship deer play with it.
I've never made any statement about any deer being opened up and finding bark and pine needles.
It's easy to see if malnutrition was a cause of death.All you have to do is brak open the femur bone.Bone marrow should be white.If it's pink or red,it means that the deer was starving to death.I have some pictures of the femurshowing red bone marrow on some deer.
You really have alot to learn about deer,the habitat and the relationship deer play with it.
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