Most mineral suppliers insinuate that their product can help with antler growth and fawn nursing. - but alas - they can only insinuate because most every serious study on mineral licks is inconclusive. Note I didn't say it didn't work, but only that its very hard, if not impossible to prove as such.

Intuitively, it seems that a product that offers Phosphorus, calcium, etc - can only help with antler growth.......right? Thats why they can market the product and make some money - and not even lie - because the results are inconclusive.

The truth is - that its a little more complicated then "lick up the good stuff..... and your antlers grow - or the fawn gets more nutrients".

Think about this for a moment - a deer spends time at a lick, gets a good bit of it - and probably a good bit of salts as well (heck we crave salt too) - but unfortunately - the deer now becomes thirsty - and needs to drink. Often times you even hear to locate a salt block or pit near water for this very reason. So now the animal drinks water and "fills up". While it doesn't sound like a problem on the surface - if the lick was not available - the deer would tend to "fill up" on more high quality Spring Browse and obtain the same minerals from their intake instead filling up on water. Also, those minerals in a plant are much more easily taken into a deer's system during digestion than swallowing loose minerals. And more importantly -protein, and carbohydrates are stockpiled.

Same with nursing does - salt is good for them, because it helps them to drink more water, that is obviously needed to produce milk.Minerals provided to lactating deer can only help............right? One would thinkso - but a deer cannot stockpile minerals in their system,so excess minerals like sodium, phoshorus,calcium, etc - jast passes throght the deer (same with bucks & antler growth). So if the available food is such that mineral supplements are not needed...............you are just wasting time & money - and possible attracting deer to a lick site that could make them more suceptable to predation and/or disease.

I think that those of us that have hunted a while - have run into a year that was "dry" - maybe even drought-like - and antler growth suffered (as well as fawn survival). In a "wet year" - plants tend to grow more, and better - and can much more extract needed minerals (for deer) from the soil. In those years antler growth tends to "boom". Unless something has changed - mineral supplements have not shown to have the same effects for antler growth in a "dry year".

Maybe it makes more sense to lime, fertilize& irrigate instead of providing mineral licks?

All that said - I wish we could legally use salt or mineral licks in NY- if for no other reason -than to slow down & attract deer for the trail cam and help us with our summer surveying.

FH