I' ve seen plenty of deer eat plenty of hickory nuts. I don' t know what variety they were....one of my best stands a few years ago was in a grove of hickory trees...the deer do eat them and regularly in my area. This year is bad around here for acorns and beechnuts, there is no mast food in this area. From what I' ve seen the deer are eating a lot of beech buds/leaves, wild blueberrys/bushes, and wild cherry' s.....basically surviving off of browse. I sure hope we don' t get another hard winter, there will likely be a winter kill if we do.