You realize that cracked corn is just corn that has been crushed, right?

Yes, but by cracking the corn you break the shell and then the internal part of the kernal becomes available to the animal. Not all animals' digestive systems can process whole kernal corn. I feed cracked corn to my chickens but I think waterfowl can digest whole corn.

http://www.animalrangeextension.montana.edu/articles/wildlife/deer_tough_love.htm

I can assure you the corn is cracked by the time it gets to their stomach. You can hear the kernels cracking from 30 yards away when they are feeding.

Feed, feed, feed, feed and keep feeding. I feed my deer 365 days a year everything from corn to citrus pulp...

I would put it out, they don't HAVE to eat it!

That was my point as well Critr. They are quite capable of doing their own "cracking".

Thanks Ray!

The key concept for folks to remember here is the difference between supplemental feeding as a low percentage of the deers diet vs. a sudden replacement of the deers food base. The former is fine, and can be helpful to improve condition coming out of winter, but the latter is never good no matter what species you are talking about. As with most things, common sense must be applied.

Deer are like all rudmens, they will need to have the source allwinter to keep the bacteria in their guts for fermenting the grain. Dont feed all at once, put out a little at a time. The deer and other critters will love it, just dont cut them off until other brows starts taking off.