RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Sproul, did you just put in the Alfalfa this year?

Guys more experienced at this food plot thing than me say that deer sometimes take a while to start utilizing newly planted species even though deer elsewhere seem to love em. I know we planted turnips on our place for the first time this year.They are supposed to turn sweet after good hard freeze but the deer didnt bother withem much till well into January butonce they started, theyflat out mauled em.

This is a guess but ifyour deerarent used to Alfalfa, it may take aseason or two to get em going on it. Deer in the midwest love the stuff but once it frosts hard, they back way off of it and move on the other sources.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

I'm not sure but I think he may be referring to feeding bales of alfalfa hay. It would be almost impossible to grow a good crop of alfalfa in 2G.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

"Can't speak for all of 2A but the I-70 corridor is just teeming with deer. Our light was gone by quickly as we came into PA but we managed to see a dozen plus groups of deer numbering as few a s 2-3 to a dozen or more.


I-70 is the border between 2A and 2b, so unless you saw all of them on one side of the road, you saw deer from both wmus... Course im sure you'll say they were ALL on your right side coming back, just to show how wrong i am! (LOL). Also thats far from Greene. Also far farther north that our boundary SHOULD run with responsibly smaller wmus. But believe it or not, deer here also have survived.;) Even if there arefar fewerinmany sections ofgreene in areas that far from recovered from ehd.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

My neighbor buys alfalfa pellets and feeds them to his elk,I don't know if deer would eat them or not.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Ive tried alfalfa pellets to feed deer one winter, along with alfalfa hay. Totally ignored while corn and sweet feed were inihalated.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

I know deer will eat the horse pellets that are sweetened with molasses, once they discover that they are edible. i don't know of anyone that fed pure alfalfa pellets to deer.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

The alfalfa "pellets" I had were pretty large, more like 2.5 x 1.5" chunks of pressed alfalfa. Suckers were hard as rocks. Didnt know it when I bought them. I wasnt surprised that the deer didnt eat them. They were for horses, and deer would need the teeth of a horse to eat em. :D

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Actually you are wrong. we did see deer on both sides. Both sides of 70 are in 2A between the Ohio Line and 79. All the deer seen were between the Ohio line and exit 15 in Washington where I dropped my buddy at his car and we grabbed some dinner. As I said, after that it was dark so we saw no more deer that night.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

this is bales ,bob.

deer are totally scared to death of it.

they avoid it and will stay away from feeder with it around.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Must be because it's foreign to them. If there was nothing else ther and they get hungry, I bet they'd try it and then they'd be all over it.

I just know they love the live stuff till the frost makes it bitter:D

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

I have to learn how to put pics on here.

i put that alfalfa in yard,

1 night the fox hid in it and got one of my rabbits.:(

his lady was not as lucky,i decked her,he is next;)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

We had almost the same results with the turnips. We also planted them this year. The deer hit the tops first. Then later in the year,mopped up the turnips.[/align]

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

How many acres of turnips did you plant?

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

BB, don't know if you are asking me or BTB?
If it is me you are asking,we plantend about 3/4 acre size plot.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

on this nice day i did some walking for about 1 hour ,turned off feeders feed on ground no sign of deer.
didnt put out the bag of beet greens with molases they didnt eat that either didnt see any deer or sheds.
I did see 1 big old rabbit. I am guessing that all my deer went down the mountain where they can eat grass
out of lawns . i will see later i guess;)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Went out to Dad's place for a little while and swapped a trailcam card. 144 pictures on it! Unfortunately, I'd hadthe flash disabledwhenI had it out during the season and never turned it back on when I moved it after season.Actually got about 20 decent shots. All does and fawns but they all look to be in very good shape:D

My oldest son is on spring break so I've drafted him into clearing outsome brush from asunny spot in dad's woods so we can create a small food plot where the deer normally stage in the evenings in October:D

Nother great day in PA!

Maybe I'll get up to camp and plant some alfalfa for the birds this weekend

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Plenty of alfalfa farther down the valley from my camp. Used to be more along that road, but the farmers arehell-bent on corn these days and converted some of those hayfields to a "cash crop". Some of the alfalfa gets baled, but most now is chopped for feeding.

Two farmerskind of got ahead of themselves, since they planted more corn last year than they had storage or marketsfor. Probably over 30 acres still standing when I went back up for a funeral after Christmas.

My 5 acrehayfield is mostly clover, timothy and orchard grass now. Hasn't hadmuch done to it in over 30 years,nary evena drop of cow manure in the past 15 yearsor so, since my cousin sold his dairy herd. Still turns out a few hundred square bales each summer though, or a coupla dozen round balesin a good year. Last year it got round baled early and square baled for the second cutting.

Most of the clover is up high, next to the woods. Right handy for the deer to chomp on in the evenings. If the hay is taken off early enough like it waslast summer, then the "second growth"clover does very well up there.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Is your camp located in 2G or are you just trying to muddle the issue? What is the alfalfa that is baled used for?

That corn wasn't harvested because the fields were too wet for the equipment. There was a market for all the corn produced last year.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Interesting. Just the other day, a self declared "expert" told me it was impossible to grow alfalfa in 2G:D

30 acres of corn left standing, Wow! That was an expensive mistake. I don't know what kind of yeilds they get up that way but even at 100 bushel/acre, thats 15k worth of corn left for the deer!

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Interesting........You don't know where Denny's camp is but you somehow know why the farmers left their corn standing

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

With the price of corn at $4.00 a bushel, why would any farmer leave his crop in the field to be eaten by deer ,if it wasn't for the conditions that prevented him from harvesting it?

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

I know of one farmer down here that usually harvests in late october who lost his 40+ acres this year due to conditions.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

First, corn was at $5 and above for most of last fall.

Lack of storage, and dryer availability, and yes, spotty gluts in localized markets all could account for corn left standing. It could also be a simple matter of waiting for better pricing only to have it made worthless for harvest by mother nature.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

You are just blowing smoke. Farmers didn't have to dry or store their corn last year. They could transfer it directly from the picker to trucks that would haul it. the only reason farmers would leave the crop in the field to be eaten by deer, coon and crows is because he couldn't get in to harvest it.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

It's in 3A, but fail to seea majordifference where alfalfa is concerned, since it's a mere 25 miles north of the 2G boundary, Rt. 6.

I figure that corn was brought in at some point, once they had a place to put it? Neither apparentlyhad a place for it by the end of deer season, as some was in the fields when I left on the Sunday after the seasonclosed.Some was still standing by Christmas.

Neither farmer wanted it for anything but cattle chow, although one often swaps some ofhis own shelled corn for other grains, when having cow feed custom-ground.Last fall when I was up, that one was busy filling triaxles with shelled corn from the combine. Both also fill several silos with corn silage.

Both have dairies around 100 producingcows or thereabouts. One also raises Belgian pulling nags and has about a 30-40 count beef herd. Much of the alfalfa is chopped to feed; some is put into long plastic storagebags, some is square baled on one farm.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

You really should stick to subjects where you have some clue. Much of last years corn crop had far too high a moisture content on the stalk at harvest time. Many farmers had to dry their corn, or, in the case of smaller operationswait for availablity for dryers.

When you see a picker transfer the harvested corn to trucks, that doesnt mean it's ready for market. It must still be dried if the moisture content ishigher than 15-18%or it will mold or rot in transit or in storage. It was a very real problem last year.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Wrong again sport. once the corn is loaded in a truck itis no longer the responsibility of the farmer. while it is true he may had to dry the corn he retained for feed , it had nothing to do with the corn he sold as it was harvested.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

You are really amazingly arrogant as well as ignorant. Everything I posted here was straight from the farmers mouth.I'm done trying to teach the pig to sing. Do yourhomework and take a little time to learn about subject before youspew and spout. It's a shame you seem to feel a need to create an arguement so badly that you try to do it where there need not be one and where you obviously have very limited (if any) knowledge.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

. ...Kinda funny how one comment made by bb to DENNY aboutCORN! (LOL)caused you to start yet another argument, because noone else is ever right about anything. Guess you wont be happy until you have ALL the threads locked.[:'(]

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

LOL, the current locked thread score stands at BB 2 and Corny 1

Did you even read the nonsense posted here before jumping in to defend your hero?

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

March/11/09 Was a great day to be outdoors! Warm morning temps,fresh air and the sounds of spring. Sparrows,Gold Finch,Crows,Woodpeckers,Cardinals,Robins and of course Wild Turkey.Turkeys where very vocal this morning,both male and females. Spent close to three hours in the woods. Didn't come across any sheds. Did find a shell from a Box Turtle and found two Thunder Head tipped 2117 aluminum shafts. From the looks of these shafts,someoneearlier in the year,had some action.With less than desired results. The shafts where less than 6ft. apart and no evidence of a hit from either arrow. [/align]

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Several years ageI found a box turtle in my field, neat little guys.

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Yeah they are Jim! Two years ago my loving,caring wife thought she was doing me and Box Turtle a favor. She was coming home from the store and found one on the road. Well she brings it home with her and puts the Box Turtle in our garden pond that I built right off the patio. When she had told me this, I said that's nice dear. But Box Turtles don't live in water! She said, I was wondering why it was on the road? I said besides, you go one about how beautiful the water lilies are. I told her,turtles would eat the Lilly tubers.She said, I'll put it back where I found it, but off the road. Good idea dear![/align]

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

we had boss at work that almost all hated.

we took a SNAPPER turtle and put in his locker on top shelf.

he opened the locker, we were all sitting there and out came that big turtles neck with mouth wide open..
i thought i was going to pee myself laughing.


i then took turtle and wrote his name on back with a crayon and i released it.

about week later,in came bigshots from new york city headquarters.

the president said in front of 500 of us.

he said, HEY WHO IS MARVIN :eek:

well up stood MARVIN with his hand raised, he even brushed his teeth that day expecting to kiss some butt:)

he said,YES SIR, I AM MARVIN.

well, president said, WHILE DRIVING IN ROAD HERE WE SAW A TURTLE WITH YOUR NAME ON HIS BACK.

you should have heard the laughter,oh my gosh.:)

next day he swore he would get me fired, if he could.


now thats a TURTLE story.;)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Might've been even more fun iff'n you'd have caught a snapper Sproul!

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

let me go back and correct that,IT WAS SNAPPER TURTLE.;)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

You must have caught him on a good day Sproul! Them snappers can be a little ornery![/align]

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

i use stick,when he bites it, i pick them up that way.

we used to have one as big as a garbage can lid.

i had doghouse for him and he ate a whole dozen of eggs per day.

that was about 1965,boy, those were days.:)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Did you ever make soup from one? I never made it myself, but had some that someone else made. It was very good.:)

RE: Its a great day in PA
 

Tried cooking one once. A royal pain to clean and after cooking all day it was still bulletproof[:'(]. Must be some trick no one told us about