Winter Browsing
 

The fall mast crop in my area was pretty limited this past year. As evidence I attached a couple of photos of one of my flower beds and the yard in front of it. The bed includes hostas and vinca which are plants that normally keep their green leaves year-round. The deer ate the hosta leaves months ago, well before we had any snow cover. Now they are working on the vinca. They are always eating the hostas but this is the first winter that I have seen them eating the vinca in the 12 plus years I have owned this place. On top of that, I am in a CWD DMA and the PGC does not allow us to provide any supplemental feeding for the wildlife. They say it concentrates the deer too much and will only help the spread of CWD. I guess my flower beds and what's left of the local ag fields don't do that? Right...

My neighbor raises beef cattle and puts out hay for them during the winter. I'll bet there's lots of deer tracks around that too.

I've already done some of this but I also plan to cut some more of the smaller maples on my property to provide at least a little more browse. They're not much good for anything else.

I'm also planning to plant corn for the first time in my two acre field this coming spring/summer.

The snow pushes them to places they wouldn't usually go also.

I'm seeing allot eating on the edges of the highway where the snow is cleared back a little.

RIGHT on the edge.

- jake

My guess is they are after the salt residue from treating the highways for snow/ice.

That could be. They aren't touching my salt block at all right now

- jake

If you have cedar cut some limbs down. Dear eat that in winter. Not a ton of nutrition but they gravitate to it when there is snow on the ground.