dog food
01-06-2004, 05:17 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: hollidaysburg pa. USA
Posts: 40
dog food
do you think deer would eat good quality dog food if it was mixed with one of the popular attractants? most hunters can not afford to keep the feed out there to keep them there come fall. i was just wondering if this would be an efective way to make your feed go farther?
01-06-2004, 07:51 PM
#3
Typical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Pikeville, Tennessee
Posts: 592
RE: dog food
Well, here it is illegal to bait the deer after 2 weeks prior to the season. There are a lot of people that still bait them during the season(I don't agree with breaking the law) but they always tell me that a pile of corn is about the best attractant that you can get. It is realtively cheap too. It is cheaper than dog food and it would actually work. It is running about 3.50 dollars for a fifty lb bag.
01-07-2004, 03:59 AM
#5
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fredericksburg Virginia USA
Posts: 13,672
RE: dog food
Well if you read the ingrediants on most cheap dog food it is mostly corn or some other form of grain, I don't see why they wouldn't eat it, but as others have said there are cheaper things out there like corn.
01-07-2004, 05:24 AM
#6
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Missouri USA
Posts: 5,420
RE: dog food
I would suggest in not doing that, Most dogfoods have meat by products, bone meal, and other things in it that what the experts say cause Mad-Cow disease, since deer and cattle are both ruminants deer may be susceptible to Mad-Cow disease. Corn is cheaper and I know they like it.
01-07-2004, 06:27 AM
#8
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Kerrville, Tx. USA
Posts: 2,722
RE: dog food
As a veterinarian who knows a little about dog and deer (ruminant) nutrition, I would not recommend it. Yes, they definately will eat dog food, but as stated corn is cheaper. The biggest reason though, would be the makeup of the dogfood. It is too high in protein (which is one of the reasons it is more expensive). It has much more protein than any natural source they eat and if they ate a substantial amout of dog food, I can imagine that it would adversely affect the bacterial content of their "rumen" or digestion vat in which bacteria digest their food for them.
01-07-2004, 11:56 AM
#9
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Dunkirk MD USA
Posts: 283
RE: dog food
my step brother has pictures of deer that have entered the chain-link dog cage in his backyard (while the pooch is inside his house) and are eating dog food out of the bucket ...so my vote is that dog food will work (probally not good as corn though).