Dan O.

Based on the weather that we' ve been getting and the snow on the ground 3-4' has anyone started supplemental deer feeding? We' re almost at the middle of March and it hasn' t stopped snowing since December in some areas. There was a lynch mob out today near my property who wanted to make stew out of the weather grounhog (Wiarton Willie).

Dan O.

Tree climber

no snow here Dan; LOL . yes,I feed year round to help the heard.
we have 6 feed stations all the time.for the past 5 years we have had extra dry weather,and about mid Nov. there is not much left for the deer,hogs,and turkeys .so we help them out.[:-]

Dan O.

Here; we feed in March & April just to keepthe deer alive. There' s no sign of deer on my property as they' re still in the winter yard. I' m not BSing when I say the drifts are 10+ ft high along lake Huron.

Dan O.

lunchbucket

Careful with that supplemental feeding!!!

Dan O.

lunchbucket; the only time I would agree with supplemental feeding is if the deer has stripped the food in their yard and the feeding is the only way to keep them alive in an " abnormal" winter. Otherwise nature needs to take it' s course.

Dan O.

lunchbucket

DanO, thats how it origonally started in Michigan. The guys would go into the cedar swamps and cut trees fo the deer to browse. Next thing ya know there are dump trucks loads of carrots all ober the woods....

Dan O.

lunchbucket; do you get much winter kill of deer in Michigan? I' d think that the climate in the north would be much like Manitolin island.

Dan O.

SwampTHING

Manitoulin doesnt get as much snow as the U.P.. U.P. gets upwards of 8-10' on the ground, Manitoulin usually 4 or 5. Manitoulin has land to the north,, not Superior(it actually froze over this year)!!

Michigan also has, or (not 100% sure possibly) had winter supplemental feeding for whitetails,, DNR has lost theyre minds in recent years and have wiped out the population almost everywhere!

farm hunter

Hello Dan - I resonded on your other post similarly -

Feeding is Illegal in NY this year for the first time (CWD Concerns) - Still I see alot of people feeding corn. I count anywhere from 30-70 deer on my 11 mile ride home from work almost every evening, many are near areas where people have been feeding.

Personally, I do not feed - at least not supplementally. The corn plantings we leave standing do help alot on our property, and are usually all gone by April (5-7 acres each year). Hopefully by then, the snow has receeded enough to expose the clover fields again, and then its just a couple weeks till " green-up" . I' m sure we are losing some deer by not supplementaly feeding - but feeding must be maintained religiously - or you' ll lose more deer. Also - feeding deer attracts coyotes - and predation increases as a result - especially in areas of deep snow, without alot of thermal cover. Not to mention- its ILLEGAL IN NY.

It sounds creul - But most of NY could benefit by a major winterkill this year, especially in light of the fact that CWD could become a reality in the not too distant future. Even though our area was higher than normal for snowfall, (about 160" ytd for us so far) - some areas only got 50-80" , while still higher than normal for them, is not much as far as the deer are concerned - and winterkill will be low as a result in those areas. The kicker in most of NY was the continued cold weather - literally all the snow that fell since the end of Nov, was still on the ground up until very recently - the depth & cold has been the issue this year.

farm hunter

Dan - I wanted to mention about your 10 ft drifts this year - I beleive you wholeheartedly. I wish I' d taken pictures when our snow was at its deepest,
but I failed to. One windswept road we have, thats famous for its snowbanks
in a normal winter - had 15 ft+ banks - 20 ft deep, where they were winged back.
I took a picture Sunday while driving it, you can see the banks are still 8- 10 ft plus -
(road signs are at about 8 ft for comparison) but the temps had been 60 degrees for two days.