ostdc

If you figure that 200lbs of mineral mix costs you $23, and that should be enough to keep 2-3 licks charged for two years, hmmmm, that runs less than $6 per lick per year. Sounds like a decent insurance policy to me. I think that if the deer are using it and there is a potential benefit for them, I'll spend the $6.
Criggster, can you show me your $6 food plot?
Brian

Criggster

I can show you a tree food plot that I completed a few weeks ago that cost me nothing! LOL I enrolled in a conservation program that paid me to clear a stand of brush and timber and plant 300 trees and shrubs. This will benefit the deer a lot more than mineral licks, and will provide them with browse, berries, nuts, and fruit.

I plan to plant a food plot next year due to time constraints this year. And, it will benefit the deer more than a mineral lick. They will use it year round as opposed to seasonally. Iwill not deny that mineral licks do provide some benefits, but theywere not noticable to me!I'm sure that with the trees and a good year-round food plot the results will be much more noticable and longer lasting.

sean600classic

My low cost mineral licks supplement my food plots. It's a sum of the parts that, in time, should help produce a healthy mature deer herd.

slobbyrobby33

Thanks Sean600. I see to many guys that put out minerals,food plots, or crops , etc... etc.. and they expect mirecals. Its takes a few years to get a noticible difference. The first things we saw were in the size of the racks of the yearlings and 2 year old bucks and the size of the does. I am taking that the young bucks are being helped by mama before they were born and the fact that the does taught them to go after the minerals. After 4 years we are starting to see some size difference in mature bucks that have been seen in years past with smaller racks.

The farm I hunt has had a lot of presure hunting for quit a few years. There has also been some very poor genetics ( that have been culled out), an over abundance of does, that have also been culled, and over hunting.. As you said Sean600, it is the sum of the whole. If the deer did not need the minerals they would not use it. My minerals are not offered in any kind of sweet feed, they are just the minerals. that should tell you something. I also do not hunt over my mineral licks, I want the deer to have access to these with out fear of any kind.

Like I said in earler post I hunt in some of the best farm land in Missouri and the deer on this farm have been poor despite that fact. So I do belive that the minerals are working. the only thing we have done on this farm in 4 years is add the mineral licks and change some of the food plotts around.

dano59

I would like to see the results of an independent study showing the results of mineral licks on our deer herd.