Guys and Gals, if you have wildlife around, put out some food for them. This winter will be a hard one for them. Here, with the thick snow cover, birds can't get to seeds that are laying on the ground, can't get to grit for their gizzards, etc. We had rain on top of snow, and there is a crust on the snow now. It's thick enough here that coyotes can run on top of the snow and not break thru.

I plowed an area, and within an hour it was covered with Slate Colored Juncos, Sparrows and other birds that were picking thru the dirt. I saw a flock of Robins in the Arborvitae trees last night, I don't know if they were there for cover or for the berries. What they are doing here now is a mystery.

Deer and Turkeys will be expending more energy finding food too. I'm putting out about 50# of whole kernel corn a week, and I could be putting out more.

I have a couple of hawks that are picking away at the deer carcasses from the last 2 deer that I shot. The pile of guts was gone in 4 days. I put a trail cam over it and the cleanup crew was a flock of crows and 2 different hawks. One I couldn't identify. It had black patches on the underside of it's wings at it's elbows like an Osprey does, but it was in the middle of the woods. It was about the size of a Redtail Hawk.

Good point Scott. I read somewhere that if you do start feeding the birds you need to keep it up through winter as they get dependent on the seed. It said some people just stop cold turkey (no pun intended) and the birds can starve.

I see I have a feral cat traversing the property and the evergreens at night. I wonder if he's getting any of the birds or rabbits. I haven't seen him but I've seen the tracks.

Been out dumping corn every weekend if I can. My Brother and his buddy dump apples and corn all fall through deer season then quit. I don't agree with the quitting part.

Many of my trails have sand that I dumped to make passable in wet times. The turkeys know right where to go for their grit.

Our larger field was in alfalfa last year and had a pretty solid growth coming into winter, but now its buried so deep the deer can't really get to it.

Our snow is quite deep and there's nothing to speak of for layers in the woods. It's all pretty loose and never really melted or packed in. I've kept my mile or so of trails passable for the Ranger and the deer are using the trails quite regularly. Not much Coyote action as they can't get on top here. Dog hunters haven't been out much either as a result.

My mom has seen bald eagles at our place for a couple weeks now. Not a common sight -- we are 25 mi from the Missouri River. They must be searching far and wide since so much of the river is frozen.

Lookin' out my kitchen window.

Deer are very adapted to harsh winters. Do not feel sorry for them and start feeding them now when you haven't been feeding them all winter. It does more harm than good. Deer are ruminants meaning they have four-chambered stomachs. Their digestion relies on a community of microorganisms to help break down and digest their food. They can processes large quantities of low-nutrient foods. Deer love corn, it's easily in their top 5 most preferred foods and is the most common food people feeling sorry for them feed them in the winter. The issue is that breaking down and digesting corn requires a very different microorganism community than what the natural food deer are currently eating requires. This means, if deer go from eating natural food to corn, they will not digest it properly. At a minimum they will get little if any good out of the feed and will simply starve more. At worst, they will die of acidosis. You ask what that is, see this article: Recent Article Elk and deer are much the same in their digestive biology and deer are just as likely to die of acidosis.

In the winter deer are primarily browsers. They are well adapted to and capable of browsing. They feed on the twigs of bushes and low growing trees as these are generally the most nutritious food source available in winter. Winter can cause to yard up because of extremely heavy snow fall that last over extended periods of time. When I say heavy, I am talking in excess of 2 feet. In general, deer and turkeys are well adapted to winter survival. See here for further info: Winter Feeding of Deer and Turkeys

So you ask what can I do to help the deer? First and foremost is to keep their numbers at a natural carrying capacity for the habitat they live in. That would be somewhere around 20-30 deer per square mile of available habitat for this time of year. The only natural predator deer have in most areas currently are coyotes. Coyotes are not overly effective predators on deer. They will prey on fawns, smaller deer and sickly deer, but generally do not prey on adult deer. That leaves hunters to control the deer population.

The other thing is habitat management. Deer like "edge" it is why you always see them at the edge of woods. Whether it be your backyard or the side of the road. Edge creates sunlight and sunlight makes deer food. Big tall mature forests are good for deer to an extent. The mature oaks trees make acorns and acorns are the #1 most important deer food. However, acorn failures happen and acorns don't last all winter. Agriculture is also a huge food source for deer in farmland areas. However, today's modern farming doesn't leave much food behind in the winter for deer to eat.

Logging, specifically clear cutting areas of forest create edge and deer food. The stumps left behind grow sprouts and deer love to eat these sprouts. Both in the spring and summer as green new growth and in winter as browse. However, it's really too late to do either population or habitat management right now.

So how can you help the deer right now? Cut some trees down! If you have any of these species: Cedar(white or arborvitae), Apple(crab or domestic), Sassafras, Red maple, Flowering dogwood, Alternate leaved dogwood, Basswood,Staghorn sumac, Elderberry, Red berried elder, Mountain ash, Highbush cranberry, Highbush blueberry, Willow species, Silky dogwood, Red osier dogwood, Honeysuckle, Nannyberry, Cucumber tree(magnolia), Hemlock, Wild raisin, Arbutus, White ash, Sugar maple, Oaks(especially of the white family), Black birch, Yellow birch, Hickory, American chestnut, Black cherry, Witch hazel, Spicebush, Choke cherry, Elm, Black walnut, Shadbush, Winterberry, Lowbush blueberry, Butternut, Black ash, Hazelnut, Wild grape, Bush honeysuckle and Leatherwood you can give deer some food.

Break out the chainsaw! Cut these trees down... When the trees fall, their tops which were well out of reach of deer are now within reach of deer. The deer can now browse on them and obtain natural food their stomachs are used to digesting. As a bonus, these trees will send up stump sprouts in the spring the deer with relish. If you want to get fancy, you can do "hinge cuts" on these trees. You basically cut the trees 75-80% through the trunk and then push it over on its side. The area of the trunk you didn't cut lets the tree live but it's now laying on its side where the deer can get access to it. In the spring, the whole tree will begin to sprout and in doing so will become prime deer food. An area of several hinge cut trees provides excellent bedding cover for deer as well.

If you must feed the deer corn. Make sure you choose a sheltered location that is near thermal cover(think hemlock, white pine, cedar, other pines, etc.) Also, you must feed them year round! This allows the microorganism community in their stomach to be capable of digesting corn or what ever other feed you choose to feed them.

Deer and turkeys are very winter hardy species and are capable of handling brutal winters, even like the one we are experiencing this year. Sometimes our best intentions can actually hurt the wildlife we love so much.

CJ I admire your passion, and I realize that everyone will have different priorities, but the idea of cutting cherry, walnut, ash, or maple just to leave it lie and feed the deer, probably won't fly very well to anyone with an interest($$$)in timber management.

On the other hand, some of those scrub varieties you mentioned sound quite plausible.

A new, or possibly uninformed property owner might be shocked to learn just how much value those seemingly all alike trees just might contain.

Oh yes, I am well aware of timber value. However, many of these trees species with value have individual trees that don't have value because they are rotted out or are already deformed. I am not an idiot and go around cutting down $500 trees for the deer to eat. Most trees I cut down are less than 8" DBH. At that size they have limited value and by thinning out the deformed lower quality trees, you sunlight the ones that are better formed and cause them to grow better. It's a win, win...

CJ, here, deer eating corn is not a big deal - they eat it all year round from the farmers fields. There is a huge difference in the way the deer meat tastes here and from the big woods in Northern Wisconsin where they only eat browse.

But, the points that you bring up is valid. I'll put out corn from the end of hunting season 'till things start to green up in the spring. I believe years ago they killed a bunch of elkk out west by feeding them hay when they ran out of food. They starved with full stomachs because the bacteria couldn't break down the hay.

Here in central Texas, even though we're experiencing a colder winter than usual, I've noticed an unusual increase in the number and types of birds in the area. I surmise this is due to the even harsher weather conditions in the north..... It currently sounds like a jungle around here.

Good points concerning deer, CJBS2003. I might add, that it can also be a danger to humans, to feed deer in a way that the deer can associate the food with humans, particularly during rut.

If anyone really wants to help deer out during the winter, they have some very good food plots for deer available. If you have the land just a 1/4 acre food plot will be the enough. 1/2 acre would be better.

You want the kind that stays green all winter like clover, oats, alfalfa etc. They have several mixtures available now days. Green leafy browse is much better for deer than sticks or woody browse.

In the long run it is much more cost effective making a food plot than putting out corn for half the year. And corn is about 6% protein compared to over 30% protein for some of the food plots.

Don't forget feeding wildlife is illegal in many areas (IL). By wildlife I referring to deer and turkey primarily. I have 3 acres of Clover and Alfalfa along with 2 acres of standing corn, 2 acres of standing beans and 2 1/2 acre brassica plots. That pretty well takes care of my deer and turkeys until spring comes along. Plus 25 acres of harvested corn field. Been seeing 9 to 11 deer in it each night for a while

Took a wheeler ride through my place last weekend- all 3 plots were pawed down. They're hitting the clover just as hard as the turnips. I'm clearing for my next pond also- been leaving the tops where it makes sense- they are hitting these shortly after I leave. I've read that deer can handle deep snow for up to 60 days without much trouble but after that is the danger zone for them. The couple thaws we had here means they'll be just fine.

I planted 1 ac of indeterminate soybeans last year, and the deer kepth them mowed to about 3" height. There's enough deer in the area that this year I'll have to put up an electric exclusion fence to hopefully let it grow large enough so they can't eat it down to the ground again.

I'll try brassicas at this property. At my place (12 miles away) the deer won't touch them, even in the middle of winter.

Mine where that way till last year (barely touch brassicas). Last year I planted ground hog radishes and with the drought keeping the natural browse way down they found the radishes and loved them. This year they where hitting the radishes in Sept/Oct long before the first freeze and kept hitting them. They are totally gone now. I still have a little corn and beans that they can get at. Keep planting them Scott they will learn to like them

We used to farm a really small patch of soybeans (couple times around the "field" and it was planted) that was surrounded all the way with woods not far from a medium sized creek that is a major deer pathway through our area. Maybe 10% of the beans would get over a foot tall. The rest the deer kept "mowed down" like esshup talked about to 3". They love the emerging trifoliates, so munch one set off and as soon as the next set emerges they get it in a day or two.

We finally gave up on growing beans in that patch and put it to corn. I was really glad when the landlord gave the ground to someone else. Of the three fields, one really big enough to be farmed economically, the deer and other critters destroyed at least a third of it each year. He always wondered why his crops did not yield as much as others he heard about but would never consider thinning out the deer "herd". And it really was a "herd". Sometimes >30 in a group. They are a menace in our creek bottom ground and do some damage in the upland.

Even in high quality deer habitat, 30 deer per square mile is about all the more deer that should make it past hunting season. Some of the parks around here have over 200 deer per square mile and are poor habitat to begin with. You can see 300+ yards the deer have over browsed the forest so much... Most areas should have around 20 deer per square mile.

Around here they are more concentrated around the creek areas. From there they cross roads and follow sloughs and seasonal streams ranging far from the creek, with open farm land surrounding the cover. So at times of the year they become more concentrated than others.

This particular area was a safe haven because it was at the confluence of streams where the county did not build roads all the way through the area because of the need for multiple bridges and flood plain. So there was a much larger undisturbed area than usual. Also it is right on the edge of the city limits so gun hunting is discouraged. Also it has city land owners that like to watch the deer, so most do not let hunt.

The perfect area for deer overpopulation. We have these type areas outside of town, but this one close to town with houses adjacent it I think is the worst.

Tree tops... Like CJ said, I've seen it. One summer a lightning strike took out a 25' top from a beautiful 65' tall tulip poplar on my property. The deer walked right through my Imperial Whitetail clover patch and wanted to get to the leaves from the poplar.

Food plots are all the rage because companies that sell seeds make big money doing so. Hinge cutting, selective cutting, clear cutting and fertilizing native/naturalized vegetation is far more important.

Having some food plots is always a good thing and it certainly can make harvesting a deer easier. However, deer even when given all they can eat, corn and high quality pellets, they will turn to native browse to fill their bellies if available.

That reminds me I better put cage material around my young sapling trees above the snow before the deer find them!

The deer seem to be staying in the woodlots though.

Agree on the corn and natural browse Travis. I recall 3 or 4 years ago when most of Texas had a rainy summer and the acorn drop was huge. Deer ignored corn feeders that year. I finally shut my feeders off because it looked like a gold mine under them.

I have wheat planted 3 different places but, given an option, they prefer the wild rye.

My turkey's seem to be doing okay!

How close did you get to them? Oh wait that was a game cam right?

Correct on the game cam, but as I went out this morning to grab the chip, I ran into about 50 turkey's walking around. They're all over the place out here!

Turkeys are worse for us on recently planted corn fields than deer. They will dig down and get what is left of the seed, eat the seed and kill the plant. When the plant gets a few inches tall they will grab it and pull it out of the ground.

Neighbor said he saw a turkey pull out a foot tall stalk of corn, and pulled so hard that it fell on its butt when the stalk came out of the ground.

A big flock can make a corn stand have big patches missing.

Deer don't seem to bother corn much till it gets corn on the cob. Between the deer and the coons small fields surrounded by trees in a creek bottom can see a lot of damage.

Quite a few Turkeys up by my property. They roost in the pine trees at night. Still need a tag to bag one.

A local resident, who was a prolific poacher in the area, understands why one should never drop the soap

The transmitter in the Turkey kinda led officials to his property! SOL!!!

The clan disbanded after this incident, and are no longer in my area

Only having 60 acres planted, this year will be corn and the turkeys are definately a problem.

Transmitters, huh?

Hmmmmm

In my state hunting over bait for deer is OK on private property. Everyone does it. Walmarts and hunting fishing stores sell bags of "deer corn". Most hunters dump corn piles all around their treestand. Its funny, you can spot the bright yellow corn piles from far away. But only if it just got put there because deer come thru and it disappears like a vacuum cleaner came by.

And our deer season is 5 months long.

And yes I agree, corn fed deer taste better and are fatter than deer isolated from the farms and bait pile hunters.

From the time it is in roasting ear stage through harvest, deer "harvest" ears off our corn surrounding any fields that are near timber. Deer and racoon's, but the coons REALLY like the roasting ear stage. Deer like it a little more mature.

Then they "browse" around the fields all winter after harvest.

Good article from the QDMA.

http://www.qdma.com/articles/how-to-provide-emergency-winter-deer-food#.UyECS5kVOoQ.facebook

Good article. More science involved than one would think.

Agreed! I'm doing some TSI now, but I'm not seeing any deer utilizing the tops. I'm still seeing deer in the fields looking for waste grain. The deer are in fields that I've never seen them in before, and they are out a LOT earlier in the day too. More deer in a herd too.

On the predator issue, a buddy drove out from Chicago Sunday morning. At 9:00 a.m. CST, he observed 3 coyotes finish their chase on a mature doe, drag her down and start feeding before she was dead. This happened not more than 2 miles East of Wanatah, Indiana, not 40 yds off of Rt. 30 in an open field. The 'yotes could run on top of the snow, while the deer broke thru with every step. Depending on the area, snow was 4" to over 12" deep. He even had the chance to stop the truck and watch for a while from 40 yd away. 2 of the 'yotes kept feeding, while one got ansy with the truck there and kept circling the other 2 and the deer, all the time looking at the truck.

Some guys that keep an eye on the deer on their property are reporting dead deer in the past 2 weeks. The majority of them are bucks that have dropped their antlers, and young small fawns from last year.

I have planted several thousand trees over the years around my pond area and the dear will strip the bark until the trees are three to four inches in dia. For this reason and others my survival rate wasn't good. I saved a lot of trees by putting some of the hanging bark back in place and tapping it all with duck tape. Anyway what I am getting at is as long as there are young trees the dear will feed on bark. And they have fed on the green needled limbs of the pines, spruces and ceders.

A while back when the snow was melted for a short period I was walking my woods and saw a group of Robbins flipping leaves up in the air and eating whatever was underneath. I never saw that before in my life.

If you live near a woods you can draw in and feed woodpeckers in large numbers. My woodpeckers wait in line to feed. Take a round log about six inches in diameter and a foot long, drill 1 1/2" to 2" holes part way into it and stuff the holes with animal grease or half animal and vegetable grease will work but not all vegetable grease. Then hang it on a tree.

John, the bark that you see rubbed off or hanging in strips is from the bucks rubbing their antlers on it, to either scrape the velvet off or more likely mark their territory. Google whitetail rubs and you'll see what I'm talking about. They will feed on the ends of the twigs - that's called browse and in many non-agriculture areas that's their main source of winter food. Even in our agricultural areas, they eat a lot of browse.

Buck rubs

John,
To protect the bark on trees I have used those white plastic wraps around the base. I have seen others use the black drain pipe. It looks terrible, but hey, so does a bunch of eaten or rubbed trees.

Otherwise I have a ton of forage as I let the brush grow in many areas of the property, and so do my neighbors.

The deer are really bunching up in fields right now, scraping for food. They are typically eating for two which is really driving them hard.

Deer do not eat bark, but cottontail rabbits will. We have a lot of issues with porcupines killing large trees by completely stripping the bark off of them. They are a real pain in the butt!

I read that piece, but the article's idea of TSI differs from what the professional forresters I deal with here in the shop advocate doing.

A few weeks ago I had a fairly long chat with one of them about TSI work. Up until that day I had a very poor opinion of TSI, which was supposedly performed about 5 years ago in our woods, while it was being timbered.

What I'm left with now is too much sunlight hitting the ground, an explosion of multiflora and other aggressive species, Ginseng won't grow in the sunlight, the mushroom hunting fell apart, and getting around in the woods is nearly impossible in many places, due to the new undergrowth. It's true that the deer love it, as it certainly provides plenty of cover.

So I launched into this guy with both barrels about the evils of TSI work. He let me finish, smiled, and proceeded to tell me why I should've let a forrester do the work instead of a logger. What stuck with me was the fact that he doesn't usually drop trees while performing TSI. He girdles them instead. He claimed that dropping trees runs the risk of damaging the good trees you're trying to favor, and it makes a mess on the ground....I can attest to that being true.

He went on to tell me that girdling the tree will kill the canopy, opening up sunlight to the remaining trees, and as the tree continues to decay while standing it will shed limbs gradually, more or less straight down, without damaging the surrounding trees.

When the trunk finally does come down there will be less chance of damage to other trees, as it's usually just a stem at that point. What he said made a lot of sense to me, and while his method won't feed those deer, it did strike me as being more of an honest attempt to protect the woods while performing TSI, rather than simply bringing down a tree to feed the deer and calling it TSI after the fact.

Tony:

Sometimes girdling the tree won't kill it. An easier way is "injecting" the trees. Take a hatchet that has a blade that has about a 1" cutting surface. Chop deep into the bark and into the cambium layer all around the tree, leaving bark between the chop marks 1" wide or less. Use a squirt bottle, (spray bottle set on stream) give each cut a squirt with Picloram, Crossbow, etc. Use a chemical that has been proven to be effective. (I have a book that tells me what works on what species of tree, and how much to use per inch diameter of stem).

You can do that any time of the year except when the sap is really flowing in the spring. It works exactly like he explained, killing the tree, not any of the surrounding ground, and letting the stem become habitat for woodpeckers, etc.

You can also hinge cut smaller trees (6"-10" DBH) and tip 'em over. Those don't do a lot of damage as they come down (you can direct them easily by how you cut) and they'll grow, sending up branches that the deer & turkeys will use for cover and food.

You can also basal spray thinner barked, younger trees with a chemical (again, the book that I have lists what works for what species) to kill them. No cutting the bark is required, just walk and spray the stem all the way around it for a 4"-6" wide band.

Scott,

I found it easier to use a chainsaw to griddle and then spray Tordon RTU into the cut. The tree is toast at that point. I didn't find anything that Tordon didn't take out. I had a lot of black locust coming up in my wildflower/prairie grass planting along the pond. Last fall I when in and cut all of them down and immediately after painted the stumps with Tordon RTU and I don't expect to see those trees back. I am planning on burning it in the next couple of weeks. Waiting for it to dry out a little more and the right day. Sorry for the slight hijack.

Mark, I used almost 15 gallons of Picloram (4-Amino-3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinecarboxylic acid) last summer when I removed a dense stand of River Birch on a 9 acre area of woods. Couldn't drop 'em because of the understory of trees that had to be saved so they could take over the same area. Same as Tordon, 'cept stronger and you have to have a license to buy it. I thought about using a chainsaw, but after talking to a retired forester, he convinced me of the error of my thoughts.

About 60 hrs of chop/squirt.

I will have to remember Picloram as I have had one maple tree I had to griddle three times before it died. THat is the only tree in thousands that didn't die the first time. I have a license so no issue there.

Thanks all for the info about dear not eating the bark. I would have never of guessed it was from the bucks rubbing their antlers on the trees. I put up scare crows trying to keep the dear away from the trees. We don't have many rabbits anymore but what few we did have were hard on the trees when they were small. However the duck tape on the damaged part of the trees did save many of them. I assumed the dear were eating the bark because they were biting off limbs of the spruce and pines. It looked like a bite and not an antler rubbing because the cut was clean and sharp like they had been sheared off.

John, clipping of twigs is generally also a sign of mating behavior during the rut. It will usually be accompanied by a scraped out area under the clipped twigs where the buck urinates to advertise his availability to the does.

I have heard of der stripping and eating bark during hard times but mostly agree that what you are seeing during the fall is rubbing. It's like a sign post and will often be accompanied by other rubs on his travel route.

Thanks Dave. In this picture I was just trying to figure out the biting of the limbs.

John, that looks like mating behavior. They often break off small branches with their antlers. They can get quite vigorous when they start rubbing. They often do this to rub the velvet off the newly hardened antlers. The rubbed area is of a lighter color than the bark and is easy for other deer to see.

This is called a rub. The area under an over hanging branch that is void of leaves and grass is called a scrape. It doesn't appear that he scraped that area.

These are generally advertisements for the opposite sex.

Some people say that the bigger the tree that gets rubbed; the bigger the buck. I have not found that to be always true.

I think that is why the sprial plastic tree protectors work. Not only do they help prevent damage by having a protective layer, but the deer see it and it looks already marked so they leave it alone.
The deer here demolish my young pines when rubbing, and target trees that have no branches to get hung up on antlers. My apple trees I have trained low and stubbly. No nice straight trunks and they are left alone. When I started them, I caged all of my trees until they were well above eating height.
Even then they get me. Had a nice white birch, and it was time to take off the fence. Tree was about 9 feet tall, so I took off the fence to put on the protector. I forgot to put on the plastic that night, and the next dang day it was rubbed all the way around! Boy that makes me about as mad as I can get! I had to chop the tree off at the base of the rub, and see if I can recue it. I grew that one from a seedling, and it was just getting pretty. It is my fault, but at least give me a few hours to protect it!

Liquidsquid I was as mad as you when the deer would destroy or mutilate a nice tree that I had planted from a sapling and had grown to a nice tree about 6 to 10 years of age. The deer were particularly hard on my Yellow Popular, White Pine and Norway Spruce but seemed to leave alone my Black Walnut and River Birch.

Thanks for the info on the deer you guys. I didn't know this stuff.

We had a small stunted pine that a buck would beat the crap out of if in the fall if we didn't protect it with something. I wanted to whack it, but my dad -- who lives on the property in an apartment above my garage -- wanted to give it some time even I know it stayed the same size every year. Anyway, one year we forgot to protect it and a buck mangled it so bad it was beyond help. I got my wish and cut it off just above ground.