Wake up FarmerRick, your neighbor doesn't want you to draw deer from him with corn. Deer love corn (especially in winter) and they will choose it over almost anything except acorns.
Greg Grimes, you're right on the money...CWD is MUCH more of a political disease than biological. EHD/Blue Tongue kills many thousands more deer in a year than CWD does in a century. The Feds had to come up with a way to regulate interstate deer movement and CWD was their ticket. Deer cannot transmit EHD/BT to each other, so animal concentration has little to no impact. CWD, quasi-viral prions, could possibly be spread deer to deer by any of the body fluids; but is most commonly shed in feces. Given rarity of CWD in most regions, I wouldn't worry about it (unless your in an endemic hot zone).
Aflatoxins (molds) ARE the main threat to feeding any whole grains (including peanuts) to wildlife but you can stay clear of that by bying mycotoxin-tested & treated corn (commercially bagged; cleaned whole shelled corn).
I have cleaned a thousand deer in my career between hunting, harvest sampling & necropsy and they all had stomachs(rumens)jam-packed full of some type of forage. Gorging is part of being a selective browser (especially mature bucks).
I have several hundred captive whitetails under my care and they are all offered unlimited, free-choice deer chow with corn daily. In Texas we also feed wild deer free-choice corn & deer pellets in gravity feeders throughout large ranges, year-round. In past 19 years, haven't seen one eat himself to death yet.
Spin feeders set 0n 7-10 seconds twice daily are great for attracting deer.
By the way esshup, white-tailed deer experience "neophobia" when presented with any food that is previously unknown or unsampled. They are imprinted on what to eat the rest of their life in first 2 mos of life by the doe, then build associated microbial cultures for rumen fermentation process. When confronted with an unknown, they will avoid or just nibble at it to assess digestibility. You would be hard pressed to find a deer in N.A. that hasn't been exposed to corn at some point.
Feed the deer corn in cool/cold mos and enjoy them!
