Our property is apparently right in the middle of the daily migration of a small herd of deer. We usually see them pass through in the am heading south and then back through in the evening heading north to bed.

There's a small doe that has been hanging around on our property the past few days by herself. Not doing the usual migration. We haven't seen any other deer with her (or a fawn for that matter, although I think she is too young/small). Our property is tree lined and she stays in the trees mostly but has been wandering out into our yard all hours of the day. There doesnt appear to be a thing wrong, other than she is staying around, something I haven't seen in the 5 years we've been here. I have 2 Aussie pups and they have barked and chased her into the trees a couple times but that doesn't seem to bother her, she emerges an hour or so later and continues to graze.
Thoughts?

Jeff-

Her mom has recently given birth to her new fawn(s). She probably gave her doe fawn from last year the boot for the time being... In a couple weeks they will reunite when the newly born fawn(s) are a bit bigger. I wouldn't worry about the doe. She probably wasn't mature enough to breed last year, so she has no fawn or her own this year. This fall she'll be ready to breed and will do her own thing.

Thats kinda what we were figuring. She definately had that lost wander going on. Time to grow up litle girl.


Jeff-

She'll be good eating this fall... If she doesn't learn, put her on the table.

Finally got close enough to see more than a flash of white dissappearing into the tree line, turns out my little doe is a little buck. Sorry little dude, my bad.

Momma probably kicked him away from her when she had the fawn(s) this year. He's probably wondering what the hell happened to make Momma that mad at him. He's on his own for the first time in his life and is trying to figure out what's safe and what's not.

He has been away from his mama every since she kicked him away in October of last year when she went into estrus. This is prolly his new home area/summer area. If you have good summer food/cover that is why he is there. Put a trail camera out if you have one, normally bucks are in groups this time of year. You prolly have more then him hanging around.

How is the best way to attract deer? I have some that pass by based on tracks and an random sighting.

Cover, water, and food. A minerial block may help depending on the natural availability of minerials in your area.

Much of it depends on how much of an effort you want to put into it... Some just dump a bag of corn out in their backyards. Deer love corn, plain and simple. If you have extra open acreage, the planting of a food plant will be more beneficial to the deer in the long term and will attract them just as well if the right plants are planted.

Much of it depends on how much land you own and how your land is laid out... Then you can work with what you got to make it more attractive to deer, doing the big three that RAH mentioned.

What you are seeing a picture of is a simple food trough I made at the rear of our 7 acres. I feed corn and deer pellets and sweet feed mixture. Not everyday, and not hardly at all during the summer months (I have enough pets to feed here at the house). The raccoons eat most of it but the deer do stop by. If they are hungry and it is there, they will be attracted to it.
I have tried food plots around the feeder without much success, they lightly graze through it but dont really seem interested.

You are probably getting much more activity than you realize, I really nice game camera can be huge fun! (even a cheap game camera can be revealing but they are often very tempramental).

Jeff-

Many who plant food plots don't think the deer are utilizing them much... That is until they put up a test enclosure, say a 4' high fence that is 3'-4' round. Then they quickly see what their food plot would look like if the deer weren't eating it! Knee high and lush while the rest of the food plot is ankle high and mowed over... It's telling!

Here, there is little to no grass, and deer were eating peanut plants so much that they had a special hunting season and you could even spotlight the deer.

Is that a glass jar on the post above the trough? What's that for?

A plastic peanut butter jar. Picked up some out-of-date jars for free and cut the bottoms out. nailed the cap to the post and screwed the bottomless jar to it. Like everything around here, the coons made off with most of it. They wear masks for a reason.

Jeff-

One of the highlights of our VERY hot summer has been seeing the wildlife come to the pond to drink. Two days ago (late afternoon), we actually saw an owl sitting on the far bank drinking.

We have one doe that has been bringing her fawns in for several weeks now. They prefer the fresh birdbath water to the stale water in the pond.