How is your Emergency Deer Feeding Going?

[rocstar]

Just curious what experience those involved with the Emergency Deer Feeding program are having? I have been out in the woods the past three weekends in my area and things don't look good in my mind. Crotch deep snow makes it really tough for getting around for man and animal. Luckily I have some pretty nice groomed trails that get me back some three miles off the highway. Have put out some feed but the deer I am seeing really are not taking to it yet. Maybe that will take awhile but as much as I hate to say it, I am more with the group, including the DNR, that thinks its a waste of money. It is, however, a good excuse to get out in the woods.

[Bear55]

Find the loggers, deer will follow them around in the winter. I know a few guys dropping food near active logging sites and its getting cleaned up pretty fast.

[smsmith]

I didn't participate in the DNR/MDHA feeding because I'm in central MN. However, I've been feeding the deer on my place since the first week of January. They all look healthy, and the older does are starting to get "fat". I hope that thanks to my feeding they all drop twins this spring...instead of one or none.

I'd tend to agree that the effort up north is not going to be super effective. It needed to begin a month (or more) before it did.

With any luck, the folks who live there have been feeding all winter on their own

[chevyracin8k]

Feeding has been going good. We are feeding in 178 by whiteface reservoir. They weren't really keen on the food at first but we have around 20 deer now coming in and they are coming from a long ways away. We are mixing in a little alfalfa bales also. The wolves are obviously bad. Had one dead deer we found by the shack before we started feeding, all that was left was hair. Wolf dump was by where we put our generator.

We made a lot of really nice trails for the deer with the argo and they have been using them a lot. Thanks to everyone who is feeding, I think it's giving them a fighting chance at least.

[Surface Tension]

Good point on making trails. In this deep snow make a trail and deer will follow it.

I've been feeding since early Dec on my own dime. The deer have their own network of trails they keep open all winter. Because of that the deer continue to browse that network instead of yarding up. The feeder is just a supplement to their diet. This also keeps the area from becoming a hot spot for wolves.

Not being keen to the new food. IMO it isn't they aren't keen to it, rather they let their guts adjust to it. Once that happened they come to it readily.

So of coarse the deer I'm seeing are in good shape.

I might have singles, small groups, or the whole herd come in. The dominant doe or buck

will go for the feeder for that reason I make smaller piles far enough away for the rest of the herd. When the lead doe moves on the rest will follow even if they haven't eaten.

[lakevet]

Been thinning popple,birch and maple as part of forest management plan. Deer have been eating tops. No small deer only good sized adults. No small deer is likely due to we harvest fawns and yearlings as readily as mature deer, partly because of winter. Just a plug that it is just fine to harvest "immature" deer. They are least likely to be around the next year in this part of the state. No wolf sign at this point.

Been going in on snowshoes. Without them the snow consistently is mid thigh deep and I am over 6 feet tall.

lakevet