Feeding deer in the winter months in the northeast has become quite a tradition or hobby for some folks. Many even feel they are "serving" wildlife by doing so. Can you really be doing more harm than good by feeding deer? This article, by Dr. Vince Vena, should generate some great discussion on the topic. Do you feed deer? We want to hear from you! Read the article below and let us know what you think?

To Feed or Not to Feed - One Man’s View

By Dr. Vince Vena

Feeding the deer often involves placing food in a concentrated area.  This may be corn, soybeans, deer chow, or even hay.

1)      This concentration of deer at a pile of feed is a great way to spread disease.  Deer naturally spread out to feed and browse.  Mange, brucellosis, and tuberculosis are present and could easily be spread at pile of feed.  Eventually, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) will be detected in PA and will alter the sport of hunting forever here.  Baiting (including feeding), where previously legal, has been prohibited in states like NY to reduce the spread of CWD.

2)      Feeding if done all winter will support more deer than the surrounding environment can support.  This irresponsible behavior will cause over-browsing of the forest and eliminating the under story.  Not only will this make the forest less able to support the numbers of deer around, but also it will significantly affect other animal’s habitat (birds, rabbits, etc.), and eliminate regeneration of many desirable tree species like oak.

3)      Many non-target animals take advantage of the feeding including fox, raccoons, and bear.

4)      Feeding can and will be expensive.  It never ceased to amaze me how much the deer will eat.  This can be eliminated to some degree by electric feeders, but they require a power source and are expensive devices.

5)      If you are going to feed you had better feed all winter.  Most deer that succumb to starvation do so at the end of winter prior to the spring green-up.  This is the time when daily temps are getting warmer and it doesn’t seem all that bad out.  Most people have stopped supplemental feeding. However, deer remain concentrated in their wintering area or yards and have potentially exhausted all of their food resources. The deer starve with full stomachs of poorly digestible and nutritionally absent material.

6)      Deer tend to move less in hard winter but will move back and forth to the feeding site many times per day and can exhaust their important fat reserves.

A more sound way to provide for the deer during the hard winter months is to control deer numbers and provide more natural food sources.

1)      First and foremost is to not try to support more deer than the environment can sustain. Most biologists report this between 10-20 deer per square mile.  That’s not many.  Numbers can be estimated using pellet counts, camera surveys, hunter observation data, and infrared aerial surveys.  The most practical way for me is camera surveys that unfortunately require baiting.  This survey is only run for 5-10 days.  Quality Whitetails has published data on how to do this.

2)      Proper forestry practices will help by providing browse.  This is done by timing cuts to provide succession regrowth.  I do this by cutting a few acres each year.  Best done with the guidance of a forester who can help you make sound decisions for your forest.  The money from these projects can also be used for other helpful management projects.

3)      Providing cold weather food plots like brassicas are surprisingly easy and very cost effective.  Brassicas like rape are easy to grow, provide significant tonnage per acre, and are tolerate of low pH.  They are most heavily used after the snow falls and the deer will dig through the snow to get to the still green cabbage-like plant.  If other food is available the deer will often ignore rape until after a significant freeze. The plant is rather bitter until then.  Planted corn on the other hand provides very little protein and is often gone long before the hard winter hits.

4)      Other ideas are to plant crab apple varieties that hold their apples into February and after.  I have a few of these and they are very popular with the turkey and deer.

Overall, a sound management plan with natural feed and control of deer numbers produces the healthiest deer.  I always liked the statement that “50 healthy does produce more fawns than 100 malnourished does”.  Google “winter feeding of deer” for many similar and often more scientific viewpoints. I especially liked:

http://www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerhabitatmanagement/winterfeeding.htm

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