deer not eating the beans

For years I have planted beans at home in my plots and they always get hammered. Some years they hit them later in the winter, but they always eat every single bean. This year I had a great crop. Plants about waist high ton of pods. The deer were in them all summer browsing the plants. Even to this day over 3/4 of a small plot still has all the beans on the stalk. The deer are in the area just about every day according to my trail cams, but they are not eating many of the bean pods. They have browsed some of the pods and the squirrels and other critters are eating them, but with the real cold weather and snow I would expect all the beans to be cleaned up by now. Anyone know why this could be?

Same beans as you always use?. Did you pull a few to see if there is rot? All I can think is they don’t need them yet with the lack of snow.
DT

Something is weird with that STICKER… unless your neighbor has a huge corn pile…. those beans should be eaten all up. Snow doesn’t affect the deers need for calories as much as COLD. And its been plenty cold for them to need those calories in those pods.. anything around 0 degrees or lower deer should be at the best available food source. Maybe check the PH this spring to see, a spike in either direction could affect the taste of those beans.

my guess in another food source they want is readily available

I pulled a few pods apart last night, they are perfect looking beans, no mold or rot. I ate a couple to see if they tasted crappy, but to be honest I have never tried them before so I don’t know what they are supposed to taste like. They were not bitter or anything. I am totally baffled. I pulled the card out of the cam that is on this plot and again they are in the plot every day 3-5 deer. This plot is about 1/2- 3/4 of an acre so 3-5 deer should have easily wiped this out by now.

deertracker wrote:

Same beans as you always use?. Did you pull a few to see if there is rot? All I can think is they don’t need them yet with the lack of snow.
DT

Not sure about the same beans, I get them from MDHA so they are not labeled.

We had this happen with a food plot at are cabin in southeastern mn. The farmer planted 2 acres of corn and we left it standing all year nocked down some shooting lanes and left the rest. All winter nothing touched it just a trail going straight through it. Found out the farmer planted a different kind that year it was treated with something. Idk maybe round up stuff or something. But either way it sucked.

I’m not an expert on diets obviously. But i have seen over the years the difference in diet preference. One “mid-winter” they hammer the corn hard, following winter they are gorging on acorns and weed seeds? Doesn’t make sense all the times, but I wouldn’t be alarmed by it. Probably why humans have so many different restaurants to choose from

Yeah, I am not that freaked out about it BUT, what if it is the seed that they don’t like? If they don’t clean it up I will have a ton of volunteer beans next spring that they don’t like

An interesting situation. My #1 suspect would be what Randy posted. Is there a better food source nearby?

By my property there are two houses within a mile and I know the people at those houses are feeding. I see deer, turkeys, etc standing near these places all the time and obviously that would never happen if there wasn’t easy food there. I can see the feeder at one place.

Also, the deer that are near the cattle ranch nearby are in two groups and they both do the same thing. Every morning and every night when the silage bunker gets uncovered to haul silage for the cattle, the deer come trotting across. The north herd and the south herd, they both come from the same place almost every day, they have a little yarding area and when the Bobcat fires up to load silage, it’s like the dinner bell rings.

The deer come and get some free entertainment as the Bobcat loads the silage haulers and then as soon as the haulers depart to go out and fill the various feed bunks, the deer move in and help themselves to the open bunker. There will be 10-15 deer there every time, they never miss a meal. The rest of the time I think they just conserve energy.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see the deer suddenly in there hammering your beans as soon as something changes with whatever they’re currently eating.

Grouse