little disheartening

I went for a stroll last night at home to check trail cams and see if the plots have been wiped out. I have 11 acres at home and have pretty steady deer traffic year round. I have 2 one half acre plots with beans in them and one 1/4 acre plot with brassica and standing corn. I could not believe all the food still left in the plots. The bean plots were still loaded with beans and beans laying all over the ground. The corn was about 3/4 eaten, but still some cobs on the stalks and some laying on the ground. The brassica had been browsed a little bit on the tops, but bulbs were not touched.

I don’t get it at all. There are deer tracks and droppings all over in the plots. I have pics of deer in there eating all summer, fall and winter, although the traffic has been slower this winter. Right across the street there have been between 10 -20 deer feeding in a cut corn field(7acres) I have counted as many as 23 deer at one time.

I am confused as to why they aren’t eating in my plots very much. I have never had much luck with them eating brassica at home, so that is no surprise. They often leave the beans until January in a normal year then wipe them out within a week or two. This year they never did come back for them.

The is very little pressure back there. I might walk back and check trail cams once every two weeks, but that is it. There is 4 acres of pines for thermo cover, cattail swamp, and 600 acre gravel pit that is shut down all winter. They have food and all the cover they need and very little pressure. The deer population is decent to pretty good. It’s an absolute haven for deer back there. They do come thru there. I just can’t figure it out. Maybe some of the neighbors are feeding them?

I planted the exact same beans and corn at the farm and they tore them up, so I really don’t think it’s bad seed, but maybe the soil difference is a factor.

Just a real bummer seeing all the food go to waste.

More acres in the ground this year compared to last?

I had loads of beans left over also this year, but dont have past years to compare it to..

sktrwx2200 wrote:

More acres in the ground this year compared to last?

I had loads of beans left over also this year, but dont have past years to compare it to..

Not at my home place. The same 60 acre ag field next door and the same 7 acres across the road. Other than that it’s all development and gravel pit.

I think we have to make room for the idea that the deer just don’t like you, Sticker. I mean, at some point the deer were bound to ask themselves, “Hey. Just where DOES he get all those Bambi Burgers he’s always out there grilling?” And then the truth dawned on them… Every year one of them goes missing…

Ok, I’m good now. I had to do it.

I’ve suspected that deer are creatures of habit to such an extent that once they get into a groove of going between good food and a good bedding area that’s safe and predator-free, they often won’t even cross the road even for food that would be better than what they’re getting now. Until they’re hungry or otherwise really pushed hard by something else changing, they ain’t movin’.

The cattle ranch next door to my property is run by a HS friend of mine, he took over from his father. They have a large silage bunker right beside the farm. Every year several does and thier fawns move into the rows of round bales right by the farm and they just stay there the entire winter. They bed in between the bale rows where it’s nice and warm and out of the wind and they eat from the sileage bunker whenever they want. These deer even put up with the farm dogs walking within 10 yards of them!

I’ve often thought about this and if deer are willing to bed down right next to an active farm, less then 50 yards from the door of the house, AND they’re willing to put up with 3-4 dogs constantly moving around within yards of them, what kind of food would I have to offer them to lure them away?

Bottom line to me is nothing on Earth would be good enough to make those deer change their location. Unless the food ran out or the farm family adopted a pet wolf, these deer are in their happy place and no amount of food of any kind would make them leave. Until the food is gone, the party goes on.

That’s my way of saying it’s not you, it’s them. But I’m with you. At some point, someone, somewhere is going to invent an “Ask the Deer” app where you can communicate directly with deer. And I’ll gladly buy it just so I can ask them what the heck they’re thinking!

Grouse

Another thing about this year is it’s shaping up to be another cupcake winter (so far). As Grouse commented if there’s an adequate food source, level of comfort, ease of travel with lower winter stress there may not be a big push to go out prospecting for food.

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Looks like Bill Winke from Midwest Whitetail some what agrees with you Grouse, except the first wise @ss part of your reply

I posted the same question on the “ask Winke” part of the website and here is his answer. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

“That seems really strange to me too. I don’t know why they do that. It may have to do with the palatability (taste) of the food source. That does seem to change some years. For example, I planted Big N Beasty in a certain field every year for three years. The first two years the deer wiped it out in November and December. The third year, they hit it hard in October and never really came back. Didn’t make any sense to me. Could have been the way the frosts came through our something. I think they just got out of the habit of feeding there.

It could be just that simple – just the habits of the deer. They were not stressed around here at all last winter so assuming that was the case there, the deer may have just gotten in the habit of feeding somewhere else and just never got around to your beans. I don’t have a good answer for you on this one. I have seen it myself though.”

sticker wrote:

Looks like Bill Winke from Midwest Whitetail some what agrees with you Grouse, except the first wise @ss part of your reply

He probably agrees with the wise @ss part too, he just didn’t say it. I think we need to get you and your deer together for a Love In to work on your relationship. You and the deer can sit around the campfire, talk about your feelings, learn to trust and love each other, sing Kumbayah, etc.

You also probably need your aura cleansed. This can be done in a variety of ways. Sweat lodge ceremony, laying on of hands, spicy chili with extra beans, etc.

Grouse

I’ll just have to test the Eagle beans and see if they eat them this spring…

By the way where is my seed, I got the dirt turned last night…

sticker wrote:

By the way where is my seed, I got the dirt turned last night…

Settle down. Thinking too much about all that dirt, which will soon reside under snow again, will drive you crazy.

Grouse

Did you plant sweet corn or field corn? What kind of corn did they plant across the road?

Maybe try a couple of mineral licks and experiment to find a secret recipe that keeps them coming back.

You could also put in a line of cedar artificial rubbing poles.

Both mine and across the road were field corn.

I do have 2 trophy rocks out and they hit them regularly.

tegg wrote:

Another thing about this year is it’s shaping up to be another cupcake winter (so far). As Grouse commented if there’s an adequate food source, level of comfort, ease of travel with lower winter stress there may not be a big push to go out prospecting for food.

I would have to agree… winter has been too mild to seek new food sources or force them to select food near thermal/snow cover areas. Combined together with less cold stress, and less of a need for calories to stay warm plus the ice coated conditions we had and the deer seem to stay put. Based on tracks near me, I know they are not moving as much this winter.
Even the birds disappear from our feeders when the temps jump way up like they have this winter.

I was prepping my 1/8 acre plot for turning last night. I wanted to get as much corn out of it as I could so it doesn’t germinate in the beans going in this year. Off this tiny plot I filled the box of my 6X6 with full corn cobs. Good news is I grew a great corn crop, maybe bad news is the deer didn’t eat much.

I also got over 6-5 gallon pails of full corn cobs out of my wood pile that the squirrels had taken out of that plot and stored for the winter. They must not have know I would get that far into the wood pile this winter

The turnip and radish I had planted there were also untouched, but there were some radish bulbs almost a foot long, so those grew quite well also.

Guess I’ll have to stick to planting beans at home. They finally started hammering those and are still in there every night cleaning them up. I am also going to try planting spring rye in one plot this year. If it works out well I should be able to mow it in July or August and get a second crop to reseed.

My guess is that it is the location in relationship to wintering bedding areas. Hard to say without ever being there. But I’ve noticed the same thing in my plots for years. One gets hit hard and another with “better” food is just touched a little.

In the winters when we have a lot more ice layers over the food sources, I see deer traveling much further for food. In lighter winters, the deer have stayed on local sources next to the bedding areas. And…as the severity of winters have varied, so has their bedding areas.

Take it from the Pros as long as your opening day rituals are the same you’ll always see them

Sounds like you should get into gardening instead. Maybe go vegan.