This guy needs to go to Texas. They feed so much freaking corn you would think deer would be dying by the truck load...well every time I hunted there the only dead ones I seen were after we killed them.
It isn't necessarily the practice of feeding corn, it is feeding the deer corn when their stomach/system is used to winter browse. I'm guessing the deer in Texas receive a steady diet of corn at all times of the year, so their system is used to it.
For the most part they don't feed all year, my father starts feeding on his property in Oct/ Nov and usually feeds to the end of the season. Last he told me he goes though about a ton or two this is in North Texas in good habitat with diverse browse as well as crops. At his south Texas lease they feed about the same except they start earlier to compete with neighboring proprieties. They go though several tons a year and with the price of corn their are very few that feed large scale year round in that area. This is poor arid habitat that surprisingly have fairly high deer densities. Switch over to NY were feeding deer is illegal. Despite that I know that people feed deer periodicity at various times in the winter to do camera inventories on there properties. Both in the southern zone and the browse dependent northern Zone. ...and we take end up with pictures of the same deer at different times despite the non continuos diet of corn. Deer are continually switching feed throughout the year and they adapt and thrive. Corn is no different either in a pile or field.
Here's an article of interest on this subject. Winter Wildlife Feeding Suspected In Bull Elk's Death - WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & Sports From the article "Rumen acidosis is brought on by the sudden introduction of carbohydrates, usually grain and often corn, to an animal's diet." So don't make it "sudden"
Hard to make it sudden when they feed on planted corn summer through fall and shelled corn in the winter...
So an elk died and through a postmortem they found evidence of acidosis and reached the conclusion that was the cause of death. My skeptic question would be why are there not dead elk strewn about the countryside there? Here's a newsflash...animals die all the time and often have several health issues, that elk could have died from anything or it may have been a freak that just decided to walk around and eat nothing but corn from multiple sites. I propose in areas where feeders are prevalent that pulling the feed would cause a far larger die off than feeding the deer, etc.
I do the same thing. I keep corn out 11 months out of the year. The deer have plenty of other things to eat(beans, peas, okra, and a variety of other things growing in the landowner's garden) and they still come and eat corn everyday. I too incorporate protein in the Winter months and they eat it on occasion. I have not seen any of the deer where I hunt primarily starve to death. They are really healthy and getting bigger. However, I have mineral sites around all year and a creek that borders the property. I guess it can happen in certain locations where food is limited, but I have yet to see it in the South.
Ha, no mention of fear of causing a nutritional imbalance but they hit on the real reason they often denounce feeding deer, congregating. They don't want folks to feed deer and increase the chances of someone potshooting them. Spreading disease would be a far more plausible point of delivery if they want to try to talk folks out of feeding deer. I have seen DNR's do this for years with one thing or another, just flat out lie about something for some other reason when telling the truth would be easier. When you try to scare folks into a certain way of thinking and action, you lose credibility because eventually you end up in a "do as we say and not as we do" situation.
Pennsylvania has been outspoken a lot lately about not feeding deer & elk through the winter. I think people are going to do it anyway, so they might be better explaining to people how to feed and what to feed so they can avoid problems with killing them unintentionally.
Exactly, but they won't because the problem is they simply don't want them to feed the deer. They know if they use that as an the actual reasoning behind it that people will flip them the bird and do it anyway. I'd prefer to be told the actual reason rather than being treated like a 2 year old idiot.
