Let's discuss winter food plots and food sources. 1. What do you guys think is enough food for a deer going through the winter? 2. How does this change in warm vs. cold climates? (Texas vs. Minnesota) 3. Bucks vs Does vs Fawns vs Pregnant Does? 4. How many acres of winter food do you guys plant for you herd? 5. How many deer do you think you house over the winter? 6. Whats the tonnage per acre on the food you plant? Respond to any or all topics you wish. I'm curious to what you guys think about these questions
WOW, i am surprised people didnt touch this one... On the farm, there is probably 100 deer overwinter until the snowmobilers drive part of them to the neighbors as the trail goes throught the property. As deer typically eat 3-7 lbs of dry matter per head per day depending on time of year, body size, and maturity, the more deer you have the more feed you will need. I am also a deer nutritionist so my thoughts are this... Animals eat to meet their energy requirements. If you have more energy dense and higher nutritious plants, you will not need as much total dry matter. So, much of my work and research involves from soil to the mouth. New varieties i'm bringing over to the US, and i also invented a product that ""jacks up" the sugars, tonnage and proteins of whatever are planted out there.
Well, i'll say this...I got involved in the early grazing movement. One of my customers was one of the first discovery farms. Measuring sward density is probably a foreign term to the deer people. My energy and research involves growing as much digestible energy and protein as possible per acre. I want a dense plots that are rotated and multi cropped. So, say one has 40 deer per square mile.... say you need 200 lbs of dry matter per day for those 40 deer.. they will be eating more than the plots.... there will be many variables that will make it hard to estimate I want tonnage so thats why i brought over a brassica from new zealand that is making me excited as heck. If one wants a backup, shhhh the secret overlooked high quality, high tonnage brassica is PREMIER KALE.....yep....it's the secret to that bigh name companies really expensive brassica...buy straight premier kale for $5/lb and plant 5-7pounds an acre or so you'd have $25-35 an acre into a plot instead of $120 an acre.....
