I just laid out a few bowls of deer feed in an effort to get them to walk by alot closer. I just got my first visible visitors today. It had snowed here the other day and there was lot of droppings and foot prints. They cleaned out all the bowls, four.

I'm not baiting them off season to bag them in season. I just want to get a closer look at them. Wife loves looking at them.

 

get a feeder that has a timer on it. you can set it to feed early morning. this will get the deer out in the day time and not raiding your dishes at night.
40# will last a month with these feeders (depending on how often and much you feed)

 

Those things come right up on to our sun deck eat every thing. Wife puts flowers out they are gone by morning. Well they don't eat every thing I forgot they let me take care of the dandelions. I like them but then I don't like them.

 

Same with my Mom,,,we have enough deer an elk in the yard to feed a army....she is constantly running them out of her flower beds, swatting them on the edited by admin and Paul with brooms an sling shots, told her to get a paint ball gun. your wife will find it cute for awhile.

 

Heck the muleys live in my back yard pretty much year round.

Makes for great fertilizer!

 

I have a small herd of about 15 deer who live at my place year round. They are pretty much used to us, don't run away, and will eat out of our hands. They stay right around our goat pens or get into the pasture with the goats. I do not put out feed specifically for them, they can graze the grasses most all year. In the winter I put a bale of alfalfa hay out once a week so they can have a little extra, and when the temps are really cold I also put out a little chopped corn. I do this WAY away from the house. They also get whatever the wind blows out of the horses feeders into open areas.

This time of year, and in the fall, the elk are migrating through, so we have a ton of them right now. For the next month while they are here and having their babies, I put out a few more bales of hay and also fill a few extra water tanks they can access easily. I sat out in the LQ of my horse trailer the other day and watched an elk cow have her baby about 50 ft away from me. Really neat to live with the wildlife sometimes. They have not caused any damage to anything, are around the edges of the place for about 4-5 weeks twice a year. I'd much rather have them than the bears and mountain lions.

CD

 

Yes on the feeder. It will be like a dinner bell when they get use to it. When mine goes off they start coming out of the woods about 10 - 15 mins later.

 

Good thing you don't live in Missouri jj3500........if you did I would send you the BILL for my new bumper!!

Just kidding, it is neat to watch them up close, I just hate to see them too close in the front of my truck. Here in Missouri they really need to thin the herd alot more.. just too many deer. I do my part to help during the season, guess I got an early start on this years

 

A good, cheap feeder is a 4" piece of PVC, 4' long. Add 2 90 deg elbows and strap it against a tree with the elbows on the ground. Fill with corn, it will only empty as fast as they eat it.

 

I feed the deer on my farm with a Moultrie feeder that is on a timer. I'm surrounded on 3 sides by the National Forest and I do my hunting in there instead of on the farm. We have deer and turkey both hitting our feeder.

 

This is how we do it in the Hill Country of Texas



John (DH)

 

Darn good idea,

you lost me on the (2) 90*'s. put the 2 together so the opening is strait up?

or glue the second one at a 90* angle to it so the corn has to turn 90* twice?

pictures?

 

Just a word of warning.
Be VERY careful about deer ticks and Lyme disease.
They're hard to spot.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu...saic/lyme.html




From left to right: The deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) adult female, adult male, nymph, and larva on a centimeter scale.

 

yup, my wife has been battling lyme for months now and will be for who know how long.

also feeding from trough can spread or start CWD (chronic wasting disease). they spread and contract it by touching each others nose

 

I was gonna say something...about ticks... Its NOT just lyme there are 4 other problems... my shepard has one that turns your body against itself and your antibodys eat away your joints...one of my horse people has an ENLARGED HEART from tick bites... those little buggers ARE DANGEROUS!