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querying the hive mind
Oh Deer
Lots of deer around here, walking through my yard. I would like to give them something to eat.
What have you done?
Reading sites like this I see acorns, oats, and soybeans are likely candidates.
In what form?
Where to get? (not certain retailers)
I have a salt lick.
posted by falsedmitri on Nov 16, 2024 at 9:26 AM
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Don't feed deer, it does more harm than good and is illegal in many places.
posted by ssg at 9:38 AM
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Specific local law: Feeding Wildlife is Illegal
"Intentional or inadvertent feeding is the major cause of many wildlife problems. Under Colorado law, intentionally feeding deer, elk, pronghorn, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and bears is illegal. This law protects both animals and people as feeding wildlife is more harmful than helpful."
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:09 AM
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In my neighbourhood the deer are refugees. We are surrounded by forest, which is being sprayed to kill the hardwoods, so that the softwood will thrive and can be cut for paper pulp. The deer who live on hardwood browse (immature green growth of hardwood trees), have moved into areas that are not being sprayed, so we have a lot of deer.
There are good reasons to not feed the deer, the most important one being that you will create a situation where there are too many deer living in one location for them to be healthy, their population will keep increasing, and then will crash when some type of disease spreads among them in the crowded conditions. The secondary consideration is that if you feed the deer they will keep coming into your yard and pooping there and bring deer ticks with them. Both the poop and the ticks are not things you want in your yard lest you yourself get sick as a result. And of course the third reason is that if you feed them a lot of the wrong sort of food you can make them sick and do serious harm to them.
However... for many thousands of years people have fed the deer in order to keep their populations as high as possible, when the deer were a food source. The first nations primarily did it by repeated controlled burns in the forest which maximized the growth of the hardwood browse. In the north east they spent hundreds of hours on this every year. It was in fact the primary work for the men, and took up much more of their time than actually hunting. So the very best way you can feed the deer is to grow hardwood scrub. Cut down your softwood trees, encourage the hardwoods to start seedlings. Burn off competing plants.
There is a technique called pollarding, where you cut the limbs off trees, which causes them to send up many thin shoots to replace the ones you cut. The long thin shoots, when cut were referred to a tree hay in times past. During the winter this is the one best food for deer, because it is what they primarily eat when given a choice and is what they can digest. You don't want to dump two bushels of apples in March after the deer have been living on the hardwood browse, even if they are starving, as you'll end up with starving deer that are also having diarrhea. To get hardwood browse, use a ladder to prune your hardwood trees, if you have any, and bring down lots of trimmings with a narrow diameter. Basically the thin twigs from any tree that isn't an evergreen (softwood) is the very best way to go. And fortunately winter is the best time to prune.
Hay can be purchased to feed the deer, bought from any feed store. Oat and alfalfa are typical. Again, it's going to be a bit rough on their digestion until they are used to it, so introduce it before the grass gets covered in snow, to ensure that you don't make them sick. Medieval foresters used to bring sled-loads of hay into the forests of Europe after a heavy snow fall, to feed the deer until the snow melted back again. Again, the deer were being managed to maximize their population, and hunting for venison kept them from becoming disease-ridden. Hay is about a third choice after hardwood browse, but if they are already used to eating grass or hay that you started and maintained through the winter, it will work well to keep a herd alive during starvation season in March.
It's still close enough to apple season, when the deer have been eating windfalls to provide them with apples, but make the quantities small if you do and don't introduce them later in the year, same like hay. You can keep feeding them a couple of apples each through the winter, if you like but it should never be a staple for them, anymore than you would feed a child on a diet largely based on milk chocolate.
Corn on the cob is another possibility, as the deer often like it, however once more you are up against the issue that it needs to be introduced slowly and not provided in any real quantity. They will probably like it, but grain is not hardwood browse. Don't feed the deer on bread. That's a bad idea and will definitely result in sick deer. Deer struggle to digest carbohydrates. They need the fibre and don't need the carbohydrates. Feeding them birdseed is not quite as bad as feeding them bread, but again, seeds = carbs, and they don't have the digestive enzymes to process much of it. Think of seeds as a garnish.
Various hard vegetables may go over well with the deer. Turnips and squash, and cabbage, are all worth trying. They usually like anything in the cabbage family. Whether they like them or not will probably depend on if they have encountered them before. They are treat food that can be supplied in moderation.
Lettuces can be provided in small quantities. They don't have enough calories in them to be helpful, but the deer might still appreciate a few greens. Large quantities of greens are not a good idea, as they usually eat the greens later in the season. They may not be able to digest them unless they get a leaf or two for a week or two to adjust.
Check the discount produce section for manky lettuce, elderly yellow broccoli, and bruised apples but never feed them anything with signs of mold.
Peanuts in shell are not bad for the deer, as they also eat acorns. Peanuts have a lot of fat in them, which makes them a good thing to supplement with in winter - but again, not massive quantities. Peanuts are a good extra, not a primary food. Obviously don't feed them salted or seasoned peanuts.
Forget onions and tomatoes and potatoes entirely. Don't do it. They are even worse than bread, and that is saying a lot. A few green onion tops won't make a healthy deer seriously sick, but the allium family and the nightshade family are two food families that no deer should have anything to do with if you can help it.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:34 AM
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Another good reason to not feed deer is that fat, docile deer eventually attract cougars. Please don't do this.
posted by momus_window at 10:41 AM
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Apples, watermelon, and carrots is what we feed them. They can eat the rhinds.
Where we are at the deer population can reach 10-100 (yes!) in a single pack because hunting is not allowed. If cougars ate a few, it would be no big loss. Even if they feed they are still very skittish.
Also, in my opinion, they are both good and bad. They eat almost every plant to the ground and to about 7ft in the air. The herds have been around since I was a kid and I'm now in my 40s, so if a disease does come wipe them out, it doesn't happen too often. The place is also woods so it's has ticks with or without deer.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:29 PM
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Don't feed them. Put out a salt lick if you want.
posted by erst at 12:32 PM
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The problem with cougars isn't that they eat the deer. The problem with cougars is that they eat your pets, occasionally small children, and rarely adults. Don't encourage deer to congregate in your yard.
posted by momus_window at 12:41 PM
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Our yard has fed the deer forsythia, iris, euonymus, grass, and myrtle among other things (not on purpose). We have way too many deer.
posted by bluesky43 at 2:03 PM
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The place is also woods so it's has ticks with or without deer.
Probably not as many, though, without deer. And fewer ticks is better than more ticks.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:43 PM
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If you absolutely must give them something they like... plant roses.
posted by stormyteal at 6:00 PM
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I just want to say I would love to feed the deer too, but won't for all these reasons. Some of these answers are a teeny bit harsh so I just want to chime in with a positive thought for your good intentions.
I was feeding squirrels on my patio last winter but then a squirrel got in my neighbor's crawlspace, which he blamed on me, so I stopped. Now when I walk the dogs sometimes I carry whole walnuts and scatter them (not near residences).
posted by Glinn at 6:48 PM
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Deer ate all my rose bushes (shakes fist at sky)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:44 PM
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[One deleted. Please remember that Ask Me is here to help people. Offering more information can be one way of helping to see the bigger picture, but suggesting that the OP start shooting deer instead of feeding them is not good faith participation here. ]
posted by taz at 8:52 PM
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