How many deer have you killed?

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How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dirt nap giver » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:29 pm

Accidentally? with good intentions?

Last year much of the northern states had a bad winter. I really dont wish to recall the snowfall amounts.
While spring scouting last year I came across 13 dead deer in a 40 acre corn field and of course I had to inspect and didnt find any signs of weapon use. I work closely with the DNR in my area because of crop damage & nuisance tags so I call the local CO and they met me out there. They ended up taking 9 of them and sent them into the lab. About 2 weeks later, the CO called me and told me they had died from Acidosis. The CO proceeded to tell me that they were "poisoned by corn". My first thought was, Yeah right. But then he proceeded to tell me what and how it happened......Information overload. So I started to do some research to get some answers, which led to more questions.

So, before you proceed to think Im a whack job, open your mind and you will be shocked by this info. I just have to share, especially with such a group of whitetail junkies such as myself.

"Deer are ruminants, meaning they have a four part stomach with microbes that help digest woody
vegetation. Deer acquire sufficient specifically adapted microbes over a period of time that digests
specific food material. When deer eat food that has not been part of their diet, the specific microbes
are not present to help with digestion. Deer will eat any readily available handout, forgoing the easily
digestible natural food, thus possibly filling their stomach with indigestible material. If deer are provided
a supplemental diet they cannot digest, the deer may starve even with a full stomach. Over the years,
many deer have died with stomachs full of hay, for example, the hay having been provided as emergency
food at a time when the animals had been feeding on browse for many weeks. In addition, a food source
rich in carbohydrates has been known to cause acidosis (grain overload) and enterotoxemia (overeating
disease), which can be fatal. Corn, fed as an emergency supplemental diet, has been known to cause the
death of many deer due to these difficulties."

http://www.charlieelk.com/2014/warning- ... nsin-deer/

http://www.whitetaildomains.com/Article ... Good+Thing

If deer live in agricultural areas, then they eat corn most of the year and it remains part of their diet, then it doesn't impact them.
If deer live in the big woods and corn isn't part of their diet year around then their stomachs can not process the corn.

I understand the confusion which comes with this due to everyone seeing deer in corn fields in the winter eating corn and live. It used to confuse me as well. I thought someone was blowing smoke up my rear!

For clarification purposes-
Deer #1 lives in agricultural regions and eats corn from the fields. We all know that farmers don't harvest 100% of the corn so deer can eat corn all year without any impact.

Deer #2 lives in the big timber region and its diet consists of browes, leaves, acorns etc. If this deer is feed corn their stomach doesn't have the same emzimes as deer #1 because it hasn't lived in the agricultural area. This deer, when fed corn will die.

Deer #3 lives in big timber region, and its diet is similar to deer #2 WITH THE EXCEPTION that a land owner has a corn feeder going all year for one reason or another. This deer will not die from the corn because it is part of its daily diet already.

Which is why many people don't believe that this can really happen.

What I don't know is, at what point does this "diet" transition take place?

john1984 asked a very good question. "Well why does WI allow baiting in the central forest zone then? You can still bait in monroe , jackson and clark county. There are some big areas out there with no corn fields close by, so if a person only baits during bow season in bigwoods, the corn is gonna kill them??? Unless those deer have been eating corn all year long from some feeder??? Wow, baiting should be illegal in any type of bigwoods then ."

Is this geographic specific?
Winter severity specific?
Or does this happen when deer can't find corn left from the combine spillage?
What if it snows, then thaws or rains and there is a hard layer of ice and deer cant reach the corn?

In my mind, I think of it like this. November, most of the corn is cut and deer start to turn more to browes as food, this is when the diet transition phase starts. Because it is a slow process(2 weeks?), eventually they move into the starvation diet.
If we as hunters decide to bait them in attempts to fill our tags, are we stepping on our own toes?

My brain hurts!
Thoughts?


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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby Uncle Lou » Tue Dec 16, 2014 4:12 pm

I find this topic very interesting.

Many years ago, when I hunted up north I heard a tree farmer mention something about the deers stomach turning over and being on a browse diet. He also made reference to them not being able to digest grains and other baits.

I didn't think much of it, and also thought it to be more late winter and up north not in the agricultural part of our state. But I saw you made reference in another post about this and I am glad you brought it up for discussion.

I would also like to hear more on this.

Have others here heard reference to this before?

If this is the first time someone hears this, it could sound like something to easily dismiss, but it deserves our attention.

I would love to hear what Mark Witecha (WI DNR biologist, that is on our forum) has to add to this topic. I think he primarily watches the other post in the deer forum " ask the biologist".

Lets see where this discussion goes and then we can summarize the topic with link and post it for him to get his input as a biologist.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dan » Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:21 pm

Yea, we have talked about this in the past. Its really hard to get some guys tro believe they are harming the deer by feeding them corn... I know a guy who wiped out a lot of his big bucks in one season thinking he was helping them by adding corn after heavy snow falls.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dirt nap giver » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:33 am

When I came across all those deer, at first I was ticked, thinking someone had shot them and left them for dead. After coming to the realization that the CO wasn't just blowing smoke, my thoughts turned to concern.

Of those 13 deer, only 3 were bucks. As I thought about it more and more that leaves 10 does, majority of which were adults. After doing the math, most does give birth to two fawns a year. That number now increases to 30. Even if we deduct 50% of the fawns due to predators, road kill etc. that still leaves 20 and the impact is multiplied every year there after.
And this is just what I found. How many other "Good Samaritan" areas were there? One will never know.
Things like this can have a huge impact on a hunting area.

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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby msailor » Wed Dec 17, 2014 1:22 am

Interesting info. Maybe we should caveat this conversation by saying this is an extreme occurence when no other forage is available. So yes this has to be Winter Severity Specific. I'm certain deer are smart enough not to kill themselves. Perhaps these deer would die of starvation or dehydration anyway.

What happens when a fawn starts chowing down on its first ear of corn instead of suckling off mom? How does it overcome certain doom? Tums, pepcid, pepto?....My point is deer know what their body needs enough to balance their diet without our help, even if corn is available. I've seen plenty of Ozark deer hit the corn pile and not fall over dead. Why? Because they move on from the corn and hit the acorns and other browse.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby Bucky » Wed Dec 17, 2014 1:36 am

dirt nap giver wrote:When I came across all those deer, at first I was ticked, thinking someone had shot them and left them for dead. After coming to the realization that the CO wasn't just blowing smoke, my thoughts turned to concern.

Of those 13 deer, only 3 were bucks. As I thought about it more and more that leaves 10 does, majority of which were adults. After doing the math, most does give birth to two fawns a year. That number now increases to 30. Even if we deduct 50% of the fawns due to predators, road kill etc. that still leaves 20 and the impact is multiplied every year there after.
And this is just what I found. How many other "Good Samaritan" areas were there? One will never know.
Things like this can have a huge impact on a hunting area.

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This a an extreme scenario... yes it can happen in the far North when browse is usually the only food source available. But in central WI there is a PILE of corn.... and deer do eat it all year round... never found any dead deer in corn fields. I think Sailor hit it on the head... it was an extreme winter and the deer kept eating the corn cause other browse was buried under 3ft of snow... so they had not choice... eat the corn or starve to death.

I do agree with the CO the feeding/baiting deer with shelled corn in the far North could be detrimental... but all you need to do is head up to a North WI Lake and I'm sure a walk around the lake you would find one cottage on just about every lake that is artificial feeding. So I think this was a rare instance but I agree it can happen
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby JoeRE » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:02 am

I have always found lots of dead deer around any standing corn left through the winter. I always assumed it was because lots of deer congregated to the easy food including weak ones that would have died anyway somewhere else. Perhaps more died than would have w/o the corn? On the other hand, all those deer were farmland deer with access to corn every fall and winter so the article says there would not be an impact.

I don't buy the argument that deer know what is good for them and regulate what they eat. Horses will eat alfalfa until they die. Cows will eat bad silage until they die. Humans will stuff their faces until they are morbidly obese and die. No animal has as much common sense about food as one would think.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby JROD157 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:03 am

msailor wrote:Interesting info. Maybe we should caveat this conversation by saying this is an extreme occurence when no other forage is available. So yes this has to be Winter Severity Specific. I'm certain deer are smart enough not to kill themselves. Perhaps these deer would die of starvation or dehydration anyway.

What happens when a fawn starts chowing down on its first ear of corn instead of suckling off mom? How does it overcome certain doom? Tums, pepcid, pepto?....My point is deer know what their body needs enough to balance their diet without our help, even if corn is available. I've seen plenty of Ozark deer hit the corn pile and not fall over dead. Why? Because they move on from the corn and hit the acorns and other browse.



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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby JROD157 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:13 am

JoeRE wrote:I don't buy the argument that deer know what is good for them and regulate what they eat. Horses will eat alfalfa until they die. Cows will eat bad silage until they die. Humans will stuff their faces until they are morbidly obese and die. No animal has as much common sense about food as one would think.


Penned Livestock is a poor comparison to a wild animal. With deer consuming an average of 7lbs of browse daily they have the ability to recognize when they have met their nutritional needs. Many times I have seen great deer sign under a white oak and there were still acorns available. With your theory wouldn't all of the acorns be gone?
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dan » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:16 am

I disagree with people thinking this is an exception, it happens a lot in winter when people with good intentions feed. Deer would rather sit on the corn pile than browse at that time of year, and deer don't know its killing them. A little corn don't hurt anything, its good for them, but huge endless piles of corn in winter do kill deer.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby MACHINIST » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:18 am

Not that I would do it because its not legal in NYS,what could a person feed deer in the winter to help them without hurting them if anything?
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby Bucky » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:27 am

MACHINIST wrote:Not that I would do it because its not legal in NYS,what could a person feed deer in the winter to help them without hurting them if anything?


Food plots of soybeans... brassicas... winter rye... artificial corn piles, alfalfa bails etc can kill em
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby JROD157 » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:49 am

dan wrote: A little corn don't hurt anything, its good for them, but huge endless piles of corn in winter do kill deer.


I am with that.
I browsed some trail cam photos from last year during the frigid temperatures we experienced. I provided a mineral block, and some corn (maybe 20/30lbs every 3 weeks, at most). The photos show deer spending less than ten minutes at the site with the occasional yearling bedding down. They definitely were not gluttons. You must also consider Indiana as flat Ag-land. Additionally, my plots nearby still hosted beats and buck oats. In a different geographic I do not assume the same outcome. Good topic. There are few hunters in my area who know about this.
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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dirt nap giver » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:34 am

I originally hijacked another topic with this info and asked DNR Biologist Mark to reply which he did. I copied and pasted his reply to this topic.
Reference topic- Rate this late season tactic.

Dirt nap asked me to weight in, sorry to hijack.

Deer are normally consuming high fiber (woody) diets in the winter, regardless of whether they are in farmland or forested areas. The biology and microorganisms of their rumen change to allow for digestion of fibrous browse. They've evolved to change their diet based on changes in food availability throughout the year. A sudden increase or over-consumption of carbohydrates, which are much more easily digested than fiber, can cause a number of issues with deer and other ruminants, including acidosis, diarrhea, and potentially death. The bacteria that digests carbohydrates multiply and produce lactic acid, which lowers the pH of the blood to a dangerous, acidic level. This is known as rumen acidosis. Grains, which are generally what people use to feed deer during the winter, are rich in carbohydrates, which is why over-feeding grains is serious concern for ruminants. Those of you out there that own cattle know this can be an issue for livestock as well, now that a lot of producers feed corn to their cattle.

In Wisconsin, the presence of CWD is the driving factor in baiting and feeding bans.

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Re: How many deer have you killed?

Unread postby dirt nap giver » Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:40 am

Mark also added this info which can be referenced in the "Ask the Biologist (Mark Witecha)" topic
I'm not sure of the history of policy regarding baiting in feeding here in WI, so all I can say is that the presence of CWD is the driving factor in baiting and feeding bans. Also, feeding is not inherently bad, it just needs to be done right. Feeding straight corn, even in the farmland zones, is not ideal for deer and can do more harm than good. The DNR put out a very good informational document regarding feeding: http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat ... eeding.pdf.

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Last edited by dirt nap giver on Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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