Deer activity at their protein feeders? I'm in Southwest Young county and have only gone through about 25lbs. in the past 4-5 weeks, hardly any deer pics there. A little more activity at the corn feeders but not a great amount there either. Hoping all these groceries frost/freeze out quickly once the cold weather hits..

Most of the deer I'm seeing are bunched up under oak trees eating acorns and we don't have many of those either.

My 500 pounds was gone in 14 days and the 9 other feeders didn't last a month. My protein tube is clear and my game cam is pointed towards it so I know exactly how long it lasts.

You must be going through a lot of feed on that new place titan

Yes sir. The body mass and antler size of these deer keeps me filling though

Same thing happened to me last year. Our deer were draining our protein feeder every 5-8 days and around mid September they stopped. I have seen the same pattern these past few weeks. Deer were eating 300 pounds of corn. This past week they have really backed off on how much they are eating and time spent at our feeder.

I'm north of Huntsville and I'm not seeing much. The hogs were real bad in late spring because it was flooded on the bottom land, and I think someone ran a bunch of hog dogs through to chase away the hogs. Since then I haven't seen as much, but there is some. What I have seen is mostly does.

Weird DQ as I told you deer had gone through almost 1000 pounds since mid June when I refilled about 3 weeks ago.

We can't get deer to eat the protein. They might once in a blue moon but that's it.

GPS, you're out in Young County too? Was it near Olney/Newcastle?

Things for us have picked up a bunch in the last week or so here in clay county

Mine go through around 400 lbs of protein and corn each month.They never stop eating at the feeders.

DQ Kid, I am in Wise and Jack county.

DQ, you may remember I'm due east of your place about 10-12 miles (SE Young County). They have been very active at my protein feeders. No acorns yet, but when they fall, I expect it to taper off quickly, should be any day now. Several feeders the deer hit every night, couple of different bunches of deer, most of the night. I'm surprised your not experiencing the same.

Mix it 50/50 corn and protein until they start hitting the feeders regularly. Then go to 25/75 corn/protein the next filling. Then go 100% protein and you should be good.

But if you have good forbes and browse, they will eat that before they eat protein. That's why it's called supplemental feed and not a full-ration.

I just returned from our place in NE Webb Co. The deer are still eating a little protein, but not heavy. We're not going to refill until later in the season once this load is gone. Pending habitat/deer condition. Bucks look outstanding this season. Got two nice rains down there Saturday and Sunday on our place. The Callaghan looks to have gotten quite a bit more, but we'll take it. Most of our tanks are full to 75% full. Habitat is the best it's been in I dunno when.

seeing tons and tons of young bucks on my place plus lots of does. we didn't take enough deer last year and the summer drought took a toll. hoping to get the rest of the lease members on the same page that we need to thin the herd, so there is more natural forage available or we are going to have to start doing heavy protein feed to make up for it.

Seeing a good bit of activity at the protein feeder in Jack Co. They got on it pretty slow this year (probably because of the spring green up). The last few weeks though consumption has been way up and will probably continue that way until the acorns start hitting the ground.

I've read a couple studies about deer and acorns in the past ten years. I'd be interested to hear other member's observations.

Essentially, what I've learned goes like this. While mast, other than White Oaks aren't preferred by white-tailed deer, they offer an opportunity to beef up with minimal exposure to predators (humans).

Regardless of specie of oak however, deer will concentrate on this food source when available. How come? Limited movement for maximum benefit. Extended digestive period. This means deer can Hoover up a large amount of fresh acorns very quickly, then bed and chew cud for twice as long as say, alfalfa.

Minimum exposure with max, short-term diet. Hunt between bedding areas and the mast, fwiw.

Fouz

North of hunstville too. Close to midway/madisomville

But we have a pack of hogs that's about 40 deep. They're pretty bad. We've been picking them off a few at a time tho.

We have seen quite a bit of deer, but we have about 5 feeders going, about to be 6

I'm a little suspicious of the study. Fall is a period when deer the replenish minerals in the bones that were depleted from weaning young and growing antlers. Most ranges are somewhat short of phosphorus which deer require at a 2/1 rate of calcium to phosphorus. Acorns are a rich natural source of phosphorus that deer are hard wired to seek out. It's really a case of the right groceries at the right time.