Have any of you ever seen deer eating cedar? This doe stood there for several minutes and ate quite a bit of it. I've never seen that before.

Prob eating the berries on the cedar rather than eating the cedar

I've never seen a whitetail in Texas browse on cedar unless the habitat is extremely stressed. She's got plenty else around her that looks to be good nutrition and she appears to be in excellent shape, so perhaps it is the berries?

I need to check that tree for berries. She was eating big mouthfuls of it.

Maybe she hit the piece pipe and is a little hungry if you will...?

I have seen them eat the berries and sometimes it looks like to me that they are eating the new growth put on by cedar bushes.

Maybe has something to do with the acidity of the cedar. That's odd. Never seen them eat cedar before.

They are actually quite tasty. They will gorge on them.

Cedar berries would be my guess.....

I have seen them eat cedar on rare occasions in the Hill Country. More of them eating the berries though.

I had one under my stand nibbling at the cedar tree I was sitting in just the other day. She was being very selective though guess there could have been a few beeries but didn't notice any. The goats will strip the bark off of them before they touch the needles

Nothing odd about a deer eating cedar.

I bet she's going to taste like

I know that up in the hill country around Canyon lake there are way too many deer in some areas due to lack of population control.
The land isn't particularly fertile and what few grasses and forbs there are there are a lot of cedar bushes.
You can clearly see a browse line about the height where a deer can reach, and I've actually witnessed them eating the cedar.
The deer look small and malnourished as well.
I would like to add that was a few years ago during drought conditions so they may be better off now.