I was talking to a landowner in West Texas and he said they stopped feeding corn in their feeders because they felt like it was hurting their quail numbers. He said he has started using black eyed peas instead and the deer love them. Has anyone ever heard of this or tried them? If so where do you get them and how is the price compared to corn?

Don't know about using them in a feeder but I do know they love planted peas.

I had a thread about this a month ago. My lease in the Olney area they don't like them, but if you need protein and want to use your corn feeder it seems to work.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2197130/Deer_Hogs_not_eating_the_peas

About how much do they go for a bag?

I have heard the same thing. I tried to find some last year and was unable to find it bagged anywhere. The guys that I know who were doing this were buying in bulk from the elevators.

Yeah, I gotta feelin that they love em, seems they just can't get enough. I'd get it started for some boom boom pow.

X2

Deer will eat them and soybean once they realize what they are. I've fed them for a number of years. Currently I am buying them for $8.95/ 50# bag; they will become harder to find as we move into late spring and early summer!

Deer love split and whole peas once the figure out what they are. Mix them with corn to start the deer on them. Also roasted soybeans are very palitable to deer and very high in protein and feed very well thru a spin feeder. Anything you will feed this year will be high dollar due to drought and demand on the product.

We used them one time from June until deer season. What we used was a mixture of protein and black-eyed peas. Deer never did eat many of the PEAS. Maybe we should have put a ham bone in with them. Deer would not eat them, but it smelled just like black-eyed peas when it rained, back when it used to rain. They worked fine in the feeders, but the deer never did really like them. The lease was in the western edge of the Hill Country. I would not use them again becasue the were pretty high and our results were less than pleasing.

Exotics, especially axis, love split peas! They are like crack to axis.

Tried the peas on our place in the panhandle 50/50 with corn for 2 years. Deer NEVER touched the peas, but the quail loved the peas.

D&L Feed in Aubrey sells them in bags.

I tried them mixed with corn and they just sat there in piles, but the corn would be gone. They have them at Berends in Bowie bagged.

Tried split peas for about 2 months mixed with corn. Deer/hogs/turkey didn't like the peas much because there was always a ton of it left under the feeders when the corn was gone.

Been doing it for a few months now. Corn is a little less than $9/bag and the peas are just over $9/bag. The feed store owners arecalling for higher corn prices d/t the drought and lower pea prices from up north.......either way, $9/bag is too dang much. The deer are getting use to it but the turkeys clean up the rest.......along with coons, birds, etc. I have to use a filter when filling the hopper, though as it comes
through pretty messy.

I have a friend that hunts Wilbarger county and he used black eyed peas last year and the deer, hogs, turkey loved them. The land owner cross the fence was feed black eyes suppose to help the quail. Think the peas cost $7 to $8 per 50lbs.

I run corn and split peas in my spin feeder and then I have a protein bucket that I mix corn, protein, soybeans, split peas, and chaffhaye together.

They love it in the Hill country, and my bucket is empty every morning.

This is on my 11.5 acres where I live in BLanco, so I can replenish the bucket every day with fresh stuff.

I bought a 50 lb bag to plant and they werent cheap 78 dollars maybe I should have just bought the split peas and planted a few bags and whatever grew would have been great

will see.......mixed mine 50/50 in a couple of feeders last weekend up on the panhandle ranch.....