there is the possibility that your landowner is trying to flip some cattle also...alot of farmers will put way too much head of cattle on a track of land and feed the mess outa them through the winter to turn a quick buck the next spring..... then they will compete with the deer... in a normal grazing situation were cattle are ran properly as far as how many head the land can handle then they will not compete for grazing with deer.....put too many and once they run out of food they will eat the bark off the trees if they hav too

A lot depends on the type of operation that the rancher is running, As far as mine, we are in the cow/calf business. My cow's great,great,great grandparents were raised with our deer. As far as our deer, their great,great,great grandparents grew up sharing their world with my cows and my feed truck. Sometimes a cow/steer comes along that will booger at anything, same goes with a deer but in my setting, they usually coexist pretty good. On the other hand, the yearling operator's wheat is just beginning to get big enough to graze and he is fixing to dump a bunch of spooked teen-aged brats that have never been away from their momma, spent the last week or so being shuffled from pen to pen amd maybe even state to state. Let's not even mention what someone with a sharp knife just did to them. They are going to hit the ground, wild as the devil and checking out every thing in the pasture. May have never seen a deer and the deer probably have never seen anything like them. Train wreck for the hunting until they get it sorted out between themselves.

The rancher on our place used to have a big tall Limousin bull. That rascal was so big he could stand under a tall feeder and lick the plate. Put a varmint cage on it and he would still walk under there and lick the cage trying to get corn. I so badly wanted to get a paintball gun with blue paintballs and start shooting his ample scrotum. Figured it would be funny when the rancher saw his bull with blue balls. Decided against it though because I didnt want to take the chance on it being my fault that the bull was sterile. That would have been expensive.

speakin of paintballs lol we decided to mark our cattle we were takin outa tha herd with a paintball gun so they could cut them out with the horses much easier....pulled right up to the first one and told my buddy that was one of them....he popped her (full grown cow) right inbetween the eyes and knocked her a$$ out cold....lol told him it would be best to stay away from that area next time

We have a feedlot about a quarter mile from our place. In the winter, a few deer and about a zillion ducks, will go in and feed there at night, right next to the cows.

On our place, the deer seem to tolerate them though they don't hang out. Several years ago, we did have a lost Pronghorn that ran with the cattle. She'd keep her distance when feeding but hung around for several months. Guess she was really lonely.

Like stated above, I think it's really a matter of whether they're used to them or not. Coyotes also don't seem to bother our grown deer.

feedlots are winter safehouses for alot of animals.... up in Nebraska the turkeys will pile in them by the hundreds... they call them land carp durring that time and would rather have yotes since they dnt eat as much feed as a turkey

On the subject of marking cattle, several years ago I was at the Bowie cattle sale and they ran a nice looking white Brahma bull through the ring. He wasn't very old and looked good. First the auctioneer started laughing and as the young fellow did a 180 in the ring, the laughter moved around the room like a wave at a ball game. When he turned where I could see him, I figured out what the laughing was about. He had a perfect bull's eye pattern on his side. That is what buckshot will do. I'm guessing he was a fence jumper who wore out his welcome arround the neighborhood and got to take a road trip to the sale barn. I've had a few that I sent to town because of their "athletic" ability, but never had one marked with buckshot or paint.

i hate cows