Very cool. I've always heard that they do

Ok, I've seen this before, and I've heard for some deer it can become a problem.

My son shot a large axis that had a huge rack but was in bad shape, and it appeared all he was eating was prickly pear. Green mouth, lots of thorns around his mouth. I've also heard goats and sheep will sometimes get to where they only eat prickly pear, until they wither up and die.

Anyone else heard of this? I'm sure it's different from deer that eat the occasional prickly pear, but I'd like to get more info on it.

Ok, I've seen this before, and I've heard for some deer it can become a problem.

My son shot a large axis that had a huge rack but was in bad shape, and it appeared all he was eating was prickly pear. Green mouth, lots of thorns around his mouth. I've also heard goats and sheep will sometimes get to where they only eat prickly pear, until they wither up and die.

Anyone else heard of this? I'm sure it's different from deer that eat the occasional prickly pear, but I'd like to get more info on it.

STX have you ever seen them eat the red flowering end of the cactus?

Neat that you can hunt until their horns fall off and you can hang what you shoot on the wall. Nice buck.

Can't say that I have seen axis eat pear. The only way I can see them eating it is if they are starving to death or something is wrong with them. Once cattle have had pear burned so they can eat it, some of them will eat pear when it is not burned. Once they start eating pear it is impossible to stop them.
I was at a deer field day/seminar where someone spoke on the importance of pear in the deer diet in places in South Texas. He said that in his studies of deer diet that he found that pear was 45% of the deer diet in late winter- Jan/Feb and then again in late summer -August. Someone was asking about killing all the pear out on their place and he did not think it was a good idea. This study was done in the mid 90's in South Texas also that he was referencing.

I have watched deer eat a lot of different things but not seen them eat the flowers off of cactus...yet. I have seen them eating the Tasajillo fruits in October 2018. Watched them eat ''tunas" or "pear apples" from prickly pear many times.

We had a cow that did that. It was like an addiction. When we couldn't get her to stop, we sold her down the road. It's very much a natural laxative and she had lost ~200 lbs over the course of a month or two before we got her to the auction.