When is the best time to stop feeding corn and move to protein?

Feed both year round.

We feed both 24/7/365. Additionally we feed cotton seed for about 9 months of the year. Corn is candy to the deer while protein and cotton seed provide nutrition. After the rut, the sooner a buck gets back in shape the better off he is.

I'm feeding both year around. I put up a feeding pen before the season started.

+1

As much and as long as you can afford and they are eating it. They aren't eating it at my place yet. They seem to start really hitting it in Feb. and I feed up until middle of September.

We'll start feeding it in January in South Texas. It depends on the conditions in Central Texas. Sometime we don't even put it out. The ideal conditions are dry and cold or dry and cool. Key is dry. If it's been wet and warm enough to keep things budding they won't hit protein until its hot and dry. We've had little rain in both places this year so it will be easy to get them to come into the protein until the rains come and the green up starts. If no rain comes it will be hard to keep up with the protein feeders.

Feeding it now...

I feed both year round. I will turn the protein off occasionally if all my animals are coming in at night to feed.

I feed Jan-October and shut it off during the season. Seeing more deer that way for sure. Free choice during the season just gives them a reason to be more nocturnal. Now through April is big for bucks post rut and for lactating does.

"I feed Jan-October and shut it off during the season. Seeing more deer that way for sure. Free choice during the season just gives them a reason to be more nocturnal. Now through April is big for bucks post rut and for lactating does."


Bing, bing, bing

I feed and have fed protein year round since 1990. I will limit corn to feeding it only from late August till end of Feb after the deer get on the protein. When starting protein I feed both year round. I feed corn from Feb 1st till late August after dark and before daylight to draw deer to the protein and feed locations when there is no pressure on them. Corn is a great source of energy and deer can use it more than you think. Deer are nocturnal due to several reasons...one is that they do not live on the place they are feeding on and it takes them till after dark to get to the feeder. Another reason is due to heat...deer feed closer to sundown or sunrise and at night due to heat in the spring to summer....they feed readily at protein feeders in the daylight when it is cooler or in the fall to winter months. Another reason can very well be hunting pressure and your activity/traffic levels increase during hunting season. Hunting pressures starts before daylight the first morning of the season. If you are not out in the pastures before or after daylight on a regular basis it does not take many hunts to change deer feeding patterns. A road feeder changes the game when driving around. I helped out on a LF ranch in South Texas that had been feeding protein year round for about 5 yrs...they decided one year at the first of November to stop protein so they could see more deer when hunting their road corn. Well after 3 weeks their deer sightings went from a lot to next to nothing...called in a feed truck and filled all the feeders and had normal deer activity within 2 or 3 days again. On this ranch deer would walk over corn to jump into a feed pen to eat protein first during archery season. When it got colder or in the rut they would hit the corn first. On my place now I feed both protein and corn out of the same pen and hunt those pens. Not the best setup if you are serious about managing deer but it works. I kill deer on road corn and try to never shoot into a feed pen. It helps and I always have deer in the pens eating protein in the daylight...mature bucks at that. I try to shoot my does late in the season as I can so it helps also. After 7 yrs of doing this the buck numbers skyrocket in the late season starting around mid Dec. here due to hunting pressure around my area and the bucks are hitting the corn and protein heavily. The bucks do not live here but they will move to a less pressured area and the protein/corn/oats. I hold a lot more deer with free choice feed year round. Different areas will experience different results but not many will hurt their hunting by feeding protein free choice year round...just hurt their wallet.

I have a LF neighbor that feeds protein year around and cotton seed now until it runs out. He only has a few hundred acres but the money involved is not a factor. He could go to others that advertise WT Bucks over 150 inches and shoot a Buck and be money ahead. But as stated earlier he just enjoys what he is doing, and more power to him. That what this all about.

Eventually I’ll start feeding year round

365 days a year. I have 1 400 lb protein feeder on 400 acres. I’ve seen a difference in body weight since I started 5 years ago.

Same here, have a 1000 pound and also a 350 pound feeder out year round and fill monthly on my 640 acres. Slows down considerably in November/December but body weight and mass increase has been very noticeable the last 5 years.

You have to play the long game - feed all year or as much as you can, provided the conditions are right and then don't look for results right away.