No, it means that you have a very high deer density with a great buck to doe ratio. If you are seeing a lot of deer at feeder on your land it due to that feeder concentrating them. The size of a place dictates how many deer live on it and then how far you can draw them from your neighbors. Late season on my old place it was unreal how many deer I would see on 234 acres. I fed protein/corn and planted food plots year round and the deer knew it was not pressured...safe bedding areas with lots of feed and water. One morning I had 44 deer at the 2 feeders and on the oats. That evening(hunts usually were slower due to the time it took the deer moving from the neighbors) I saw 42. In a 3 day period, I either saw in person or on trail cams 38 different bucks. That year I had 47 different bucks on cameras or seen in person. I was seeing more bucks than does for several years in a row and I was the only one shooting does in the area. Less does can raise as many fawns as an overpopulation of does can raise under average conditions. I never really had a hog issue since I will never have a feeder without a pen around it. Plus I trapped and shot everyone that I could. The neighbors all had feeders without pens. Another reason I was able to hold so many deer on a little place.

Agreed, once the bullets start flying it doesn't take them long to realize folks is after them. Last season I counted five different bucks on my little 80-acre lease in East Texas. And there's not a single feeder or foot plot anywhere on it. I was very lucky to land a lease that has never been hunted and deer definitely seemed to act as if it was their safe zone once all the lead started flying around them. Still, I attribute every deer I see to nothing more than what Mother Nature provides them to eat. While feeding those same bucks might definitely improve their health and racks, I agree with the biologists who say feeders will never create a substantial increase in deer numbers. Quality? Absolutely. However, Mother Nature carries the biggest stick when it comes to quantity.

I had the chance to take a shot at the buck below during the second weekend of the season last year but he was beyond what I felt was my shooting capabilities. Oh, I'm sure the rifle was up to it, had it been in the hands of someone with better skills.

On a small place the deer on your land are on the neighbors land just as much. If your neighbors feed then they will spend more time there and still live on your land or lease. Travel time is what makes the appear to be nocturnal when they do not live on the place with feeders. People are naive to think the deer on a small place have been unhunted when you have neighbors hunting all around you.

I sense you're treating deer as if they were fed livestock while I'm viewing them more as wild animals. All you need do is find the thick stuff where deer prefer to hide once they feel pressured. It's been found that over 90% of the harvest during any given season will occur during the first two weeks when deer begin feeling the pressure and begin transitioning away from the normal movements. After that and it gets much tougher to see a mature buck in the daylight. With or without feeders, if you've got thick stuff on your property that mature deer seek once they feel pressured then you'll have deer on your place. Then it just becomes a matter of picking a spot between these areas and the places where they're headed while it's daylight. It might be a feeder on a neighboring property, or it might be an old oak that's throwing acorns. Otherwise, just time your hunts to match the clock on your feeder.

Of course, not to be overlooked is the rut when a buck might chase a hot doe through the middle of your camp at any time of the night or day.

I sense you're treating deer as if they were fed livestock while I'm viewing them more as wild animals. All you need do is find the thick stuff where deer prefer to hide once they feel pressured. It's been found that over 90% of the harvest during any given season will occur during the first two weeks when deer begin feeling the pressure and start transitioning away from their preseason movements. After that and it gets much tougher to see a mature buck in the daylight. With or without feeders, if you've got thick stuff on your property that mature deer seek once they feel pressured then you'll have deer on your place. Then it just becomes a matter of picking a spot between these areas and the places where they're headed while it's daylight. It might be a feeder on a neighboring property, or it might be an old oak that's throwing acorns. Otherwise, just time your hunts to match the clock on your feeder.

Of course, not to be overlooked is the rut when a buck might chase a hot doe through the middle of your camp at any time of the night or day.

There are no doubt thousands upon thousands of deer now hanging on Texas walls that once owed their healthy existence to being well fed.

Yeah, its a damn shame deer have to eat to live.

Isn’t that a requirement for all deer to get big??

Gonna take this topic od too many deer feeders a step further, but off the direction it went the last several posts….

Researchers have shown feeders top grade local browse and create situations where is moved frequently can cause issues with invasive species, mainly grass species, due to trampling and creating circles/zones of death around the feeder within a short period of time.

Is there any concern in areas that hold less abundant native browse (i.e south texas in drier months) about feeding year round and what that might do long term to the native browse distribution and/or concerns about top grading the browse and leaving only rhe lower tier browse which could ultimately lead to overall poorer health or smaller antler expression in the long run?

Taken a step further, would you ever be concerned about concentrating deer around feeders wouod lead to over browsing and too grading native browse “pushing” deer more toward neighbors that dont feed?

This is clearly reading way too into things, and a fortunate problem i dont have in southern OK most years, but i coupd see this potentially being a problem in an area of less abundant native browse in a south texas drought….

“The deer still do better in the wet years than the dry years even with supplementation,” Hewitt stressed. “Also, in seeking out variety for their diet supplement doesn’t cause the deer to focus just on the very best vegetation. In fact, there is some indications of the opposite. They might go looking for fiber to balance out the high quality supplement.
He also reminded that providing supplement will cause the deer population to increase. Thus, some sort of management will have to be interjected to keep the population in check."

Dang STX, cant get anything by you can we?

It is interesting the supplemental feeding does somewhat select away from high protein browse and more toward more fibrous food, and that intuitively makes a lot of sense.

What i found interesting, and again makes a lot of sense in the practical world, is we do create dead zones around feeders and researchers found moving feeders periodically allowed noxious invasive species to inhabit those feeder dead zones. So the take away there is keep your feeders where they are and dont move them much, despite the mud holes they can create. Obviously this isnt an absolute or anything, but interesting and something i wouldnt have meccessarily thought about.

Another intuitively finding was seed dispersal was much more prevalent in fed areas than unfed areas, which could actually help native browse some. Could hinder a little in some areas. But i think the overall positive of diverse flora is good for wildlife in general.

What I find interesting is people are quick to pinpoint the negatives of a deer feeder(s) that they perceive to be an issue but then cast a blind eye on water troughs, small food plots, mineral feeders, cattle pens and stock ponds that never move also. Yet, they still have the same impact as the feeder since they concentrate high numbers of "animals" and they never move either. They create huge dead zones by livestock, but that is ok. They are intentionally overlooked but still ok in the scheme of things since livestock are not seen as the cause of any habitat issues.

I have 16 corn feeders and 3 protein feeders on my property. 400 acres. The corn is gobbled up as soon as the feeder goes off.

poker, Im just gonna ask this out of curiosity since thats about the largest concentration of feeders I have heard of. I dont know anything about you or your situation so Im not judging but simply trying to learn. Do you have that many mostly to provide nutrition, or to attract them and attempt to keep them on your property, or to concentrate them specifically to hunt, or is there another reason? I guess if you had more than one feeder per stand that would explain it some. Depending on how often you run them, how often they throw, how much they throw and how many guys help pay, then that could be a huge corn bill.

I have 16 corn feeders and 3 protein feeders on my property. 400 acres. The corn is gobbled up as soon as the feeder goes off.

I hunt by myself on 1500 acres. I used to have 5 stands and 5 feeders. Since I hunt alone I cut it to 1 corn feeder and one protein feeder. It was a pain to try and guess which feeder the deer were going to hit during my sit. After a cutting down on the feeders slowly the deer have seemed to show up where I hunt. Multiple herds overlap now.

NICE!

But man I think I'd at least have 2 spots with stands and a couple feeders at each location depending of course of the layout of the property just to give me more options to look at and also for 'playing the wind'.