Oats grow alot faster than Wheat does on my plots. These were planted at the same time in the same field and look at the difference. The deer here prefer it to over Wheat also. I have planted separate fields and there are always more deer in the Oats. The last few years I have done a mixture of them drilled in together. I realize that Wheat is more cold hardy but I've never had a problem with Oats freezing out here. Pretty substantial difference in the amount of forage between the two right now.

I’d dress it with fertilizer and put some yearlings on it.

I mix oats and wheat also, but I have had the oats freeze out, several times. I think it depends on moisture and to some extent the kind of oats. Also, when it gets colder, and the grain is grazed, the wheat “stools” out and will hang in there with the oats.

It's tempting. Although I like being able look out the window and see anything that's black and know to go grab my rifle. This time of year the pigs come through at random times. I shoot alot of the porch.

This extreme cold front coming through next week should test everything. I will probably always do a mixture of some kind. I like the shotgun approach.

The deer like the mixture too. While they prefer one over the other, they prefer the mix and multiple species of forage can be the best. And it also hedges against cold weather killing a whole field

I've planted just about every small grain or mixed in my plots before. I used oats, wheat and rye along with clover was my favorite mix. Straight triticale is one that in test fields next to oats and wheat. They walked through oats and wheat to eat the triticale. Barley is another good add into a mix. Now I plant oats and winter peas. All the field I plant is that mix of 100 lbs oats and 100 lbs winter peas/acre. Been using this mix for a long time. If it doesn't rain it don't matter how light you seed....nothing grows...if rains a bunch it does well. This year the rains were timely and late so they are doing excellent. Mast crops and forb growth kept deer off them starting in early Nov. Now they are getting tall fast and deer are not mowing them down. This cold blast will kill a lot of vegetation so they will get hit hard from now on.
This plot is one of 11 I planted and its the 3rd best one of the group. Knock on wood I have never had oats freeze out completely. It may look bad like Feb blast 2 yrs ago but it came back with sunshine and warmer temps thanks to moisture in the soil.

My oats did just fine in the polar freeze 2 years ago.

That's a really nice looking field STX. I've never planted Triticale by itself but you have me wanting to try it now. I've done the grazing mix from Turner Seed-Oats, Wheat, Rye, Triticale and Barley but didn't really see a preference for it. I may do a field in just Triticale next year and see how it does.

My friend did his test in STX on a 20+ acre field divided into 1/3's and all drilled seperate the same day. He said hands down they like the triticale from his records. IIRC he did more than that one field also and results was the same. I sat on a field with him in late Oct and the deer jumped in to the field where the triticale was or if not they walked across on of the other two to get to the triticale. I planted it one time in the hill country on a large HF ranch and the deer at it well. Keep photo records of your plots from this year to compare pressure on the plots. Exclusion cages show better results.

Very interesting, I'm definitely going to have to give some a try. I keep records of usage/deer numbers every year, I didn't take any pictures last year but wish now I would have. I go back there about once a week in the middle of the night and see how many deer are in each field. Here you can really see the difference at night. Most of the time during the daylight hours I see about the same numbers in each field no matter what's in it.

My friend used exclusion cages on his test plots and regular plots every year. The amount they ate was noticeable per plot and then on plot vs other plots.