Including corn?

I can set the time on my corn feeder.

I knew I would get called out about free choice during the hunting season! True it makes it harder because the camera's don't lie. You do get a lot of night time use however we keep our ratio so tight that I feel the extra food is warranted/needed because of the rigors/damage our bucks create while rutting especially the weight loss. I'm willing to make the hunt tougher ( daylight observations) sometimes and provide the additional nutrition they need coming out of rut. Its a trade off. I've found in the last few years by doing this they go into the antler growing season in better shape and the mature bucks typically grow above average sets of antlers. At least this has been my experience. It helps if you get a little rain along the way but regardless this is what we have evolved to since we are focused on quality. Since I opened that can of worms with the word "Quality" if our bucks don't show us something by age 4 they typically don't make it to age 5.Quality to me is frame, # of points.

On the other two ranches we feed cotton and protein January into September and then switch over to corn through February. The main difference here is that we are running a select commercial hunting operation that has been groomed for over 20 years. We only harvest x number of deer every year to make sure we have quality carryover. All native and we harvest very good deer every year.

Was not calling anyone out and certainly understand the benefits of feeding year round. Most of the guys at our place do so. Just not me and Klappenbach.

Just rolled in from the ranch and I was surprised to see how hard the bucks are hammering the cottonseed right now. They are emptying each hoop per week. The does are nibbling, the bucks are gorging plus they have protein available. Very curious their consumption choice at the current time...........

I'm hoping that those of us that hunt in South Texas got some much needed rainfall from this tropical storm so that feeding the deer can be post poned till late July when things get dry again!

I have a friend that leases a ranch NW of Freer. His rancher told him they got 5.02" inches out of the storm. Enough for run off into their tanks and a quick green up before it burns out again with the heat.

All the deer continue to gorge on the CS since my last post in June. They are now going through a hoop per week plus free choice protein. It appears that the cottonseed has become their preferred buffet item.

I put a wire cottonseed feeder in our protein pen over a month ago and the deer won't touch the stuff. Getting dozens of deer a day hammering protein, but won't eat the CS. I sprayed it with vanilla extract a few weeks back, nothing. Poured a half bag of corn over it two weeks ago, curious to see what effect that might have had, will see this weekend. Just odd that everyone else has deer hammering the stuff and our deer don't even acknowledge it's there.

When we first started out with free flow protein pellet feeders, the deer hardly touched it the whole entire first year. The second year they were eating it regularly and the third year, I could not keep it filled up fast enough (the deer just hammered it down.) It may take a year or two to get your deer to feed on cottonseed.

Was there this weekend, and it seems they might have started munching on it a little bit now. The question did come up though, how long can it sit there before it goes bad? Molds? Whatever that makes it undesirable to them?

Bucks laying around with their testicles on hot sand for days at a time also have been reported to be sterile, but we have always had a rut as far as I can tell, even in extremely hot years.. Stock that is fed cotton seed always cycle and produce, so I would say that the bucks won't eat enough cotton seed to make them sterile. Mule deer and whitetail bucks in the Texas Panhandle seem to always be able to get it up for the rut, so I would say if all the bucks had to eat was cottonseed, it might slow them down, but I think eventually most would reproduce.

Just back from the ranch again. I've decided to run a test this winter. The deer have finished off the last of the protein this week. We had 5" of rain labor day week , so have ample weeds coming up plus a good crop of acorns this fall for a change. I still have a good supply of CS left so I decided to bump up the CS at all my corn feeders during the season ( a lot of extra work for me). I've noticed that since the bucks have gone hard antler they have backed off the CS and the does/fawns are hitting it pretty hard (interesting). Deer are focused on the native browse currently since the green up which is a good sign. My biologist says I have to many animal units and we need to reduce our head count so we shall see how our season unfolds....

Another quick update. Acorns are raining down which is wonderful however it is turning very dry and the deer are coming back on the CS. They are hitting it primarily late in the day , not so much at night, (Cameras). Big deer have been focused on the mast more so then the CS and have been passing the cotton up for weeks now. The big boys are butterball fat prepping for what's to come. It's about to get very interesting!