Do deer like....

I was picking up some corn, guy infront of me was also, and a bail of alfalfa. Do deer like alfalfa? He said he was going to try it out....

Never though about it. Any thoughts......

I bet they tear it up if they can get to it where it is growing.

Have seen mixed results with trying to feed bailed alfalfa, one place they tear it up the next the rabbits and hogs make beds in it.

I have been told deer will eat growing alfalfa but dry bales taste bitter to them and avoid it unless little else to eat.
I have eaten alfalfa (farmer friend, here eat this...) and growing does taste better.

M

If it's fresh, they'll vacuum it up in a very few days, especially if it's been dry and a lot of the browse is gone. I put bales in a couple of elevated cattle panel cages with a tin roof and a holder on one end for a mineral block. I found them on Craigslist down here. Keeps it above the hogs.

Earlier in the year I think I was sold some ancient bales at Kothmann's in Menard. They barely touched them, but it might have also been that there was more browse then. Still, I buy it by home. I figure the "horsey set" around me buys so much that fresh is coming in constantly.

It's a good attractant for axis, I believe.

I tired it once on an OK lease, they never touched it.

A green alfalfa field is like cocaine to an addict. My uncle had a 50 acre pasture of alfalfa in NJ and often there were 50 to 75 deer in it at one time.

Its like anything else. If there is lots of rain and lots of other stuff to eat they may not touch it. If its all they have to eat they will tear it up. They won't touch it at my place in East Texas, to much rain last few years.

We throw out maybe a half bail at a time usually once a week. Its gone pretty quick and the Axis love it.

Depends on location and other browse food sources. Trans Pecos it is a magnet. N.TX no luck.

Creekrunner, I like that bale/block set up

Like posted above it is going to depend on your location in the state and range conditions. Quality of hay makes a big difference in IME getting them started on it. I would not put out the whole bale to start, just a smaller leaf that I busted apart into a pile. Put a little corn on top of it to start them. As dry as it is getting here, I thought about trying a bale just to see what they do with it.

My older BinL from Houston had a lease one time down east of the Blue Hole south of Junction at Telegraph across the low water crosssing on the S Llano River. He put out bales up on a sheet of leftover plywood he'd got off the ground nailed to saw horses & surrounded in a pile of rocks and had no trouble drawing WT's after they found it. It was about 75 yards up hill from the feeder and if the deer came to the feeder, they'd always stop for couple minutes at the Alfalfa...and yes he always thought the WT's learned to eat it from the Axis. The sawhorses kept the hogs from getting at it too.
Ron

The alfalfa fields around Roswell have a deer problem, mulies eating them out of their livelihood. Tried it in Runnels county, hit and miss, sometimes it was eaten, sometimes it would rot in place.

If you have cattle on the place won't they eat it before the deer?

I've had deer walk past corn feeders to get to pieces of a dry bale. Key is to keep it from getting wet and scouring. Creek runners setup above looks like the way to go..

Our deer must be goofy. We have two feeders like CR has, our deer will nibble at it, but not really eat it.
One day I brought back a bale with the intent of getting the axis to come in. I put it on the ground and broke it up into nice loose pile. The whitetail almost finished it that morning and evening. In the evening they came trotting in to get it, and went right past the feeder. They would usually leave when I walk out on the porch, but they stayed right there eating up their new found munchies.
The guy down the road has a high fence around his alfalfa field to keep the whitetail out.

I have yet to see any axis on camera. I've spotted a couple of does driving out once, and txtrophy85 and the general contractor have spotted some, but I think they're passing through; 'same as my last place. Those alfalfa bales can start to add up when the whitetail decide to start finishing them in a week. They're on their own with just the mineral block and the regular feeder until it gets cooler, it's hunting season, and I'm feeling more generous.