Bowsite.com

Deer Pantry "Feeder View"

For deer lovers, this is cool, luv it... Got it from the LeatherWall:

" Deer Pantry "Feeder View"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVC6sdNnNi0#action=share

Brownville's Food Pantry For Deer

The Brownville Food Pantry For Deer feeds approximately 400 pounds per day of native oats (local) to help sustain the white-tailed deer population through rough winters here in central Maine. Feeding happens daily around 14: 00 (2 PM) Eastern Standard Time starting December 16 and continues to the beginning of April. These are wild deer and this is not a deer farm. Some of the deer have been coming for more than 10 years including a piebald deer with more white markings than a normal white-tailed deer. At times there are 100 to 200 deer at the pantry. Wild turkeys also come and eat the native oats along side the deer. At times you may see up to 100 wild turkeys at once. There is no Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD in wild deer in Maine. Please dont complain about it in chat. These deer are all very healthy and there has never been any type of disease spread among these deer. This "Yarding" of deer happens in Maine every winter, even if they were not being fed."

What a great program

Those critters are lucky !!!

As long as their stomachs can handle the change in primary food source to grains, OK. Another method is too cut browse (a natural food source), works with moose too. Anyone else see the video of Larry the cable guy cutting trees and moose coming up to him to feed??

Interestingly when we hunted along RR tracks and grain silos, etc. in the Midwest the deer had an interesting smell about them. Especially when field dressed. Didn't seem to change the cuts of meat when processed but wow did those animals stink.

Thank You for your conservation efforts.

I live near a huge deer feeding program . It’s in Wilson’s Mills, Maine. One of the bad things with deer feeding up here is that deer no longer go to traditional wintering yards. After 5 years of no deer, timber companies can cut out the yards. I spent all day today cruising in what was a huge deer yard in the Parmachenee. The deer now all go to Wilson’s Mills and Magalloway to eat grain in everyone’s backyards. That yard will begin to be clearcut this week at a rate of 15-20 acres per day. The timber company clearcut a deer yard last winter that used to hold over 200 deer. Over in Pittsburg, NH, they lose an average of 100 deer every winter to roadkill as deer cross back and forth over Rte 3 eating in back yards. Down in Dummer, NH, the huge yards heading up towards Signal Mtn are all disappearing as the deer now winter in deer feeding stations. The Forks of the Diamond and the immense Diamond Peaks yard in the Dartmouth Grant, all gone. We have created a disaster if through hard economic times, deer feeding stops or CWD shows up and we are forced to stop. Within a couple of years, all of our traditional yards will be clearcut. Without feeding, people will watch deer starve to death in their back yards. The only deer I saw in that doomed deer yard today was a big buck hanging high as he fed off tops recovering from the rut. All the other deer were in Wilson’s Mills. I actually own one of the last natural deer yards up here and log it sustainably. A guy up the road fed deer until March last year, but not much. The deer on my land wintered well during our 6-8 foot snow cover, but they had cover and a good overstory. They fed well on the maple and hemlock tops I cut and my crab apple trees were popular with both them and the turkeys until February.

Thanks Lawdy for doing it right!

That looks like a good program. Here when we log we don't clear cut. In a year you can't get through where we cut the under brush is so thick. The best places to hunt is where it has been logged. My dad built a house for an old guy that had a feeder just like the one in the video. When he would go down to fill the feeder the deer would come right out of the woods and start eating. For a living the old man raised large mouth bass for stocking. He also had a watering trough for the deer and kept a heater in it to keep it from freezing. The deer really liked it also. BTW the house was built with real old wood taken from old houses the old man has bought and taken apart. All the bricks were brought over from England as ballast in the sailing ships. An Indian spent days and days cleaning up the bricks to be laid. He bought my dad a case of special 10 inch saw blades for cutting the two hundred year old oak. Kept dad from having to sharpen so often. The oak was hard as it could be.

This is very cool. I watched for the first time last night and now I’m hooked.

there is defiantly some downside to this, most of which was covered by lawdy. Yarding is an essential trait of White tails in the Northeast, discouraging it is mistake. Have to be careful what we meddle in .

Kinda reminds me of the live waterhole in Africa some years ago. Very addictive to watch.

In wolf infested areas " Yarding" merely sets the table for them. Also, "yarding" and close contact is not a positive in areas with CWD, best to spread the food sources out.

Here's an overhead view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICCprBNnexA

They talk about wild turkeys coming, but no mention of moose... Ya'd think there'd be moose, but must not be any in the area???

What is a “wintering yard”?

A "yard" is a place where deer will/would gather, usually in an evergreen grove of some kind. The trees gave some cover above and also helped keep in the body heat some what. The deer would move around keeping the snow packed down. They would migrate there as the snow depth increased and spend the winter, much like the deer and elk come down from the mountains as winter progresses out West. There's better explanations I'm sure, but that's kind of it in a nutshell.

^^^ A wintering yard is easily recognizable. The deer congregated in a yard all wear those white nose/mouth masks to prevent the spread of disease. They don't wear them at feeders and that's the problem.

Sorry for my ignorance on this lol. Down south in Louisiana I’ve never heard of such.

However, what does clear cutting the yard hurt? Down here clear cuts are the best areas to hunt deer, plenty food grows in the fresh cut sun beat grounds.

Once a deer yard is clearcut, there is no shelter from the wind. We reach -40 up here. Add wind and it doesn’t take long for a deer to die. I found 5 in a group behind houses where they were being fed, all dead. We dissected them and their leg bones still had plenty of fat in the marrow. They froze to death. Coyotes love to hang around the edges of deer yards and feeding areas. They push a deer into a cut where 6-8 feet of snow ends the chase. In a deer yard, the packed trails make it easier for deer to escape predators. Once winter sets in, deer metabolism drops. This helps conserve energy and fat reserves. I measured the temp difference between a cut and a softwood deer yard, 15 degrees on a windy day. We radio-collared a buck in Pittsburg,NH. He averaged 11 miles a day hitting backyards for a nibble of grain. He died in March. Ambush, the deer in a wintering yard don’t all nibble on the same twig, but they sure go nose to nose over a pile of grain. It is very common up here to see young deer get beaten by older deer competing for grain, sometimes with fatal results. I realize your comment was meant to be humorous, but we biologists hear silly stuff at hearings every year, including one guy who asked me, “did it ever occur to you that moose are stepping on the baby deer eggs before they hatch?” Our biggest worry up here is that as long as people can afford to spend money to feed deer and do it through April, deer farming works. God help the herd if they can’t afford it and stop, especially mid-winter, and areas of high traffic should be off-limits to deer feeding.

Lawdy, thanks for your explanation. It makes plenty sense now and I truly hope the state or something steps in with resolutions.

With uncontrollable human encroachment nowadays its a shame to think of what The future of wildlife and hunting will look like.

The town of Magalloway, Maine is giving up their township to be taken over by the state because they have less than 20 residents. Every year at town meeting they vote to buy several tons of grain. In 2022, that will end as they feed 200-300 deer. Maine will not pay for that grain, and the feds are buying up the timberlands there, allowing it to be clearcut first. We could see a massive deer die off.

TTT

Was just watching a couple racked bucks shoving each other around... There also a big shed buck in the main view keeping others at bay right now...

Those deer sure arent bothered by him filling the feed trough just before 2pm today

There is a nice 8-point on the Road View right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxAuGgHACRs

Here's an updated linky to all the views:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmPhiIJ-s7MJG2WtM7nbUw

There was a lot of action there tonight, just like Washington DC...8^) Rack bucks sparing, shed bucks sparing, and shed bucks sparring with racked bucks...

These deer are supposed to be dead of acidosis! A metabolic syndrome far more discussed, than actually occurs in well fed deer and domestic livestock. Barstoolers love to throw the term around as if corn and other grains will automatically kill all deer who come in contact. I have never seen a dead deer in my corn fields.

If I was in your corn fields you'd have a lot of dead deer ;)

Another nice 4x4 there right now

Register here to reply to this topic