Tag: deer food

What Do Deer Eat?

What Foods do Deer Eat?

White-tailed deer are large animals. They require many pounds of food each day. Ever think to yourself, what do deer eat? Well, whitetail are ruminants like cows, but deer diet selection is much different than cows. Cattle are grass-roughage eaters, have a relatively large rumen compared to body size and depend heavily on grasses for their diet.

Grasses are low in crude protein and digestibility when compared to the items deer eat. Whitetail food sources include legumes, forbs (broadleaf weeds) and the new-growth of browse plants. To a white-tailed deer, browse consists of the leaves and twigs of trees, shrubs (brush) and vines. Forbs and browse plants have high protein levels, ranging up to 15-35% depending on time of year.

Deer Eat High Quality Foods

Because grass is relatively low in nutrition, grasses need a longer residence time in an animal’s rumen. Longer residence time increases rumen microflora (bacteria and protozoa) degradation and digestion of the forage. Thus, for grass-roughage eaters like cattle and sheep, residence time is quite long and rate of food passage is slow.

Deer can’t go slow! They have high physical demands for energy. Whitetail can not afford to carry around extra, dead-weight. Deer must remain lighter and faster. There is a predator around every corner in the woods. Instead, white-tailed deer focus only on the most palatable, most-easily digested food items found in their habitat. This ensures that they get the most energy possible with the lowest amount of food intake. Besides, eating takes energy and time. It’s difficult to watch for predators with your head down.

What Do Deer Eat?

What do Deer Eat Then?

White-tailed deer are what people in the diet business call “concentrate selectors.” Their rumen is small relative to their body size. Deer simply cannot hold a lot of forage. As a result, their diet must be very high in nutritive value and capable of being rapidly degraded in the rumen. This makes for quick digestion.

Therefore, white-tailed deer rely primarily on the good stuff. Whitetail food sources consists of the best forb and browse plants that are found growing in their environment. These items are usually much higher in crude protein and digestibility than just about every species of grass.

Some forb plants that deer eat:

  • Illinois bundleflower
  • Deer pea vetch
  • Lespedeza
  • Euphorbia
  • Patridge pea
  • Spiderwort
  • Wild carrot

Some browse plants that deer eat:

  • Oaks
  • Elms
  • Hackberry
  • Greenbriar
  • Dogwoods
  • Poison Ivy
  • Grapevines

Deer Eat Little Grass

Grasses comprise only a very small part of the overall diet of the white-tailed deer. Often, it’s less than 10 percent. I think this important to point out because so often I hear people say, “The deer have so much grass to eat.” Yes, you may see deer in a field, but it is not the grass they are eating. Instead, deer search for interspersed forbs/weeds that are much easier for them to digest. Furthermore, these food items are loaded with protein.

Warm season perennial grasses supply livestock with most of their nutrients. These items will not meet the nutrient and consumption requirements of white-tailed deer. In fact, a white-tailed deer will not survive in a field of grasses. A whitetail will literally starve to death with a belly full of grass.

Whitetail do eat some grass. However, deer only consume grasses that are rapidly degraded in the rumen. These include the small grains and ryegrass that are used to any extent by deer. This is why winter food plots for white-tailed deer containing these cereal grains and grasses can work. Other useful introduced forages include both warm and cool season legumes. Most hunters know them as clovers. Deer will use small grains and legumes, but they still cannot comprise a deer’s entire diet.

Some grass plants that deer eat:

  • Canada wildrye
  • Green sprangletop
  • Little bluestem
  • Silver bluestem
  • Rescuegrass

Deer Eat A Diversity of Foods

As you can see, it takes diverse plant communities to meet a deer’s dietary needs. Healthy deer make for a healthy deer herd. Furthermore, diverse whitetail food sources grow big-bodied deer. Big-bodied bucks grow big antlers, too. Good habitat is key. Supplemental feeding will ensure good body condition during periods of low rainfall.

Deer are very selective feeders so they require a diverse environment. It takes a diverse diet for whitetail to remain healthy. As a result, white-tailed deer prefer high quality habitat. It takes active habitat management to continually create whitetail food sources.

Foods Deer Eat

For several reasons, deer are often observed feeding along field edges. First, deer are very difficult to see in dense woods so we rarely see them there. They spend time in dense woods but these areas often lack food sources. Second, there is always a greater diversity of food available at the intersection of field and the edge of a woodland. This is because forb diversity is low in woodlands, but browse diversity is low in grasslands. Put them together and you have a deer buffet! So, what do deer eat in these transition zones? Go to the edge of the wood line and you can see for yourself. Evidence of deer browsing can be found on palatable browse plants.

More Resources on Deer Diet

Diet: What do Deer Eat?

A complete list of native plants used by white-tailed deer includes browse, forbs, soft and hard mast (fruits, acorns), and mushrooms. Again, deer are not classified as grazers. Rather, whitetail a are commonly referred to as browsers. Each day, a deer’s mission is to get high quality food with as little effort as possible.

Some mast that deer eat:

  • Acorns
  • Pecans
  • Persimmons
  • Dewberries
  • Hackberries

Forbs and mast, while providing good nutrition, may not be available in abundance every year or at certain times of the year. Forbs are often most numerous during the rainy seasons such as during the spring and fall. Deer will consume these readily when available because they have very high protein levels.

What Foods do White-tailed Deer Eat?

Browse plants tend to be more stable from year to year. Consequently, browse plants are the “bread and butter” of a deer’s diet. Again, browse plants are trees, shrubs and vines. These types of plants are deeply rooted and can persist through the summer. When natural foods are low during the winter, deer will also eat old, dead leaves directly off the forest floor. They are low in nutrition at this point, but they may be the best food available to them at that time.

In closing, whitetail food sources can be classified into several categories. However, browse is the most important source of deer nutrition because of its year-round availability. Important browse plants include green briar, poison ivy, grape vines, honeysuckle, hackberry, elm species, oak species and a variety of other trees and shrubs that are palatable in the area/region where the deer live.

Food Habits – What Whitetail Deer Eat

What do deer eat? Deer eat mostly browse (leaves, twigs, shoots of woody plants and vines) and forbs (weeds and other broadleaf flowering plants). They do eat some grass, but only when it is young, green, and succulent. Sheep, goats, and exotic game species compete directly with the whitetail for preferred deer foods. Deer food shortages usually occur during late summer and winter months.

Adequate forage is usually available during the spring and fall seasons because of mild temperatures and increased rainfall. A variety of foods and habitat types is essential to good deer production and survival.

Deer eat a variety of plants, and different plant species become more important at different times of the year and importance can even vary year-to-year depending upon environmental conditions. The following plants are examples of some good deer foods which are readily eaten by deer when and where they are available.

What exactly do deer eat?

Browse:oak leaves and acorns, yaupon, greenbriar, hackberry, mulberry, sumac, hawthorns, poison oak, American beautyberry, wild cherry and plum, wild grape, honeysuckle, dogwood, elm, blackberry and dewberry, acacias, walnut, and chinaberry.The will utilize additional plants species depending upon the area you are located.

Forbs: Illinois bundle flower, euphorbias, bayflower, tickclovers, clover, verbena, wild lettuce, wild onions, old man’s beard, wildbean, snoutbean, lespedezas, spiderwort, vetches, lamb’s quarters, plantain, groundcherry, pigweed, carelessweed, and partridge pea.

Grasses: rescue grass, wintergrass, witchgrass, panic grasses, sedges, and rushes, as well as wild and cultivated rye, oats, and wheat.

Whitetail Deer Food Plots Without Planting

Food Plots Without Planting

Have you ever noticed that the first plants to return in a plowed, scraped, or otherwise disturbed area are weeds? Although this may not seem like much, these natural food plots could be of big benefit to your deer management program. When exposed to air, light, and water, seeds that were lying dormant in the soil begin to germinate following soil disturbance. These young, succulent plants are high in nutrient value and attract a variety of wildlife species looking for valuable forage, particularly white-tailed deer.

Disturbed sites can also serve as excellent food plot locations to supplement white-tailed deer diets during the stressful late winter or late summer periods. Areas can be lightly disked during late winter for the production of spring annuals, and then be heavily disked in early fall for winter food plots. This process can be repeated over and over and you can even sprinkle in some seeds during the spring disking to enhance  the plot. Remember, you are trying to create supplemental food for deer. You are not trying to grow a lawn. It does not have to look like a perfect stand of manicured plants. Continue reading “Whitetail Deer Food Plots Without Planting”