habitat management for deer

Increase Browse for White-tailed Deer

Browse for Deer

Deer and deer habitat varies considerably between the northern and southern parts of the white-tailed deer’s range. The available browse for deer can, too. In the southern U.S., starvation of deer is generally not a problem. Mild winters in the region means deer browse is often available. However, late-winter is still a stressful time for whitetail in terms of food quantity and quality. It’s more stressful when deer density is above the carrying capacity of an area.

When it comes to winter and native deer foods, browse plants are the most important ones on a deer’s menu. In fact, browse plants are of utmost importance during all stress periods, especially summer and winter. This article discusses habitat management activities that can increase browse for deer. Ideally, the information here will take your native browse production and deer management program to the next level.

Talking Deer Browse

Like us, deer eat the best foods they can find. Whitetail consume a plethora of plant species. In fact, one study alone recorded over 400 species consumed by whitetail in an area! However, natural forage is limited to browse, cool season forbs, and hard mast (such as acorns) in the winter. During years of good hard mast production, deer use this forage well into the winter.

However, hard mast availability varies from year to year. As a result, deer turn to alternative food sources. Cool season forb (tasty weeds) availability also varies by latitude and is almost non-existent in freeze-prone areas. Locations at the northern part of the whitetail’s range often come up short on cool season forbs. Likewise, southern latitudes suffer a similar fate during winters with low amounts of precipitation. So how can deer managers increase browse for deer?

Importance of Browse for Deer

Browse plants are the most stable component of a white-tailed deer’s diet. Year-in and year-out, browse is a reliable staple in a deer’s diet. Why? Well, browse consists of the stems, twigs, and leaves of woody plants and these species tend to be long-lived perennials. Think about trees, shrubs, and vines, all of which provide deer browse.

Many woody plants lose their leaves in winter. Then, these deep-rooted plants consistently grow new leaves each spring and summer. This makes plants such as elm, hackberry, poison ivy, green briar, and other small trees and shrubs important browse for deer. They serve as great emergency summer time forage if a lack of rainfall fails to produce warm season forbs.

Perennials, such as trees and shrubs, with established root systems have an advantage over short-lived forbs. Woody plants can access water deep within the soil. Annual plants need consistent rainfall at very specific times of the year. In addition, some browse species–such as important juniper species in the north and live oak in the south are evergreen. These browse species are available for deer during the winter as well as the summer.

Enhancing Browse for Deer

Habitat management that increases browse availability is not very expensive or time consuming. As such, the practice should be a component of every white-tailed deer management plan. Increasing available deer browse is a simple, straight-forward task. It only takes a little work to increase the best trees for deer on your property. In turn, those new browse plants produce additional foods and attract more deer.

Thinning small, 2-5 acre blocks in forested areas is one way to increase browse production and availability. Removing some of the older trees or hinge-cutting them allows sunlight to reach the ground. And blocked-shaped openings are the way to go here. Narrow strip-thinning will not permit enough sunlight for optimal browse growth. Sunlight is needed to allow browse seeds and tree seedlings to take off. This favors some of the best trees for deer and creates more forage for local whitetail.

Alternatively, dense woodlands with totally enclosed canopies offers little for deer in terms of browse, except along the edges. Instead, open up the canopy and allow increased sunlight to spur browse plants and forbs. This increases plant growth, food availability, and ups the number of deer the area can support.

Enhancing Deer Browse

Thinning for additional deer browse is just the start. Another way to further increase browse production is through the use of fertilizer. Adding fertilizer to recently thinned patches substantially increases the productivity of browse plants. Imagine a garden with fertilizer; it does much, much better! In addition, use fertilizer along wood line edges to boost established browse plants, too.

In fact, fertilize the edges of wood lines, along roadways, and even along utility easements. Not only will plants be much more healthy and produce bigger, darker leaves, but deer find fertilized leaves more palatable. It’s just like an unfertilized food plot versus a fertilized one. Deer prefer fertilized areas because they can literally taste the increased nutrition.

In closing, browse is an important food source for whitetail, especially during stress periods. Use these habitat management tips and techniques to increase native forage and browse production on your property. Managing plant communities to increase browse for deer is an important part of a deer management program. Healthy habitat means browse plants that produce year after year, and especially when the deer need them most!

White-tailed Deer Habitat Management Considerations

When considering the management of white-tailed deer, unless your property is game fenced you should realize that adjacent lands are also included in the home ranges of many of the deer on a property less than several thousand acres in size. Only those deer within the interior of a really large property may have home ranges located totally within the property, while those in a wide band around the property’s perimeter likely move back and forth onto adjacent lands.

The quality of a property’s deer population will in large part be dependent on both the habitat quality and population management strategies (i.e. hunting pressure and deer harvest) on both your and neighboring lands.
White-tailed Deer: Habitat Management Considerations
The 4 Keys to Deer Habitat Management

The key to producing a productive and healthy white-tailed deer population is dependent upon the quantity, quality, and variety of food plants produced by the habitat or range. Food availability can be improved in the following ways:

1. Harvesting deer, including does, to maintain total deer numbers at or below the capacity of the habitat.

2. Stocking the range with a moderate number of domestic animals, preferably those that do not directly compete with wildlife, and utilizing some form of a deferred-rotation system of grazing.

3. Controlling invading “noxious” woody vegetation, such as excessive brush species that are not needed for cover. This will reduce competition between plants species and increase the production of grasses for cattle and the production and availability of browse and forbs preferred by deer. It is recommended that your property be a mosaic of 50-60% wooded/brush with the remainder in scattered openings and/or food plots.

4. Avoiding the stocking of excessive numbers of exotic big game animals or at least keeping their numbers at a low level, since exotics compete with white-tailed deer for browse, forbs, and mast. If you are really interested in producing trophy white-tailed deer, stay away from competing exotics.

Whitetail Habitat Improvement for Better Hunting

High Quality Foods for Deer Herd Health

Understanding food habits of deer is fundamental to deer management. You can produce large antlered deer simply by shoveling feed down their throats, but a good hunting property also provides and looks like good wildlife habitat. There is no doubt that you can produce a large, trophy-size buck in a pen on top of asphalt if you provide it with adequate food, shelter, and water and let it live long enough to reach its genetic potential, but I don’t think this is your goal if you are reading this article.

Studies have shown that deer prefer forbs and browse (leaves and twigs from trees or shrubs). Grasses make up a very small portion of a deer’s diet (usually less than 10%) and they are utilized only when tender and green. Deer can not digest mature grasses. Forbs are generally high in protein and important to deer size, antler development, and fawn production. However the production, quality, and palatability of forbs is highly dependent on rainfall and the season of the year. Forbs will be absent or unpalatable at least during portions of a year, typically during late summer and late winter.

Managing Habitat for Deer, Nutrition

Browse is the stable component of deer diets and, unlike forbs, is available throughout the year and is relatively drought resistant. Although utilized by deer throughout the year, browse becomes most important during the winter and summer stress periods when forbs are absent or unpalatable.

Browse species in a given area will vary with soils and precipitation, local climatic conditions. The best browse plants, as sought out by white-tailed deer, occurring in Central Texas include honeysuckle, downy virburnum, Texas madrone, Texas (Spanish) oak, Texas kidneywood, littleleaf leadtree, Texas sophora, Wright pavonia, chinaberry, mulberry, Carolina buckthorn, true mountainmahogany, cockspur hawthorne, Oklahoma plum, sugar hackberry, cedar elm, and slippery elm, which are rated as preferred species.

Moderately preferred species include skunkbush sumac, flameleaf sumac, evergreen sumac, poisonivy, possumhaw, fourwing saltbush, white shin oak, Lacey oak, blackjack oak, chinkapin oak, post oak, Roemer acacia, Texas redbud, saw greenbrier, common greenbrier, Carolina snailseed, Texas colubrina, escarpment blackcherry, woollybucket bumelia, netleaf hackberry, heartleaf ampelopsis, ivy treebine, sevenleaf creeper, Virginia creeper, and mountain grape.

Many woody plants also produce mast (acorns, fruits, or beans) that is readily eaten by deer, but mast production is erratic and therefore it is not as reliable as a food source as the foliage. Important mast producers are the oaks (including live oak, which is a low quality browse species), and mesquite and Texas persimmon, both of which are low quality browse species. The woody species found in your area is dependent upon the area’s geographic location, soil types, and terrain.

Past management practices, such as excessive goat browsing, cattle grazing, or improper or excessive brush control practices could also be contributing factors. The quantity and species diversity of woody plants are typically greatest on the deeper soils of riparian areas along stream courses and lowest in areas of shallow soils.

Determine the most important whitetail food plants in your area and manage for those plants. Native plants are very nutritious, highly desired by white-tailed deer, and are a renewable resource that will help you produce trophy deer, make your property look great, and save you some feed money over the long haul.

Habitat Management for Deer – Mix it Up!

White-tailed fawn

Range and habitat enhancment may be necessary on properties that have received high livestock grazing pressure in the past or have been degraded by other means. Many herbaceous broadleaf plants, known as forbs (but commonly referred to as weeds and wildflowers), are beneficial to wildlife for forage and/or seed production.

Commonly seen as unwanted plant species by farmers or cattle ranchers, the leaves of many forbs provide excellent forage and the seeds are highly sought by doves, quail, and turkey.

Encourage “weed” and wildflower species by the selective application of chemical, biological (eg. grazing management) and/or mechanical means. Native herbaceous plants (grasses and forbs) that provide food and cover for wildlife should be established where they are limited in the habitat. Plant species selected and methods for establishment should be applicable to the soil type and the area of the country your property is located. Non-native species are generally not recommended, but if required for a specific purpose, non-native species should not exceed approximately 25 percent of a seeding mix.

Seeding mixtures that provide maximum native plant diversity are highly recommended. The conversion of improved grass pastures (such as bermudagrass, kleingrass, buffelgrass), old fields, and croplands back to native vegetation is a desirable practice that will benefit wildlife in many ways. Increased nesting and fawning cover, in addition to increased food availability, will help wildlife on your property. Overseeding these areas with locally adapted legumes (eg. clovers, vetches, peas) may assist with the conversion process while increasing plant diversity and providing supplemental wildlife foods.

Periodic disturbance of the ground through shallow tillage (discing) encourages habitat diversity by stimulating the production of native grasses and forbs and can be used to create bare ground feeding habitat required by some species of wildlife. Discing in the fall will encourage cool season forbs while discing during mid-late spring will encourage more warm season forbs.

Remember, wildlife habitat is not about being a pretty, park-like stand of trees or a beautifully mowed lawn. You can manicure your lawn around your buildings, but wildlife like diversity and areas most people wouldn’t view as beautiful. But as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Deer Habitat Management Conisderations

When considering the management of white-tailed deer, unless your property is game fenced, you should realize that adjacent lands are also included in the home ranges of many of the deer on a ranch less than several thousand acres in size. Only those deer within the interior of a really large ranch may have home ranges located totally within the ranch, while those in a wide band around the ranch’s perimeter likely move back and forth onto adjacent lands.

The quality of a ranch’s deer population will in large part be dependent on both the habitat quality and population management strategies (i.e. hunting pressure and deer harvest) on both your and neighboring lands.

Continue reading “Deer Habitat Management Conisderations”

Fallow Discing for High Quality Deer Forage

Shallow soil disturbance on open sites to encourage the growth of herbaceous (weed) growth. This method is cost-efficient and particularly effective for the management of bobwhite quail and other ground nesting birds. The technique is applied through the use of a conventional farm disc disturbing the soil to a depth of 4-6 inches. Continue reading “Fallow Discing for High Quality Deer Forage”