Think their hungry?

2lumpy

2lumpy

Long Time Member
Messages
8,013
Eating tumble weed and rag weed stocks. Poor things.

78666EA8-273E-4CED-92A1-99727DFBA0EE.jpeg
 
We;re Already In Trouble Here In NE Utah with The Deer Herd Before This Winter Hit!

Mid-Day Temp Was 6 Degrees Today In Town!

4 Months Now Of Global Warming & Day Time Highs Have Been Single Digits To Mid -Teens For Most!

Not Good On What's Left!
 
We have been feeding our resident deer since December when we got feet of snow and nothing was exposed.

They are healthy and doing alright but just out of town the deer are getting hit hard and it is not letting up.
 
Wapitiwilly said:
Deer are doing good at my place but only because we are feeding them a couple hundred pounds of deer feed daily?
Thankfully so are most of my neighbors
Click to expand...
Hey Wapiti,
Where do you live?
I run a disabled hunter program in the Chalk Creek area and I swear I saw that exact deer a couple times this year?
A PM is fine if you need to.

63437E4C-480D-4144-B7A7-7120E8620715.jpeg
 
Wapitiwilly said:
Wanship
Click to expand...
Are you feeding the Mule Deer Foundation pellets specially made for them or something else? Do they all get some since it's in those buckets and not in a feed line? The ones at my house have been fighting each other for some Purina Deer blocks I have out and a Wild Bird seed and corn mix. They sure are mean to each other and the pecking order when food is around is pretty clear.

Thanks for helping them out with a food they can digest!!!
 
I feed them antler max. Biologists claim it is the best. Typically I stand around and the fawns will walk in without fear. Once they eat I leave and then it is uncontrolled chaos. Definitely a pecking order but feeding them twice a day helps. I also have a few of the anter max blocks out there as well.
 
We are feeding left over veggies, veggie trimmings, and grocery store produce waste mixed with corn, sunflower, crabapple, and rose hips. Right now we got a fawn on a pile of bell peppers, lettuce, and carrots. Lot of our neighbors are doing the same.

The pic is from last weekend.

IMG_20230205_172551305_HDR.jpg
 
Sadly feeding them left over vegetable is a very bad idea. Will they eat them? Yes will they be able to turn that food into energy? NO
They will die with full stomachs.

Mule deer can not digest corn carrots bell peppers etc into nutrients and worse they will keep eating eat until they are dead.

I do not blame people for trying but this is not a good idea.
 
Last edited:
notrace said:
Sadly feeding them left over vegetable is a very bad idea. Will they eat them? Yes will they be able to turn that food into energy? NO
They will die with full stomachs.
Click to expand...
They don’t die when they eat the apples, oranges, pumpkins, carrots etc from my garden. Where’d ya get that idea notrace.

Hell, their (Homer) eating the needles off the blue spruce here right now…….. that stuff will give’em stomach trouble more than rhe apples, oranges and carrots.
 
Look it up please in 83 84 we had the same thing happen and that was my science project. They can eat it but they can not turn it into fuel or energy.

Around browning arms in Morgan utah we dissected over 20 deer all had full stomachs full of just the stuff you are talking about .

Mule deer are not grazers like elk there browssers they eat pine needles sage brush dried grass bark etc.
 
notrace said:
Look it up please in 83 84 we had the same thing happen and that was my science project. They can eat it but they can not turn it into fuel or energy.

Around browning arms in Morgan utah we dissected over 20 deer all had full stomachs full of just the stuff you are talking about .

Mule deer are not grazers like elk there browssers they eat pine needles sage brush dried grass bark etc.
Click to expand...
I’ve never cut one open to check but they dang sure eat that stuff, year round. Yep, they eat the pine needles but they walk by the pines, until that’s all that’s left. .
 
tailchasers said:
We are feeding left over veggies, veggie trimmings, and grocery store produce waste mixed with corn, sunflower, crabapple, and rose hips. Right now we got a fawn on a pile of bell peppers, lettuce, and carrots. Lot of our neighbors are doing the same.

The pic is from last weekend.

View attachment 103522
Click to expand...
Did you report the shed hunters that pushed them all the way to your backyard?
 
2lumpy said:
I’ve never cut one open to check but they dang sure eat that stuff, year round. Yep, they eat the pine needles but they walk by the pines, until that’s all that’s left. .
Click to expand...
They can eat it and turn it into energy, bit it could take several weeks for their stomachs to be able to process it correctly. If they haven't been eating it for months, and are in a weakened state their stomachs can't handle the sudden change in diet. Same goes for alfalfa hay, the mountain deer that move down haven't been eating it all summer like the valley deer. I'm sure the deer in the valleys do better with that stuff then the mountain deer do.

That's why they recommend the pellets the dwr feed them, it's more suitable for them to digest.
 
JakeH said:
They can eat it and turn it into energy, bit it could take several weeks for their stomachs to be able to process it correctly. If they haven't been eating it for months, and are in a weakened state their stomachs can't handle the sudden change in diet. Same goes for alfalfa hay, the mountain deer that move down haven't been eating it all summer like the valley deer. I'm sure the deer in the valleys do better with that stuff then the mountain deer do.

That's why they recommend the pellets the dwr feed them, it's more suitable for them to digest.
Click to expand...
I have heard that for years too JakeH. For 47 years, I’ve lived three miles from the base of Monroe/Cove Mountain, there is 400 acres of alfalfa between my house and the base of the mountain. There is 3 acres of alfalfa 25 feet from my patio door. The mule deer follow the green back up the mountain in April. You can not find a deer in these hay fields again until the first week in October. Come early October they being pouring into those hay fields and the hay field next to my house. Up to 200 to 300 of them. From 20 to 40 in the hay field next to my house. So one day they’re eating straight browse, everyday, for nearly 7 months. The day they leave the mountain they eat nothing but alfalfa, from dark until dawn, every night until the fields are snow covered, generally, after the end of December. They eat straight alfalfa, for 2.5 to 3 months, and they switch from browse to hay, in a single day. If what the DWR biologists are correct, why are these deer not dropping dead in the fields?

Remember when corn used to kill trout in Utah……..? Now it doesn’t.

There’s something going on here………. too. I’m not cutting the stomachs of dead/starving mule deer open but my empirical observations tells me this reason for not feeding mule has some flaws in it. I know they don’t want people feeding wildlife for fear of large congregations of animals may spread disease, and for other reasons. Is this another corn kills trout deal that has become science by virtue of the “ends justify the means?”, I wonder.
 
The turkeys here are are eating the buds on the sagebrush, juniper berries, and rocks. Seriously. Apparently beans are bad for them. Go figure.

The deer moved to AZ, and I think the truckers killed all the elk. Should have starving wolves pretty soon.
 
2lumpy said:
I have heard that for years too JakeH. For 47 years, I’ve lived three miles from the base of Monroe/Cove Mountain, there is 400 acres of alfalfa between my house and the base of the mountain. There is 3 acres of alfalfa 25 feet from my patio door. The mule deer follow the green back up the mountain in April. You can not find a deer in these hay fields again until the first week in October. Come early October they being pouring into those hay fields and the hay field next to my house. Up to 200 to 300 of them. From 20 to 40 in the hay field next to my house. So one day they’re eating straight browse, everyday, for nearly 7 months. The day they leave the mountain they eat nothing but alfalfa, from dark until dawn, every night until the fields are snow covered, generally, after the end of December. They eat straight alfalfa, for 2.5 to 3 months, and they switch from browse to hay, in a single day. If what the DWR biologists are correct, why are these deer not dropping dead in the fields?

Remember when corn used to kill trout in Utah……..? Now it doesn’t.
Click to expand...
Ya I Do Remember That!

Everybody That Went To Strawberry Took 2 Cases Of Corn!

The Bows Were Big & Healthy back then!

Way Bigger & Healthier Than They Are Now!

LIL BEAV Ain't Old Enough To Argue With Me On This!

But I'm Sure He'll CHIME In With:But The Biologists Told Me This............!



2lumpy said:
There’s something going on here………. too. I’m not cutting the stomachs of dead/starving mule deer open but my empirical observations tells me this reason for not feeding mule has some flaws in it. I know they don’t want people feeding wildlife for fear of large congregations of animals may spread disease, and for other reasons. Is this another corn kills trout deal that has become science by virtue of the “ends justify the means?”, I wonder.
Click to expand...
 
JakeH said:
They can eat it and turn it into energy, bit it could take several weeks for their stomachs to be able to process it correctly. If they haven't been eating it for months, and are in a weakened state their stomachs can't handle the sudden change in diet. Same goes for alfalfa hay, the mountain deer that move down haven't been eating it all summer like the valley deer. I'm sure the deer in the valleys do better with that stuff then the mountain deer do.

That's why they recommend the pellets the dwr feed them, it's more suitable for them to digest.
Click to expand...


You are 100% correct in you're statements.

Muledeer take time to make the change over to the food and for most they just do not have that time at this point but if they been eating it all year there ok but sadly most have not . This is why deer that live in a apple orchard or a alfalfa pasture can eat it year round as there accustomed to it but the switch over is extremely hard on others.
 
2lumpy said:
I have heard that for years too JakeH. For 47 years, I’ve lived three miles from the base of Monroe/Cove Mountain, there is 400 acres of alfalfa between my house and the base of the mountain. There is 3 acres of alfalfa 25 feet from my patio door. The mule deer follow the green back up the mountain in April. You can not find a deer in these hay fields again until the first week in October. Come early October they being pouring into those hay fields and the hay field next to my house. Up to 200 to 300 of them. From 20 to 40 in the hay field next to my house. So one day they’re eating straight browse, everyday, for nearly 7 months. The day they leave the mountain they eat nothing but alfalfa, from dark until dawn, every night until the fields are snow covered, generally, after the end of December. They eat straight alfalfa, for 2.5 to 3 months, and they switch from browse to hay, in a single day. If what the DWR biologists are correct, why are these deer not dropping dead in the fields?

Remember when corn used to kill trout in Utah……..? Now it doesn’t.

There’s something going on here………. too. I’m not cutting the stomachs of dead/starving mule deer open but my empirical observations tells me this reason for not feeding mule has some flaws in it. I know they don’t want people feeding wildlife for fear of large congregations of animals may spread disease, and for other reasons. Is this another corn kills trout deal that has become science by virtue of the “ends justify the means?”, I wonder.
Click to expand...
That's quite the conspiracy theory lumpy, but I am not equipped to debate it. I'm sure there are other factors involved, maybe the quality of the forage at the time of the transfer helps the transition, or maybe the fact they move in as early as you say would allow the deer you are talking about to be fed hay this time of year, but I don't have all the answers. That's just what they say happens, I have no reason to doubt them. ?
 
JakeH said:
That's quite the conspiracy theory lumpy, but I am not equipped to debate it. I'm sure there are other factors involved, maybe the quality of the forage at the time of the transfer helps the transition, or maybe the fact they move in as early as you say would allow the deer you are talking about to be fed hay this time of year, but I don't have all the answers. That's just what they say happens, I have no reason to doubt them. ?
Click to expand...
I understand Jake. After these these many years, I do believe this for certain, they have told the truth, at times, other times they haven’t. A dead, emancipated deer, with a belly full of dry alfalfa is no guarantee it was killed by the hay. Like I said, there’s more than meets the eye going on here. imo….. at this point.
 
Delta said:
The snow over the next few days will make things much worse. I hope it warms up fast.
Click to expand...
The snow might not be worse if the temperature go's up.

I think the fawns are freezing to death right now they can not get enough energy to stay warm.
 
elkassassin said:
Ya I Do Remember That!

Everybody That Went To Strawberry Took 2 Cases Of Corn!

The Bows Were Big & Healthy back then!

Way Bigger & Healthier Than They Are Now!

LIL BEAV Ain't Old Enough To Argue With Me On This!

But I'm Sure He'll CHIME In With:But The Biologists Told Me This............!
Click to expand...
You saying that there is no big fish in Strawberry too? First the deer are tiny or gone and now the fish are scrawny and thin? Them good ole days must have super good to you hoss.
 
Not Saying That At All DC!

But If You Never Fished Strawberry in The Late 60's and 70's You Don't Know What It Was Like!

Now I Will Admit!

Opening Day On Strawberry Res Got To Be A Real F'N Joke!

There Will Always Be Some Big Fish In Strawberry!

If You Ever Get Out Here DC I'd Like To Show You One Of The BIG Issues With Strawberry Res Today!





Deepcolor said:
You saying that there is no big fish in Strawberry too? First the deer are tiny or gone and now the fish are scrawny and thin? Them good ole days must have super good to you hoss.
Click to expand...
 

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