Do deer eat grass?

[Doskil]

Do deer eat grass such as timothy?

Thanks

 

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

Only if they are starving. In the fall and winter of 2007-2008 our deer where eating fescue.

 

[FLIPPER]

Do deer eat grass such as timothy?

Thanks

Don't know...but they sure spend ALOT of time in hay fields with their nose buried in it.

 

[Buckhunter72]

as far as grasses go, it depends on the grass.

Deer love Oats, Wheat, Rye, and Triticale.

They will eat ryegrass, but it is extremely low in preference if anything else is available.

But, they will generally not even touch, Orchardgrass, Tall Fesque, Matuagrass, Timothy and Bluegrass.

 

[Football Hunter]

Do deer eat grass such as timothy?

Thanks

Don't know...but they sure spend ALOT of time in hay fields with their nose buried in it.

Eating the weeds and clover ,deer are not grass eaters,stomachs really cant handle it,Thats the way I understand it

 

[BSK]

Deer have a vey difficult time digesting grasses. They do not have the required stomach bacteria to do so (like a cow does). Deer are seen feeding in fescue and hay fields all the time, but as Football Hunter pointed out, the deer are trying to pick between the blades of grass to eat the clovers and weeds that are mixed in with the fescue.

Grasses--especially tall native grasses--are best used as bedding and fawning cover for deer.

 

[Doskil]

OK

I was under the impression they could eat timothy and rye grass but not fescue and orchard grass

 

[Football Hunter]

OK

I was under the impression they could eat timothy and rye grass but not fescue and orchard grass

Are you looking for something to plant?Lots of better things than any type of greass.

 

[Doskil]

Nope.

Just lots of "old world" pasture grass in the cow pastures around here and I sometimes see deer eating what appears to be grass.

 

[MickThompson]

Like what everyone said, most of the time they are picking around the pasture grasses. I assisted with some of the food plot reasearch at UT. Even under high deer densities when everything palatable had been eaten to bare dirt, pasture grasses were hardly touched. The deer wore trails to bare dirt through them, bedded in them, but would not eat them even when they had eaten everything else in the plot. I would never advise someone to plant perennial grasses. They just add weeds to a food plot. Annual small grains are highly preferred, however.