Food...just how much is enough?

[Boll Weevil]

I've been in the process of "taking stock" at the farm in terms of food, cover, sanctuary, etc. Several years ago I began executing a habitat improvement plan and guess I never really stopped to evaluate the progress...until now.

Regarding "enough food" I know there are many variables (Ex: carrying capacity, density, harvest plan) but between agricultural crops, established perennial food sources, edge-feathering / burning /strip-disking to increase native vegetation...there's been a tremendous amount of effort put into developing ample high-quality food. I'm actually thinking there's "enough" but don't have any way to really quantify or measure that.

One thing I don't have in place are exclusion cages and that might help, but how do you folks know when you've got enough food?

 

[Jmed]

For me it's easier to say when we don't have enough. Observing the deer spending lots of time on non nutritious browse, heavy browse lines, etc. are indicators of a lack of good food.

 

[MickThompson]

A deer needs 3# of forage/day during the growing season...
a clearcut/opening can produce 6000#/acre
a thinned forest produces 600 - 1400#/acre
a mature forest produces 100#/acre
a warm season plot can produce 3000#/acre/month
a cool season plot can produce 800#/acre/month

A very high deer density is a deer/6 acres. That said, you don't want so many deer that they eat everything you produce. These are peak figures. Excessive browse pressure in early spring will allow deer to stay ahead of the forage production and keep the habitat from reaching its potential.

Do you have a browse line in your woods? Do you have "ice cream" plants in your woods? Do you see significant crop loss? how does the weight of does taken on your farm compare to the county average? If you run cameras or record hunter observations, what are you seeing with fawn recruitment?

With the practices you have mentioned, I would assume that most of what you have is high quality. Granted, the plots can produce more, but at great cost, and to how much benefit?

 

[Boll Weevil]

Thanks Mick...this is really helpful. There's no browse line but as I thought about this, there are certainly areas that have more/better food than others so I'll consider location a bit more closely.

Assuming these are what you're calling ice cream foods there's lots of plum, pear, muscadine, blackberry, persimmon trees scattered about. There's also a few crabapples but not as many as the others. Some I've planted but the critters have also begun to take care of spreading these. I just protect / encourage their place in the ecosystem at this point.

I do have a lot of planted pine that's getting on up there though...and really starting to block out stuff like blackberry, honeysuckle, greenbriar and other browse. Not due for a thinning for a couple of years yet, but this is one area that could be on a food decline for the next little while.

We've never collected doe weights but maybe we should start. As far as crop loss, while the deer certainly get their share of beans and corn it's not like they come anywhere near the horor stories of wiping out entire fields or anything. There's a good bit of ag around me so that probably helps feed the neighborhood too.

Your last sentence is exactly what started me thinking in the 1st place. At the beginning of the effort, my assessment was that there wasn't near the quality / quantity of food required so I went to work. It never occurred to me until now (I was actually looking at some before / after pictures) that I might simply be in maintenance mode for now.

 

[muddyboots]

I go buy food plot usage. I have one lease where every food plot is eaten completely up. we cant seem to plant enough food there. My other lease plots seem to thrive with actually more deer but this property is in ag land so plenty food there.

 

[BSK]

One thing I don't have in place are exclusion cages and that might help, but how do you folks know when you've got enough food?

There is really only one way to know the answer to that, and that is with a browse survey conducted at the lowest food availability time of year; i.e. late February.

What top-quality foods are available then? How heavily are they browsed? Are secondary food choices being browsed? Are survival (3rd choice) foods being utilized?

 

[Boll Weevil]

What top-quality foods are available then? How heavily are they browsed? Are secondary food choices being browsed? Are survival (3rd choice) foods being utilized?

I'll definitely put it on my calendar for this February to pursue these answers in a more systematic fashion. Reviewing some pictures and as I recall from prior Februarys there's only a handful of reliable food sources at that time: waste grain from farming operations, food plots, and the very hardiest of browse.

- 9 acres of perennial clover is still green but it is little more than lip-height by then...1 inch at the very most.
- 1.25 acre of turnips still have some broad but very wilted greens left and tubers are typically being dug up...but there's still plenty remaining. I end up disking some in every year so they never seem to get all of them.
- The spring turkeys I kill are typically full of leftover soybeans or corn depending on crop rotation so I assume there's still waste grain out there (though I don't know if deer are willing to hunt and peck like turkeys or not).
- We no-till so all the big ag fields have undisturbed crop residue but there's some sort of wild grass green and growing. Don't know if they really eat that stuff but will investigate come February.
- We don't plant cover crops like wheat or oats but I typically put a little patch here or there thoguh it's not substantial. Of course, they keep it clipped but it's still 4-6" high.
- I planted some sorghum as a trial this year that will remain standing but really don't know how much they'll use it...never planted it before.
- Honeysuckle and geenbriar are available but are greenish / purplish and badly wilted from the cold. I know they eat this stuff every chance they get but will try to determine the extent to which it is totally consumed.
- Photos inside the timber looks absolutely barren. I gotta figure most of the acorns are gone or rotted and there's very little in there to eat.