Effective Deer Supplementation: Supplement Not Substitute

Written by: Bobby Deeds, Wildlife Specialist

With more and more property being devoted to improving production of whitetail deer, we continue to see an increase in the popularity of free choice supplemental feeding as a management tool. While we know supplemental feeding can improve herd metrics, I believe we have reached a point that some ranches are overfeeding deer or feeding rations that do not effectively complement their native habitat. This essentially turns into deer that rely on supplemental feed as 90+% of their diet even in the presence of good habitat. This should be a major concern for anybody trying to manage their property for whitetail deer as it is neither cost effective or good for the deer long term.

An effective free choice deer SUPPLEMENT should be a ration that deer consume around.75%-1.5% body weight/ head/day in the presence of average or better habitat conditions. Record Rack is formulated to hit in this range and limits the amount of candy or starch-based ingredients accordingly to prohibit overconsumption. Many feed companies rely heavily on grain as an ingredient though as it is cheap, and deer will readily consume it. While this is good for the feed company it can create multiple issues with your deer and your wallet!

While we also preach intake as being extremely important to get results, it should not be the only measure of how nutritionally dense a ration is or how well your deer will perform on it in the pasture. More feed does not necessarily mean better results. When a ration that is loaded with grain is put out free choice, deer are going to hammer it even in the presence of above average habitat conditions. When you begin to substitute feed for good habitat and browse your deer are most likely not reaping the benefits you would expect. The diet should consist of a good balance of natural browse and supplemental feed. When deer overconsume high grain rations, you are negatively impacting the rumen and are creating an acidotic environment that puts deer at risk from a nutritional stress standpoint. Deer can gorge these types of feeds to the point that their hooves become elongated and even lame particularly during the rut. Also, when deer begin to utilize feed exclusively, they can crash when you pull feed during hunting season as they have to change their diet to learn how to properly forage and will drop weight dramatically because feed is no longer available. Post rut death loss due to malnutrition with bucks on ranches that feed high grain rations that substitute habitat are often several times worse than neighbors that did not supplement at all due to this type of nutritional stress. These responses can also be amplified during drought years as these types of rations also have very little digestible fiber built into them and deer can consume them to the point of acute acidosis and death.

Ranches I deal with that keep good records and have tried these high grain rations because intake is all they were concerned with mentioned that their Average B&C scores did not improve on comparable rainfall years while the feed bill doubled. Feed and supplement companies do an excellent job marketing the “look what this individual deer did in one year on XYZ Ration!”. These results are typically based on better environmental conditions and the response of that individuals’ genetics to them, not the feed. If a supplementation program is truly effective, you should see improvement particularly with average antler mass and body condition across the entire herd with the least amount of supplemental feed to see that response. Deer should always consume less feed in the presence of above average habitat conditions. If you are not seeing this response, you are feeding a substitute, not a supplement.

Ranches that are falling into the intake is everything trap are most likely doing more harm than good. At the very least they are shelling out more money on feed and not getting the response they believe they are. I would encourage anybody to test their ration for starch or NFC prior to feeding it. Most of the candy rations will run 40-60% NFC and can often lead to the issues discussed. I know it’s hard to nail down intake on your deer in a pasture scenario, but records will tell the tale. Do not look at responses of individuals, keep good records and look at averages across the herd on comparable rainfall years. If we are not improving metrics an average across all harvested animals and the feed bill is going up with comparable habitat conditions, we are simply throwing money out the window.

It is our goal at Record Rack to provide the most balanced supplements we can to help you maximize results as cost effectively as possible. That is why we max starch levels on all of our pelleted deer rations. It does cost money to limit the amount of starch in a ration and still maximize energy and digestibility, but that is our goal with every formula and the primary reason managers that focus on habitat first see consistent results on our products. Record Rack is a supplement not a substitute to good habitat!

For a free supplemental feeding evaluation, please feel free to contact us anytime.