Deer Baiting

[Roper]

Last year I found the squirrels were eating my corn. Maybe turkeys also.
The apples I put out did not get eaten. But the deer seemed to love the pears.
Question: Will deer come to road salt? Salt the plow operators use if I put it out? I know I have seen deer licking the roads at night.

[Mcfasio]

Road salt is the only thing I use because it's so cheap and yes the deer do go to it.

[Roe+]

I don't use: 1. corn because deer can't digest it, squirrels and turkeys love it.
2. Apples because raccoons and bears love them

I do use: 1. Carrots because it not the deer love them once they figure out what they are. Start them off after a hard frost when their normal food source dies. They will only pick at first. The second year they will go crazy on them.

Cost: $6.00/50 lb bag

Roe+

[huntnmachine]

I start with minerals just after turkey season, that gets them coming in on a regular bases. I do not feed until a few weeks before the season opens

[Fox]

I don't use: 1. corn because deer can't digest it, squirrels and turkeys love it.
2. Apples because raccoons and bears love them

I do use: 1. Carrots because it not the deer love them once they figure out what they are. Start them off after a hard frost when their normal food source dies. They will only pick at first. The second year they will go crazy on them.

Cost: $6.00/50 lb bag

Roe+

The deer seem to do fine with the corn they take out of the fields every summer.

[MikePal]

I don't use: 1. corn because deer can't digest it, squirrels and turkeys love it.
2. Apples because raccoons and bears love them

I do use: 1. Carrots because it not the deer love them once they figure out what they are. Start them off after a hard frost when their normal food source dies. They will only pick at first. The second year they will go crazy on them.

Cost: $6.00/50 lb bag

Roe+

I've tried carrots a few times over the years...never any results...they just get moldy laying in the bush after a week or so.

The deer seem to do fine with the corn they take out of the fields every summer.

Yes with all the corn fields around here, the deer see it as 'natural' food..even if it's laying 500 yds into the bush under a cedar tree...a bag a corn has always served me well.

I tired with soya beans once, picked up a 5 gallon bucket of spillage once it was harvested off the field next to where I hunt and put it back into the bush by my tree stand...they never took to it there. Maybe because it was husked and not on the plant...


edit add: Roe is right about the diet...even between Oct/late Dec you will see deer turn away from apples and corn ...it's like their natural diet needs change with the seasons. I've watched deer eat only apples in early Oct skip the corn then they will poke the apples off the pile to get at the corn late in Nov...

[werner.reiche]

I don't use: 1. corn because deer can't digest it, squirrels and turkeys love it.
2. Apples because raccoons and bears love them

I do use: 1. Carrots because it not the deer love them once they figure out what they are. Start them off after a hard frost when their normal food source dies. They will only pick at first. The second year they will go crazy on them.

Cost: $6.00/50 lb bag

Roe+

Deer can digest corn. I'm not sure what you base your opinion on that they cannot.
I've see way to many deer scavenging harvest corn fields to believe that.
I also pick up a couple thousand pictures of them eating corn every fall on the trail cam.
Late fall/early winter cornfields are deer hotspots.

The *only* time deer can't digest corn is if they haven't been feed it during the fall/early winter and then are fed it when they are starving - the same applies to any grain.

Apples are great. Deer can be particular about the type of apples.
The once I get from MacLarens at Renfrew are good, as are the ones I pick up at my inlaws in Kemptville.
But I've twice tried apples from a friends trees from near Casselman. The deer pick at them, but for the most part leave them to rot. The deer seem to like red sweet apples.

Corn works too, particularly after mid November when the apples freeze - deer appear to not like frozen apples.
I usually leave corn out all fall, and feed apples as well.

Carrots rotted on the ground.

[huntnmachine]

Once Halloween is over don't throw your pumpkin away bring it to your bait pile and break it open, you will be surprised at how much deer like it

[standup]

Foolish thought here. Hows bout something long term. Hay, wild turnips, clover, cut trails in winter for them to run etc etc. Something that helps your freezer, and. Yes I know it's foolish, but maybe helps the animal too, more than a few temporary sweet apples

[standup]

Once Halloween is over don't throw your pumpkin away bring it to your bait pile and break it open, you will be surprised at how much deer like it

Not bear though. I think that's best in urbania