Antler Points

In mountainous Virginia and similar areas, the amount of forage plants available to deer declines rapidly from spring to autumn. The quality declines even more rapidly. In hardwood areas, mast (acorns, seeds, fruits) may improve the food conditions greatly, but this food supply is not dependable. It changes over the years. To produce large numbers of high quality animals on an area year after year-large size, large antlers, high fawn counts-supplemental food may be needed. It usually is.

Supplementally fed wild deer will be larger and more productive than those that are not. The amount and type of feeding, and thus the cost of doing so, are key questions for the modern herd manager.

Before discussing details of growing plants for deer, it should be useful to decide before we start: How can we tell that we are doing a good job? It is a reasonable question but difficult to answer. How people know anything is usually found in a set of criteria. The Deer Group staff believe that a preliminary set of criteria is as follows:

The criteria should be:

1. A good land response (we need to get a good yield-well over a ton of dry plant matter per acre). Score = 10
2. Signs of deer use (1/5 to 1/2 of the production should be used in the cool months, or about a pound per deer per day). Score = 6
3. Deer average weight increases (more than 10 pounds). Score = 5
4. Fawn production (average fawns seen per doe; more than 1 per 20 does) Score = 3
5. Average antler beam diameter increases significantly (many factors, especially sex- and age-class related effects of harvests, influence this diameter so it can only be slightly related). Score = 1

   Total Score = 25

Score each criterion on a scale of 0 (no) or 1 (yes), multiply each, then add the results, then multiply by 4 to get a score (with 100 being a perfect response to the management work. The payoff may take 2 years to show up. Complete the cost of increasing each point of the score. (A Deer Group computer program is available, but the arithmetic can be easily done without the computer aid.)

The above score captures and unifies the concepts of improved food supplies by studying the animals themselves. Spring food supplies are diverse and abundant, almost impossible to measure. In bad mast years (low acorn, walnut, etc. production) deer will shift more of their feeding to grasses and clovers. Even in years in which mast is abundant, deer will feed on the supplemental food plots. The key to the plot work is to boost crude protein in available forage to above 12 percent. For maximum growth of deer, it needs to be 16 percent. This level is rare in the mixed hardwood forest. Clover and other legumes are the means to pump protein into the forage base.

These supplemental feeding areas are needed after spring-green-up signifying that the quality (keying on protein) remains more important than the amount of dry matter available.

Costs per deer for supplemental forage area probably in the neighborhood of $2 per deer. Fencing such areas from cattle doubles that cost for a 10-year period. A mix of wheat and clover seems like a reasonable strategy to use when deer herd quality and production are needed and especially where quality is part of a well-designed profit-producing land-based enterprise.

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.