I understand electronic feeders in South Texas where lack of water makes food plots difficult to manage. However, here in GA when ever I see pics from trail cameras positioned around feeders about 70 percent of the visitors are hogs, possums and raccoons. Why spend the majority of your feed money on pests? Seems like food plots draw more deer during daylight hours anyway. Feeders seem to primarily visited at night. Your thoughts?

put soybeans or wheat in the feeder INSTEAD of corn. find a farmers co-op and ask for "field" wheat or "cleanings". Cleanings are what is left over after the wheat has been screened and prior to being put in bags for sale as seed wheat. deer love wheat. both as a seed in a feeder and growing in the field. i own/live on a farm covered up with deer. they eat my soybeans and wheat like there is no tomorrow. i quit using corn 20 years ago.

When I hunt whitetail in Southern Oklahoma, we hunt food plots. On my lease in Texas, we either stalk of hunt feeders. Given the choice between feeders of food plots I would take food plots every time where practicle. I have seen more and bigger deer over food plots during legal shooting hours. We have some game cam pictures of some great bucks at our feeders, but none during legal shooting hours.

We hunt west Texas where it is really rocky and very hard to plant anything. We use protien feeders which is just free feeding and only use the timers from August to February. Be aware there are feeds out there that have very high protien conents. A whitetail deer can only absorb and use 19.5% protien from his diet. It is useless to feed higher percentage protien.

I would love to be able to plant food plots on my South Texas ranch but rainfall is too spotty. It sure would be cheaper than protein and cottonseed.

quote:

A whitetail deer can only absorb and use 19.5% protien from his diet. It is useless to feed higher percentage protien.

It is my understanding that they can only use about 14% so anything over 16% is a waste. Also when feeding protein you need to have a supply of water because a high protein diet can burn their stomach.

Hugh,


You can build a low fence around the feeder to keep out the hogs and install a varmint gaurd to keep the coons off of the spiner. The deer will jump the fence and eat the feed.

The coons will still get alittle off of the ground but, the deer will still have feed.

You can also buy one of the very expensive feeders that the deer stick their heads in. we have two that hold about 600 pounds of feed each for year round supplemental feed. The deer and a few birds are about the only critters that get into those.

If you keep a couple of those on your property you'll keep the does and we all know what that means during the rut.

Good Luck

Reloader

Why not both? Well, if you have the ability to grow a food plot that is. Food plots overall are much more beneficial to the health and nutrition of the deer. Not to mention, after they're planted, you can leave them alone. No batteries to change, no corn, etc. to refill. In a couple of months I will be planting several plots on my family farm. Feeders are great because, as mentioned before they attract a lot of does, and when set on timers it's like ringing the dinner bell. Now, I'm not saying that I go out just before the timer goes off, kill a doe and leave. I'll sit and watch them for hours.

So, really, the more you have, the better your chances. I'll have food plots, corn/soybean feeders, and several salt/mineral licks put out this year. Just hope all that work pays off.

Hugh,

I live in the southeast corner of Georgia just north of the Florida line. I have tried both food plots and feeders. When I planted food plots the hogs and turkeys moved in the rooted up the plots and scratched up the seeds. When I tried feeders, the hogs would knock them over unless I tied them down, and still they ate most of the feed. If you have private land, and have a hog problem, the DNR in Georgia will now issue you a hog control permit allowing you to legally hunt them over bait outside of deer and turkey season. I got a permit, and have eliminated a bunch of my hog problem, and have had a ball doing it. I tried the fence around the feeders, but the hogs knocked it down too. A well placed bullet will take care of the problem.

We plant about 20 acres in oats every year and have a crop about 3 years out of 4. This year, everything on the ranch except the cactus is brown.

Fencing the feeders is the answer to hogs--and you don't have to use the 4' high panels, but the shorter (38" I think-they call them hog panels around here) ones. The lower mesh is smaller too, which keeps the piglets from getting in and cleaning up the corn. And, although it is the answer, it is a high maintenance proposition as the hogs will root like crazy to get under the panels to get to the corn. I have considered putting an electric fence around the outside, about 3-4" off the ground to discourage them.

We run our electric feeders year round--for the simple reason that it holds the does and the does bring the boys.