Deer season is now officially underway, so we hope you had a great opening weekend. As we know, deer are very predictable creatures. They never travel too far to get to their food and water sources and they always gravitate to the same kinds of plants and crops. You can capitalize on this predictability by keeping your Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeders stocked with the deer herd’s favorite types of food during all year long, starting now. Making sure they’re stocked up during the early season will create a dependency to your property that you can cash in on by the time rut season gets into full swing.
Be Strategic
Make sure your feeders are providing the same kind of feed the herd would find naturally during this time of year. You can stock your feeder with clover, alfalfa and corn to replicate the deer herd’s natural environment. You’ll get bonus points if you stock your feeders with the types of grains or crops that the deer herd can’t find nearby. If you strategize to make sure your property offers a food source that the deer herd would otherwise have to travel to get to, they might be more likely to visit your property to get it. This could be especially beneficial as farmers harvest the cornfields. Deer will eat the husk and stalks of corn, but they prefer the kernels. So, if your feeder is still providing them with the kernels even after harvest season, they’ll probably keep coming back for their preferred treat.
Put Out Multiple Feeders
To truly capitalize on deer activity, you can put multiple feeders positioned all around your property and fill them with different types of food. You can have corn in one, grains in another and hay in a third. Our Haybank Hay Feeder holds one rectangular bale of hay and mounts onto a single post with multiple ports, just like our other feeders. This way, the herd’s diet will be varied, and they’ll start to come back frequently once they realize your property is a reliable food source. This will keep them coming back throughout the early season and will hopefully give you plenty of opportunities to make your harvest.
Keep it Going
Whether you’ve already been feeding the herd or are starting now, keep it up throughout the winter. If you establish predictability now, the herd will continue to come to your property throughout the rut season when their activity is at its peak and into the winter months when they need to conserve their energy for the cold weather. The deer herd won’t want to travel far or waste any more energy than they have to during those harsh winter months, so staying near your predictable property could guarantee herd activity throughout the entire deer season.
As you enjoy these first few weekends of deer season, make sure you’re keeping your feeders stocked so that the deer herd will keep coming back during the entire early season and into the winter months. Our Feedbank Deer Feeders could set you up for success all season if you maintain your feeders now and keep the deer herd predictable.
How do you keep the deer herd coming to your feeders during the early season? What do you keep the feeders stocked with? Let us know in the comments below!
How Cold Fronts Impact September Deer Movement