Antler growth protein feed

[Deer Stuffer]

Not exactly sure what the right name is. Antler King maybe? Whatever the stuff deer farmers feed their bucks for antler growth.
How do you feel about feeding that to the wild deer on your hunting property to make your bucks grow bigger racks?
I will say that I wish hunting pen raised deer was illegal.

 

[BoneCrusher20]

If i had to guess it's some type of steroid base product vs like a mineral base food additive. Think you would spend your wallet dry trying to supplement feed a wild animal to achieve noticeable antler growth, as we can't control what else they are eating as closely like a game farm can or what else is going to come to our feed.

Realistically having a large field of soybeans would probably be the closest thing us normal guys can do to a deer farm, as bucks like to visit same field throughout summer on regular basis and is going to give them lot of nutrition. Could be more coincidence, but our land has 30 acres of ag field and there is not a lot of ag remotely close to us and we rotate beans 2 years and corn 1 year, i'm convinced on corn years i have much smaller bucks, as they are not on the corn during the antler development phase.

 

[Jack Terpack]

I feed Antler King protein from the beginning of Dec till about March. The bucks are trying to recover from the rut and the does are developing their embryos. That takes a strain on their system when good protein is at it's lowest. I use a four station bulk feeder so that the squirrels and hogs can't get to it and I normally go through about 100 pounds a month. over a couple years, the difference was rather surprising. Bucks had more mass in their antlers and the fawns grew much larger the before. I quit the feeding because people noticed the better deer crossing the roads and suddenly I had trespassers all over my property. Even now, about 5 years later, I have treestands on trees within 10 feet of the border. I don't even hunt the home property any more. All my deer hunting is in PA.

 

[DocHolladay]

We feed Sportsman’s Choice Record Rack and Golden Deer Nugget at a 50/50 mix. The Record Rack is 20% protein and the GDN is 13% protein. That usually equals out to roughly 16% protein. The GDN has a berry scent that pulls the deer in and a little extra vitamins/minerals over the RR. The deer hammer it. We usually buy a pallet of each and get a little over a year out of it. We feed from January to September and have to stop feeding(the last piece gone) 14 days prior to hunting to be legal. It has made a huge difference in all of our deer physical development and conditioning. You save some money buying in bulk the way we do. We saw improvements in the deer’s overall appearance within the first month of feeding.


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[Drycreek]

I feed protein pellets here at home, but only because it’s one of the things I can do to be eligible for my wildlife exemption for property taxes. I have no elusions that feeding protein on an 80 acre place is gonna result in “super deer” but I also believe it does no harm and may help them when they need it the most. I’m limited on food plot area, there is zero ag in my area, so I feed the protein and also keep trace mineral blocks out for them. The blocks get lots of activity and are where I get my spring/summer “inventory” pics.

 

[j-bird]

I think it will help....to what magnitude I have no idea. Lots of variables....including how much the deer choose to eat, how much of what they eat actually gets absorbed by their bodies and how much of an improvement is the feeding from a nutritional plane perspective over the rest of the food in the area. Feeding and plotting are a very small portion of a wild deer's diet.

 

[DocHolladay]

I think it will help....to what magnitude I have no idea. Lots of variables....including how much the deer choose to eat, how much of what they eat actually gets absorbed by their bodies and how much of an improvement is the feeding from a nutritional plane perspective over the rest of the food in the area. Feeding and plotting are a very small portion of a wild deer's diet.

Our feeders range is size from a 50lb to 150lb capacity. We try to fill them up every 2 weeks if possible, once a month at the most. I wish I had some before pictures, but I don’t know which lease member has them. We do notice less use during spring green up, but they do still come to the feeders. In the fall when white oaks are dropping, they still tend to use it regular. I wish Tennessee allowed baiting, that way we could keep the feeders full during the winter when food is scarce at our lease. Even with feeders out, the deer hammer our foodplots(we only have a couple acres on a 468 acre lease). There is native food for them, but it gets slim pickings during the winter.

50lb-

150lb-

Barrel feeder-

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[THE LLC]

Our deer must have a lot more Democrat in them than y’all’s because ours eat 50 lbs of 16% cattle pellets in one night—two if we’re lucky. They clean out my 300 lb Banks feeder in 5 days.

 

[Baker]

An effective protein supplementation program can increase antler size 10-15%, increase body weight, increase fawn survival, and while it takes about 3 years to start seeing results , from there the benefits continue to accrue.

 

[DocHolladay]

An effective protein supplementation program can increase antler size 10-15%, increase body weight, increase fawn survival, and while it takes about 3 years to start seeing results , from there the benefits continue to accrue.

It took us about that long to really start seeing the antler results, but we saw their coats and increase in weight(we were seeing less ribs) in the first 6 months.


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[Drycreek]

An effective protein supplementation program can increase antler size 10-15%, increase body weight, increase fawn survival, and while it takes about 3 years to start seeing results , from there the benefits continue to accrue.

I think the key word here is “effective”. To me that means feeding them all they can eat, but I’m no expert. Is that what you’re saying Rusty ?

 

[davidhelmly]

Our deer must have a lot more Democrat in them than y’all’s because ours eat 50 lbs of 16% cattle pellets in one night—two if we’re lucky. They clean out my 300 lb Banks feeder in 5 days.

Lots of democrats in our herd also, they will eat 1 ton in 3-5 days depending on the time of year.

 

[THE LLC]

Damn free loaders I tell ya.

 

[Mitch123]

Record Rack, corn and roasted soybeans we get from our local co-op. Mix them all at a 1-1-1 ratio. Last year was our first full winter of some supplemental feeding, we have 5-6 moultree gravity feeders that did the trick. This year we bought a 300 pound banks gravity feeder that I can’t wait to get up next weekend. All I all I believe we have seen a difference, in the first year mainly just body size so far. Can’t wait to see them continue to grow.

 

[THE LLC]

I’ll be honest, I don’t think most of us have the wallet to sustain a truly beneficial feeding program in wild herds. Could be wrong. I’m trying to see but I know it ain’t cheap. Not like good food plots.

 

[dogghr]

Record Rack, corn and roasted soybeans we get from our local co-op. Mix them all at a 1-1-1 ratio. Last year was our first full winter of some supplemental feeding, we have 5-6 moultree gravity feeders that did the trick. This year we bought a 300 pound banks gravity feeder that I can’t wait to get up next weekend. All I all I believe we have seen a difference, in the first year mainly just body size so far. Can’t wait to see them continue to grow.

What of the bears, do you have trouble with them and those gravity feeders? Just don't see one surviving here.
And so bears and coons eat protein feed of any type?

 

[cutman]

I’ll be honest, I don’t think most of us have the wallet to sustain a truly beneficial feeding program in wild herds. Could be wrong. I’m trying to see but I know it ain’t cheap. Not like good food plots.

This is what ended my protein feeding program - I changed jobs and took a (hopefully temporary) 40% pay cut. Goodbye, protein for the deer. They were eating 57 lbs a night and I do think it helped.

 

[Mitch123]

What of the bears, do you have trouble with them and those gravity feeders? Just don't see one surviving here.
And so bears and coons eat protein feed of any type?

Dogghr, you are right about the bears we have way to many of them. We are only putting these feeders up January-March, so in theory most of the bears should be in. We also put them in cedar patches or around fields, places where we don’t “normally” see bear. Knock on wood last year we didn’t have a problem with a bear getting into them at all.

 

[THE LLC]

That’s kinda like places we don’t “normally” see wild hogs.

 

[j-bird]

Our feeders range is size from a 50lb to 150lb capacity. We try to fill them up every 2 weeks if possible, once a month at the most. I wish I had some before pictures, but I don’t know which lease member has them. We do notice less use during spring green up, but they do still come to the feeders. In the fall when white oaks are dropping, they still tend to use it regular. I wish Tennessee allowed baiting, that way we could keep the feeders full during the winter when food is scarce at our lease. Even with feeders out, the deer hammer our foodplots(we only have a couple acres on a 468 acre lease). There is native food for them, but it gets slim pickings during the winter.

50lb-

150lb-

Barrel feeder-

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So I think your post and some of the others sort of demonstrate the point I was trying to make. IF the deer will eat it and IF they get enough of it and IF it is of higher quality than their current habitat supplies I think you can certainly see a difference with time. I live in farm country. I'm not saying my deer have a perfect situation....BUT, I think it's better than many of the big woods habitats out there. As such I am not sure I would see the differences many other see in less agricultural areas of the country. Like we see time and time again...what works for some may not work for others.....glad to see you have been happy with your feeding program. I fear I would simply end up with fatter raccoons!