Mineral lick/ salt lick?

[mattpatt]

I use mine for scouting purposes. Just refreshed it with a 50lb bag of salt and poured some Deer Cane liquid I picked up on clearance at the end of hunting season. Not sure if the Deer Cane will help it but it smelled good. Next time I go I may pour a little corn around it if there aren't any signs of use.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I use mine for scouting purposes. Just refreshed it with a 50lb bag of salt and poured some Deer Cane liquid I picked up on clearance at the end of hunting season. Not sure if the Deer Cane will help it but it smelled good. Next time I go I may pour a little corn around it if there aren't any signs of use.

Thanks. Let me know how the deer cane works out for you.

 

[Rickey]

I've used deer cane for years. I always buy it on clearance from the deplorable big box store at the end of the year. It works great by itself or when mixed with other items. I'll post a pic of what I mix this weekend if I can. I started a new salt/mineral lick this past weekend.

On another note, as mentioned, pool salt is awesome. A few years back my brother and I put a bag on an old stump on our hunt club. By the end of summer there was a ditch going around the stump more than knee deep and the stump was half the size. Salt for your sidewalk/ice works great too. I have had similar results with it.

 

[sticktime]

100 lbs trace mineral salt, 50 lbs Di calcium Phosphate and 50 lbs white salt. mix in 6x6 hole will last all season for under $45. pics from last year

 

[MarkDarvin]

What are your objectives? Is it just attraction, or are you going for nutrition as well?

I don't use mineral mixes. Never saw much use out of them. I'm a fix the soil kind of guy. Mineral mixes are nothing more than fertilizer anyway. Get your soil tested and properly amended, and then grow some forages that are efficient transfer agents. Soybeans and sunflowers are "hard" on the soil. I say they are very effective at pulling nutrients up into the plant, the plant into the deer, and bammo, healthy deer.

That also being said, I do provide salt. Simple brown trace block, $6 at any farm supply store. I did a side by side with trophy rock and saw no preference from the deer.

 

[dgallow]

What are your objectives? Is it just attraction, or are you going for nutrition as well?

I don't use mineral mixes. Never saw much use out of them. I'm a fix the soil kind of guy. Mineral mixes are nothing more than fertilizer anyway. Get your soil tested and properly amended, and then grow some forages that are efficient transfer agents. Soybeans and sunflowers are "hard" on the soil. I say they are very effective at pulling nutrients up into the plant, the plant into the deer, and bammo, healthy deer.

No plant is 'hard' on the soil as an individual plant.....what is 'hard' on the soil is a field full of only one type of plant which demands the same minerals in the same quantity at the exact same time!

Unless one is far north with exceptionally short growing season then warm season broadleafs and warm season legumes (c4 grasses too which are off most deer managers radar) are invaluable to a balanced forage management program for well mineralized topsoil and active OM decay. Sunflower and other members of the aster family are critical to recharge topsoil Zn and Cu from subsoil deposits mined by their tap roots....and their 'woody' fibrous stems adept at holding Zn and Cu in the zone of decomposition until conditions for transfer of those elements to new growing plants occurs with onset of the next decay cycle. Putting carbon into the soil as OM is a fairly simple process of stockpiling more carbon as soil OM than you liberate as CO2 from soil disturbance(s). But to turn over that OM and release it's cache of trace elements back into topsoil....water, suitable incubation temperature, N , S and P must be in balance with the carbon stockpile so that soil microbes have all the tools/foods necessary to mineralize elements for the next wave of growing plants. Both warm and cool season legumes (esp vetch, soy, and coy pea) provide sufficient N, S and P to fuel soil OM turnover and release the cache trace elements contained therein. Savvy?

A deer is mobile and only requires that we provide suitable plant biodiversity so that he has the ability to select from the many plants in his home range containing the many elements which he needs based on his ability to formulate his own best diet....thus transfer of mineral from soil to animal and mineral status of the animal is entirely dependent upon plant ecosystem biodiversity, stage of plant growth and to a larger degree soil biological activity...all of which management has influence.

A square foot of soil is immobile...soil on the front 40 can't go to the back 40 to get what it lacks (unless you live the vast fungal dominated soil of the Olympic Peninsula!)....for the norm of us, soil must wait until the right plant is present at the right density to enrich what has been lost from that soil over time....thus the mineral richness of that soil depends upon the plant diversity growing on that soil and the biodiversity of different residues lying upon that soil surface for future decay/recycling. 'Mineral transfer' in this context infers mineral A be taken from the subsoil by plant B and held by residues of plant B on the topsoil until microbes C, D and E decay/recharge new plant F with recycled mineral A. My point here is that entities B-F are all required to increase both soil and future richness of element A through 'cyclic transfer'. For some elements you can go to the COOP and buy mineral A and indeed see a rise in mineral A in the plants. For the vast majority of elements that is not the case as mineral A status will never increase until entities B-F are all present and functional as an active 'transfer cycle'...no matter how much A you buy and apply!

 

[OkieKubota]

Got 1 of mine in this evening. 50 lbs dicalcium phosphate and 50 lbs rock salt...

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[Mennoniteman]

Got 1 of mine in this evening. 50 lbs dicalcium phosphate and 50 lbs rock salt...

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Do you plan to put a camera on it?