Winter Browse for Deer

Winter Browse for Deer

Winter Browse for Deer is very important as this is the time when food is in short supply, and energy needs are highest.  Your bucks are run down from months of rut, and your does have a set of twins or triplets growing inside them.  If your bucks enter winter without enough fat, they can die of starvation, as it is very difficult for them to gain more from browse than they use simply surviving.  Your does will abort some or all of their fawns if the winter gets rough and they do not have adequate feed.   A bad combination if you want to enter spring in good shape.  If you are going to help your deer herd at any time of the year, it should be now and Winter Browse for Deer should be your goal.

Winter Browse for Deer

You could argue that bucks need it more, and you could argue does need it more, but either way Winter Browse for Deer is very important.  As we said earlier, your bucks are in rough shape right now, and all of their energy will be used to get their frame back in shape.  Only when your bucks are fully grown and in solid physical shape will they express the full potential of their racks.  This means they could use some help every year of their lives in the winter time so they get enough Winter Browse for Deer.  Select cuts, clear cuts, felling mature popples and maples or birch trees all create major tonnage of Winter Browse for Deer, and are good ideas in most management plans.

Your does are trying develop fawns right now, but the will not sacrifice their own well being to do so.  If you are noticing a low occurrence of twins and no triplets in your cameras and deer sightings, your does may be aborting one or more of the fetuses as they develop.  Your does need to be 3 or older to drop these multiples, but you can help the occurrence by making sure you land has enough Winter Browse for Deer.  Keep track of both doe weights at harvest, and whether the does dropped zero, one two or three fawns.  Over time you may be able to find that sufficient Winter Browse for Deer is helping boost production.

Gauging winter browse for deer

Get out and walk your woods in March.  Pay special attention to the shrubs and young trees to see what diameter of limb the deer are browsing.  If they are browsing sticks big as a pencil, you are in trouble.  The deer refer to nip only the very ends of last years growth, and if they are eating more, you need either more Winter Browse for Deer, or less deer.  You need to strive to find that balance between deer numbers and habitat.  Either lower the deer numbers, or add more Winter Browse for Deer.