No its not A wives tale...picture of deer eating shows just that deer eat corn

If

If they havent had it in their diet... get it? And then its laid out for the first time late in the winter they can get a form of the scours and not recover.

Those deer in the picture are in the north maine woods far from any fields or corn.They are fed corn only during the winter time with no I'll effects what so ever.Of course they are also eating their browse as well.

That picture was on every Bulletin board in Wisconsin ...bars and sports shops during the 90s

Nice try

I think, if one trips my alarm again tonight ~ which is practically a given, by this point ~ I'll go hang my trail cam, tomorrow (It's dark now) and see if I can catch one

Picture was claimed by 47 Photographer s in 17 states

If deer are very hungry(near starvation) and dont have enough other stuff to eat and you give them a large supply of grain that they aren't use too they can over eat and produce a high level of toxins that can kill them. But it does kind of have to be the perfect "storm" for this to happen

Made up news made from road killed deer.

Yup but I know that exact spot and where it truly came from.Been going there since I was a child.

Fact!!!

Which is being exploited.

Much safer alternatives which are equally effective

I always heard that the western blacktails we had in CA would die if you fed them high quality hay and alfalfa without browsing. The browse that was normal for them helped to produce stomach acids to digest everything. I know that the roe deer and red stags here browse a lot, but eat their share of grass as well. Grain is not an option for them around my place.

Pete

My understanding from reading biologist studies is that deer need browse to be a high percentage of their diet for the stomach to work perfectly. If deer hunters knew how much corn a deer will eat on a daily basis in good habitat they would be scratching their heads trying to figure out were all their corn is going. But deer do love corn especially in cold weather but will only eat a pound or two a day in good habitat.

OP, what kind of deer do you have?
Some deer are browsers (brush, leaves, etc) and some deer are grazers (grass).

I've had deer beating a path into my back pasture since October.........eating forage turnips and a mix of winter rye (forage type) and red clover. Almost every night....rain or shine, fair weather or blizzard.

To a deer, turnips must be more addictive than crystal meth. They started out on the green tops.....are now eating the turnips like apples.

As I understand it on feeding shelled corn, concern is spread of chronic wasting disease through saliva. Otherwise, our Midwest deer get pretty fat grazing in the cornfields all winter........the only dead ones you find there got that far after a car hit em.

We have Fallow, Sika, Red and Roe. I got a look at one in a beam. It was way bigger than a Roe!

Just to point out that I lay just a litre a day. The birds clear the best part of that. Barn rats come off the bank and eat their share, as the light fades. These deer are really just getting a taste, from licking the road.

I've seen crazy stuff, trying to attract birds. Watched a red vixen, in a coat Cilla Black would have loved, sitting there, feasting on Rolled Oats?!

Best one though was 'my' pheasant, " Seiko " was pecking up his share when the ~ quite possibly the same ~ vixen came down the track. She was bimbling down this dead straight track. Well over a hundred yards, in clear view on a sunny day.

Seiko could clearly see her. She could clearly see him. I was grabbing for my camera, about to make history! Fox was well within twenty foot of the pheasant. Clearly intent only on the seed. Then, my infernal little JRT burst upon the scene and scattered everyone concerned!

There went my Pulitzer Prize!

If corn killed deer there wouldn’t be a deer alive in the South. We do have a few thousand we’d donate to ya though!!

I believe what 330 is saying in your harsh winters, after scrounging for anything edible, corn will have a devastating effect on their digestive tract. Our deer down here get corn and for the most part protein year round.

The stomach of deer changes to allow it get nutrition at different times of the year, if in the browse stage (twigs/brush) the feeding of grain has little to no value then as the ability to use the benefits of the Grain cannot be absorbed by the stomach. The digestive system needs to change over to start benefitting, so in other words at the wrong time of year a deer would starve with a full belly of grain.

That is why when your out beaver trapping in the spring the deer droppings look like a cross of beaver scat and is toothpaste looking in shape as the change over is in the process.

I doubt the deer down you way yard up and ever get into a browse cycle like the another deer do up North.

Nope, hence the reason I mentioned y’all’s harsh winters. Heck, we still have green browse. Not a lot, but still some green still around.