I don't do anything to promote winter browse for deer.'There are too many deer as is.


For me if I wanted to create more browse I'd heavily thin small areas, say 1/4 acre or less.
Leave a few larger oaks in these openings.
Also randomly cut smaller trees here and there that deer will browse the shoots.
For me that's Red Maple and Popple (aspen).



Make sure the forest floor has a couple of hours of sunlight per day.
Anything that is shaded all day is to thick.

After a tornado went thru my place I had knocked over trees in small pockets.
These pockets had no trees left save a handful of small stuff.
Sun was hitting the forest floor pretty much all day.
These areas had logs laying Lincoln log style all over the place.
The deer loved these areas. The had their fawns in there, bedded there in the winter due to the sun getting on the ground and logs/brush blocking the wind.
They browsed the young tree and brush shoots during the winter and hit the grasses and forbs in the spring and summer.

A woodlot with small openings that are thick with woody browse and a healthy ground layer of grasses and forbs with a few oaks is ideal.

all you need is a chain saw.