Feeders

[jimbobcooters]

So my friends got me a new Moultrie Easy Lock feeder yesterday for Christmas. I personally have never thought about putting a feeder in the woods. I have a salt lick already and I usually plant about half an acre food plot in early summer. I have a couple questions. For you guys with feeders what do you put in them? Corn? Sunflower Seed? Has anyone tried any of the sweet feed from like Rural King? Also my initial thought is to put the feeder in my planted food plot. How long and how many times a day would you run it? I dont want feed just piling and getting wasted until they start finding it. The setting says that a 4 second run time will disperse .4 lbs of food. Just curious about your set ups and what you might sugggest to a newb with a feeder.

thanks

 

[yote hunter]

My buddy's dad feeds deer and does the mineral thing too for the deer, he started out with corn to get them to come to the feed then started to mix the corn with sweet feed then just went to deer feed without corn at all... They burn it up all winter and its a good place to pick up sheds too... He is a farmer and owns a lot of land but he don't feed where they hunt its like a safe zone for the deer , its off limits for hunting.... He just does it more to keep the deer around and to help them out thru the summer and winter...

 

[Dirty Steve]

I have been feeding deer for about the last 4 years with a redneck feeder. It consists of a 4" piece of PVC pipe 5' long with a threaded end cap. The pipe has 2 lag bolts run through it and it is bungee strapped to a large tree. The bottom is set about 1" off of the ground. It will hold about 20# of corn and a 40# bag from Rural King typically lasts me a week and a half. I simply unscrew the top cap, pour corn in and screw the cap back on. Since the bottom is open, as the deer eat the corn on the ground in front of the feeder, more spills out. If I haven't had corn in it for a week or so, it typically only takes the deer about 2 days to find it again. When I first started doing it, it took them about a week to find it and about 2 weeks or so to start coming to it regularly. From looking at the images on my camera, deer usually hit it all day from 5 days a week to every single day in the winter. Sometimes just in the morning, sometimes morning and afternoon, sometimes 3 or more times a day and always at night. I have never fed anything other than whole corn.

I too do it just to keep deer around so we can see them from the house and to help them get through the winter.

Dirty Steve

 

[cschwanz]

We've been using one the past 3 or 4 years (after the season ends of course). Not sure the model, but its a Moultrie, 55gal drum feeder that stands on 3 legs. We just use standard corn you can buy at the grain mill. We set ours to run the full 20 seconds twice a day. Not sure the poundage its supposed to put out but we usually fill it up about once a month.

 

[Tynimiller]

Illegal to use during the hunting season, so DON'T! After the season corn is the go to and the easiest to obtain. As for the idea you can bait a part of your property (or run mineral/salt licks) and still hunt some of the rest is 100% wrong according to numerous CO discussions I've had with 3 separate CO's. Nothing is worth the risk of not being able to hunt so if you or anyone else wants to run mineral (don't run salt licks, do a real true mineral supplementation product) contact your local CO and discuss proper procedure for shutting them down before the season. After numerous discussions we shut ours down first week of September at the latest, dig up some of the top soil and haul out and fence off the remaining area to assure no contact with the lick can be accomplished. Again contact your CO though.

Feeding is in the same boat, do not feed till the end of the season to be safe, and many times depending on your habitat artificial feeding can hamper a doe group or deer in general the ability to winterize properly and keep them in a food devoid area fully dependant on your corn. Just consider the habitat around and if it has browse as well outside of your corn...if it is brows devoid I'd consider either not feeding or simply being prepared to fully support the local deer (LOTS OF CORN).

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

Tynimiller is right especially about minerals. It's the CO's discretion whether or not it's "cleaned up" - meaning zero remnant of the mineral in the soil - 10 days prior to hunting it. There's no law governing how far away from "bait" is legal so if there are trails between the "bait" and where you are it could be trouble.

Food plots however are legal "bait" in Indiana as are synthetic scents.

I use PVC feeders and trail cams in the off season to see what's in an area, but stop feeding in September and remove the feeders; just trail cams after that. I used to feed with a moultre feeder here at the house just to keep the watch. I had mine set on a half second feed, sweet corn, 8am - once per day. That way I could see what was around my area in daylight. They had to come to the feeder in daylight or the birds and squirrels picked it clean during the day.

 

[jimbobcooters]

Tynimiller is right especially about minerals. It's the CO's discretion whether or not it's "cleaned up" - meaning zero remnant of the mineral in the soil - 10 days prior to hunting it. There's no law governing how far away from "bait" is legal so if there are trails between the "bait" and where you are it could be trouble.

Food plots however are legal "bait" in Indiana as are synthetic scents.

I use PVC feeders and trail cams in the off season to see what's in an area, but stop feeding in September and remove the feeders; just trail cams after that. I used to feed with a moultre feeder here at the house just to keep the watch. I had mine set on a half second feed, sweet corn, 8am - once per day. That way I could see what was around my area in daylight. They had to come to the feeder in daylight or the birds and squirrels picked it clean during the day.

Thanks guys, I know the laws about baiting. The mineral lick has been cleared out since August. There is just a huge hole in ground now. I wont put any salt back out until spring. As for the feeder, my deer season is over now. No bow and I doubt I will make it out after Christmas for the special anterless season. I was just curious to see how many other people were running feeders and what you used in them.

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

I uses sweet corn in my auto feeder, as I said, but Tractor Supply sells a sweet corn I can't remember the name, that's cheaper than dog food that the deer seemed to like too.

 

[Tynimiller]

If you want to supplement more minerals and nutrients into the feed, put some Monsterraxx minerals into the corn. Stuff is so low in sugar yet attractive to deer, isn't just salt in granule form like nearly every other "mineral" supplement out there.

 

[jimbobcooters]

If you want to supplement more minerals and nutrients into the feed, put some Monsterraxx minerals into the corn. Stuff is so low in sugar yet attractive to deer, isn't just salt in granule form like nearly every other "mineral" supplement out there.

Thats something to think about. Never heard of Monsterraxx before!

 

[Tynimiller]

Thats something to think about. Never heard of Monsterraxx before!

It unlike nearly ever salt laden (or let's be honest salt with sprinklings of minerals) actually is a mineral supplementation (think of it as a vitamin) for the deer herd. It isn't about growing bigger racks, but a healthier deer overall. Does will benefit from it and produce better milk and healthier offspring the healthier they are. Yeah healthier deer will grow bigger racks naturally but genetics and age play the biggest part and no mineral supplementation is a magic pill...however something like Monsterraxx will allow a deer's skeletal structure to be healthier, coat be healthier, overall health be healthier which in turn would only make sense to have some kind of impact on antler growth...but even if it doesn't it is bound to result in healthier deer.