What do deer eat? Deer eat mostly browse (leaves, twigs, shoots of woody plants and vines) and forbs (weeds and other broadleaf flowering plants). They do eat some grass, but only when it is young, green, and succulent. Sheep, goats, and exotic game species compete directly with the whitetail for preferred deer foods. Deer food shortages usually occur during late summer and winter months.
Adequate forage is usually available during the spring and fall seasons because of mild temperatures and increased rainfall. A variety of foods and habitat types is essential to good deer production and survival.
Deer eat a variety of plants, and different plant species become more important at different times of the year and importance can even vary year-to-year depending upon environmental conditions. The following plants are examples of some good deer foods which are readily eaten by deer when and where they are available.
Browse:oak leaves and acorns, yaupon, greenbriar, hackberry, mulberry, sumac, hawthorns, poison oak, American beautyberry, wild cherry and plum, wild grape, honeysuckle, dogwood, elm, blackberry and dewberry, acacias, walnut, and chinaberry.The will utilize additional plants species depending upon the area you are located.
Forbs: Illinois bundle flower, euphorbias, bayflower, tickclovers, clover, verbena, wild lettuce, wild onions, old man’s beard, wildbean, snoutbean, lespedezas, spiderwort, vetches, lamb’s quarters, plantain, groundcherry, pigweed, carelessweed, and partridge pea.
Grasses: rescue grass, wintergrass, witchgrass, panic grasses, sedges, and rushes, as well as wild and cultivated rye, oats, and wheat.
great website! love it. good info!
Hey, awesome info on deer diet and food habits
I think this is a good website because it gives you a lot of information.
I know that deer also love Bigtooth Maple. If you plant them, you have to fence the tree off until it matures a little.
What can I use on my pine trees and shrubs to keep the deer from eating them?
I have goats and use animal fat (if it goes rancid, even better). We keep a coffee can to put grease into. I warm it up and paint the trees and bushes. My grandmother would add hot peppers, juice or powder to keep her dogs from licking the trees. You can buy red pepper powder in bulk really cheap at asian and hispanic grocery stores. Good luck.
We are trying to find out what is tearing our turf up. It looks like something is foraging for grubs or snails. The sod is turned up and there are long tubular holes on the cleared dirt area. We put the turned up sod back down in place, but they were back. Could this be deer antlers digging up the ground to get to these bugs? Thanks for your help!
Rita, you have armadillos feeding in your yard. You probably have a sprinkler system that maintains your yard, but also maintains the grub population, which armadillos will feed on.
I have a big 6 point coming in to eat everyday for the last 20 days in a row. It shows on my trail cam 11:30 PM and again 2:45 AM. Nothing during the daylight hours. How can I change the times they come in?
All of my deer have gone nocturnal. What can I do to get them back into the daylight again? Thanks for the help.
Scott, deer will go nocturnal from time to time, but usually for some reason. Everyone just went through a full moon phase, so an abundance of natural foods may allow deer to feed at night. In Texas, the few acorns that were produced this year are now falling and available to deer. Also, hunting pressure can change deer behavior. Any of this sound possible?
Bill, is your camera located at a timed feeder, free-choice feeder or at a foot plot?
Deer don’t eat bugs and wouldn’t use their horns to dig.. its a mole or armadillo!!!
Sounds like armadillos or skunks
I have a brewery planting hops and barley a few miles away from my deer hunting area. Will this take the deer population out of the area?
Chace, I’m sure deer near the area will make use of the newly available forage, but you should not be impacted. White-tailed deer are not wide ranging species. Their home range is relatively small for a big game animal. In woodland dominated areas a buck’s range would be about 500 to 800 acres. A square mile is 640 acres. Whitetail are unlikely to move several miles in any direction, unless they live in very broken habitat where cover is few and far between.
Is celery bad for a white-tailed deer? I know it’s bad for horses.
I have never seen deer browse Chinaberry. In fact, it’s poisonous to deer (& people).
James C, whitetail will eat the leaves and twigs of chinaberry trees, and deer will also eat chinaberries, too. If you have never observed deer browsing on chinaberry then it could be because there are more palatable plants in your area.
All of the plants that deer consume fall along a preference gradient, so plants that show a lot of use by whitetail in one area may not be used much at all in another area, because it either not found there or other, more preferred plants are there in abundance.
We have an orphan fawn that is eating on it’s own, foraging the greens and eats under our bird feeders morning and night. As we are approaching fall/winter, we are concerned and would like to supplement his/her diet if necessary (when there is snowfall, etc). What would be best? We have read that corn is not that good for them nutritionally. Thank you for whatever you can tell us!
Carol, it sounds the young deer is doing what it’s been born to do, but I understand that you are interested in its welfare. It will likely attain the body weight required to get it thru the winter, but it will not hurt to offer it a high quality supplemental feed. The best type would be a pelleted feed formulated specifically for deer. The feed should have at least 16 percent protein and have all of the necessary nutrients that deer need. A reputable feed store will have this on hand.