I own 50 acres and have a low population of deer that frequent my property. I heard about the hammer feeding system this spring and ordered one for my boss buck. I then fed throughout the summer for several hours as most do with the thought of slowly decreasing feeding times as we got closer to the hunting season. I had a regular deer population of three young bucks and two does with their fawns visiting the feeder. In September, I began feeding from 7-7:30 both am and pm with the thought that I would “train” the deer to visit the feeder when I was there. What appears to be happening is that either the deer are feeding on natural browse as we have had a lot of rain or they are hitting the neighbors feeders instead. I also planted several acres of wheat and oats so they are hopefully hitting those fields also.
A couple of days ago I began to wonder if I am using this system in the best manner considering my low population and set the timer to 7-4:30 to try to increase deer use. So I am essentially open during daylight hours. My question is should I back up the time to include an hour before and after first light say 6-6 am/pm so the feeder will be open when the bigger bucks are on their feet or just open it up to night feeding so I can get more deer to stay in the general area and hope to catch one hanging around during daylight hours which defeats the purpose of having the hammer in the first place. Please no bashing, I just want thoughts on how you would run the hammer system with a low deer population. I should probably mention that it’s not all bad, I do have a nice buck that has occasionally been showing up but he usually visits between 2-5 am. What timer settings would you use to get him to show during daylight hours. Thanks.
A couple of days ago I began to wonder if I am using this system in the best manner considering my low population and set the timer to 7-4:30 to try to increase deer use. So I am essentially open during daylight hours. My question is should I back up the time to include an hour before and after first light say 6-6 am/pm so the feeder will be open when the bigger bucks are on their feet or just open it up to night feeding so I can get more deer to stay in the general area and hope to catch one hanging around during daylight hours which defeats the purpose of having the hammer in the first place. Please no bashing, I just want thoughts on how you would run the hammer system with a low deer population. I should probably mention that it’s not all bad, I do have a nice buck that has occasionally been showing up but he usually visits between 2-5 am. What timer settings would you use to get him to show during daylight hours. Thanks.
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