Protein Working

[gtsticker]

So I am wondering how do you know your protein supplementation is working. Looking at it from a standpoint of animal health and antler growth. My deer eat the protein I feed but I wonder if it is meeting the need. How do you determine wether to stay the course or change to another feed. Ideas and advice….


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[Beargrasstx]

You are over thinking it- I assume you are feeding free range deer? I suggest a good listen and reading is anything posted by MSU Deerlab. They are on spotify or stitcher and have great podcast if you like to nerd out on deer biology and management

In a nutshell, you will see a small improvement on your existing herd by feeding them. However, depending on your soil and habitat you will really notice a difference after the 2nd generation of feeding quality feed. Their study ended after the 2nd generation so not sure if trends keep going up or if plateau.

So they key is consistency over years to notice the bigger body weights and antler size. Nothing can replace actually putting nutrients back in soil and good habitat but for most of us, its easier and cheaper to do protein .... or more convenient

[txbowman12]

Sounds like you are wondering if you should change to a different type of feed? Feed what your deer will eat and what’s easy for you to get.

We saw body weight jump quite a bit, antler growth from 3.5 to 4.5 jumped a lot. About to be in our third year so will start seeing some of the younger bucks that have had protein all their lives soon.

Right now utilization is garbage because soil temps cracked 60 about 3-4 weeks early. Looks like a good chance of El Niño returning so I’m not anticipating a bunch of usage this year. Last year we fed a lot, should help them bounce back better this year