How many deer in your feed yard?

[Josher]

Been a while since I’ve been on here. But it’s winter and things have slowed down a bit besides having 4 month old twins to look after now. Last couple weeks deer have moved in to snack on lentil screenings. Counted just over 30 in the daylight. Yesterday while feeding I had seen a conservation officer walking across my field up to a dead deer. I guess the coyotes were eating it alive and people driving by on highway reported it so he came and did the deer a favour putting it out of misery. Second deer the coyotes have taken down in the last week close to my yard.

 

[Mrcopier]

Coyotes or wolves?

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I'm glad our deer migrate away in the winter. Don't have to feed them, and most of the wolves migrate with the deer.

 

[Josher]

I didn’t personally see it but there’s plenty of coyote tracks. Wolves are quite rare in our area they mostly stick to the one bigger community pasture south of me and the forest to the north. Both are about 20-30 miles away. Coyotes can only really knock down deer in winter when the snow gets deeper. If we get a warm spell and there’s a hard crust on top the snow then coyotes have the advantage they can just run on top. About an hr away a fellow lost about 50 calves from wolves number of years ago.

 

[Brute 23]

We get a lot of turkey on our feed. They love wcs. If you feed a corn based feed you will get more hogs than you want.

 

[Dave]

I have had a number of deer killed by coyotes here. But there is nothing left in the morning but some hair. A couple years ago the dogs barked all night. The next day the snow told the story. Coyotes attack a young deer on the east side of the house just across the fence. They made it into the backyard. Lots of blood on the snow. About 50 feet from the dog's kennel. Out over 2 fences. You could see where they pulled it down behind the shop. They ate on it and drug it a couple hundred feet out into the field. Only thing left was part of the spine with a few stubs of ribs.
Picture taken from where they pulled the deer. You can see where they drug it across the snow. My dogs are where the spine was left. Second picture I just turned around and took one aimed at the house so you can see how close this all happened. First attack happened on the other side of the house. They came through the yard to the right side of the picture.

I have had deer killed by cougars about 100 yards from the house. They drag off a ways out of sight from the house. Generally the dogs find those carcass for me.

 

[gcreekrch]

Feeding close to 40 moose at 3 different ranches.

 

[Josher]

Feeding close to 40 moose at 3 different ranches.

What are the moose eating? Moose here prefer willows. Unless I have oats crop they will go after that. Never had trouble in the feed yard

 

[Silver]

Moose will definitely move into a feed yard. Especially in later winter. We have game fence around our feedyards, if not between the deer, moose and elk there’d be nothing left for the cows.

 

[Dave]

I have only seen elk on my place one time. But just 3 miles away I see lots of elk in B's field where his main stack yard is. I have shot several there and seen up to 200 of them there. No snow this year so the elk have stayed up in the hills. Picture is from a couple years ago.

 

[Josher]

Elk is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

No elk here thankfully. The Moose migrate to winter feeding ground as well here. Not much wildlife around but birds and squirrels in the winter, everything else heads inland to less snow and dense forest cover and feed.

 

[gcreekrch]

What are the moose eating? Moose here prefer willows. Unless I have oats crop they will go after that. Never had trouble in the feed yard

They eat hay.

 

[Heronfish]

One exceptionally bad winter, we had a herd of roughly 40 mule deer in the bales.
There was so much snow that they couldn't access their usual food sources.
The game warden told us they would all eventually die from living off grain bales. And I assume they did, as the deer population nose dived in subsequent years.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Here's where all our deer go in the winter. They head 30-40 miles inland to some dense cedar swamps called deer yards. Then people start feeding them and they become even more of a nuisance, they lose their fear of people and cars. Baiting during hunting season gets people's panties in a bunch, but supplemental feeding a non-native deer population all winter is A-OK. Ha

 

[Dave]

No elk but I am seeing more deer than I have seen in several years. I am the opposite from Chevy. All the deer come down out of the hills to winter here. The one good thing about this open winter is the deer all look fat and happy.

 

[Josher]

The deer are starting to add up now. Figure I might have close to 100 coming now. In the picture there’s 40 between the 2 feed piles and another 20 coming in .

 

[kenny thomas]

I have never seen evidence that a deer has eaten even a bite of hay here. Im sure that many could be an issue for you.

 

[Josher]

Once the snow starts disappearing then theyll move back out to fields and hay land to eat there but for now its cold and snow is forcing them into the yard. I have a claim in so I get paid for the feed that I’m losing. Eventually I may have to build a deer fence around the feed yard.

 

[Dave]

The deer don't seem to eat the hay here. They march through going to the river to drink. 46 is the most i have seen in a day. The elk are normally tough on a neighbors hay stack. They really go for the alfalfa. But with no snow this year the elk never came down..