NUTRITION: HOW MUCH MONEY ARE YOU WASTING?

Luke A. Duckworth, DVM

I am eagerly awaiting the 2020 breeding season for a number of reasons this year. The thought of being back on the road working with old and new friends will be the closest thing to “normal” I have experienced since…last fall, really. I hope you are also looking forward to the upcoming season as an anchor of normalcy. Admittedly though, managing your deer herd within a strained economy can be challenging. So, I want to share some suggestions that may help trim operating expenses without sacrificing production quality and efficiency. There is money to be saved in changing the way we feed deer. I’ll come out and say it, we feed too much protein and we supplement deer too many days out of the year. Some producers feed their deer the same amount of feed everyday of the year, and sometimes a little more when they are raising fawns. It is true that does have increased energy demands when nursing fawns, but there are times when they don’t need supplemental feed at all. That being said, I would like to explain how you can cut months off your feed bill. A simple way to approach feed management is to understand the amount of protein an animal needs in a day based on their production stage (dry, early/ late pregnant, lactating, growing antler, etc.). A 125 pound (lb) dry doe only needs ~0.25 lb of protein/day (NRC Small Ruminants), which is about two pounds of a 16% ration or good quality hay. Her protein needs double when she is in her last trimester with twins (0.6 lbs protein/day) and triple when she is nursing those fawns (0.8 lbs protein/day). You can see that her lowest protein requirement can easily be met with good quality hay or grass. Supplementation does not need to start until the last trimester and should be continued through lactation. But too much protein can have negative effects. Feeding excess protein is expensive, wasteful (as deer cannot “store” extra protein), and detrimental to uterine environment (i.e. lower pregnancy rates) (PSU Extension). If you think I am crazy, hear me out. Let’s look at deer in the wild. The rut starts as days get shorter and cool season grasses provide a small boost of nutrition before breeding. There is an advantage to supplementing feed pre-breeding (30 days prior). An increase in energy close to breeding will improve ovulation rate and quality (WSU Extension). Postbreeding (winter), forage may become scarce, but that is okay because the doe has minimal energy requirements at this time. As the last trimester approaches, spring grasses meet the increased protein requirements to support healthy fetal growth. After fawning, rumen expansion allows the doe to consume even more nutrient rich grass to compensate for the energy demands of lactation. You can see that God designed wild deer to go through cycles of feast and famine depending on the time of year and their stage of production. Bucks have a higher protein requirement due to their larger body size and antler growth, but they can be supplemented in cycles too. In general, a 200 lb buck has a daily protein requirement of ~0.5 lb. This will obviously be more when he is gaining weight post rut or pushing antler. But like does, there are periods of lower protein requirement. A useful tool to determine supplemental needs is body condition scoring. In general, the amount of supplementation is inversely related to body condition status. As deer are losing weight during periods of high-energy demand, feed supplementation is high. Conversely, as deer are maintaining body condition in the winter, no supplementation is needed. Finding the balance in your deer will not only boost performance, but lower feed costs as well.

Deer also need a complete mineral source. Most pelleted and textured feeds are mineral balanced. When we use a cyclic feeding system there will be periods of the year when deer are not receiving adequate mineral supplementation. To address this, we recommend feeding a loose mineral. Deer should have free access to a mineral supplement when they are not on feed. This will allow them to meet their mineral requirements for pennies on the dollar versus supplementing feed year-round. A loose mineral source can also be used to deliver medication. It is physically impossible for fawns to eat enough medicated feed for it to reach an effective dose. But, we can mix medication into a loose mineral at high enough concentrations so that even fawns can be treated successfully.

The feeding charts listed below are designed to show the ups and downs of a cyclic feeding system. I have also included a table explaining the supplemental needs for each production stage. Odo’licious 100 and 200 are our formulated feeds of 13% and 16% protein, respectively. Good quality hay should be approximately 14% protein and high quality hay should be 18-20% protein.

References

Muller, L. D. (2020, June 27). Protein in Pastures: Can It Be Too High? Retrieved July 12, 2020, from https://extension.psu. edu/protein-in-pastures-can-it-be-too-high

Nutritional Flushing of Small Ruminants: Animal Agriculture: Washington State University. (n.d.). Retrieved July 12, 2020, from https://extension.wsu.edu/animalag/content/nutritional-flushing-of-small-ruminants/

Nutrient requirements of small ruminants: Sheep, goats, cervids, and New World camelids. (2007). Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

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