Knowing your game - What Whitetails Eat (with Pictures)
09-21-2006, 12:18 PM
#1
Giant Nontypical
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5,716
Knowing your game - What Whitetails Eat (with Pictures)
Okay Fellas, I did some legwork and came up with a basic Whitetail Menu. I left out the garden variety crops and grasses.On average, a foraging deer eats two to four percent of its body weight in food every day. So, I guess it would make sense if we looked at what they really eat.
Red Oak (note the sharp, pointy edges)
White Oak - (note the rounded leaf edges)
Asters
Blackberries & Raspberries
Black Haw (native to Central and Mid-Atlantic States)
Wild Grapes - dozens of different varietals
Greenbrier
Hazelnut
Korean Lespedeza - Central U.S.
Wild Lettuces
Maple Buds, leaves and shoots (Sugar Maple shown)
Persimmon
Poison Ivy (yes, they eat it - primarily the leaves and stems)
Pokeweed
Wild Rose Bushes
Sumac
Spurge
Tick Trefoils
Violets
Virginia Creeper
Ragweed
Huckleberries
Hydrangeas
Dandelions
Wild Strawberries (plants/fruits in summer - vines in winter)
Sassafras (leaves in summer, buds in winter)
Sedge Grasses
Corn
Soybean
Oats
Apples
Crab Apples
Wild Cherries
Wheat
Hickory leaves, shoots and buds (Nuts too if they're cracked open)
White Pine
Yellow Birch - buds
Red Oak (note the sharp, pointy edges)
White Oak - (note the rounded leaf edges)
Asters
Blackberries & Raspberries
Black Haw (native to Central and Mid-Atlantic States)
Wild Grapes - dozens of different varietals
Greenbrier
Hazelnut
Korean Lespedeza - Central U.S.
Wild Lettuces
Maple Buds, leaves and shoots (Sugar Maple shown)
Persimmon
Poison Ivy (yes, they eat it - primarily the leaves and stems)
Pokeweed
Wild Rose Bushes
Sumac
Spurge
Tick Trefoils
Violets
Virginia Creeper
Ragweed
Huckleberries
Hydrangeas
Dandelions
Wild Strawberries (plants/fruits in summer - vines in winter)
Sassafras (leaves in summer, buds in winter)
Sedge Grasses
Corn
Soybean
Oats
Apples
Crab Apples
Wild Cherries
Wheat
Hickory leaves, shoots and buds (Nuts too if they're cracked open)
White Pine
Yellow Birch - buds
09-21-2006, 01:02 PM
#4
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 62
RE: Knowing your game - What Whitetails Eat (with Pictures)
While scouting we watched at least 2 dozen deer walk through an alfalfa field, and through a milo field, to get to a chunk of land that had flooded out to eat the creeping jenny that had grown on it! Must be a treat or something!
