Deer Nutrition

Why Nutrients Are Important

Deer get most of their nutrients from what they eat.  Visits to mineral licks are great but usually the minerals are somewhat hard for the animal to digest and visits are brief and sporadic at best.  The best way to improve deer nutrition is either through supplemental feeding or improving mineral and nutrient content in a deer's forage.  

Important Nutrients

Most people think that calcium and phosphorus are the most important minerals dealing with deer antler growth.  These are very important minerals in the overall growth of antlers but they aren't the only nutrients that contribute to antler growth.  Antlers are ever changing structures during growth and in mid summer are more of a cartilage framework that mineralizes into bone in late summer/early fall.  If the deer doesn't have the calcium and phosphorus it can limit the size of the antlers but if the cartilage framework doesn't have all of the nutrients it needs to grow, it can also limit the size of antler growth.  Copper, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and selenium are some of the more needed minerals which help the growing antler form the cartilaginous framework that eventually forms hard bony antler.  Deficiencies in any of these minerals can lead to less cartilage growth and smaller antlers.  If you don't have all of the parts to build the frame, the overall structure can't be as big as it could.  It's like building a house out of 1x2's for the entire frame, building it as large as you can leads to more failures and building it to what it can support leads to a smaller structure overall.  The same goes for antlers and nutrients, a significant number of broken racks usually is a sign of a deficiency along with smaller racks on mature deer.

Importance of Testing

There is no way of testing for what a deer is deficient in besides testing.  In depth soil testing shows us what key elements are lacking for the building blocks of the forage that will grow on it.  Further testing of the forage shows if there are ways you can increase mineral content and forage quality.  A solid starting point and continued monitoring allows you to watch how you are improving the quality of the deer's food and make very quick adjustments to maximize growth.  The improvements in quality of food plot growth and palatability are also something you will see as we continue to make improvements in soil and nutrition.