Dog food for Deer?

There's meat protein in dog food. Deer are strictly herbivorous. Even if you could get them to eat it that would be bad for them. Hogs, on the other hand, would love it.

but cost IS an issue.... opinions of baiting deer with dog food, please?

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Have you though about sweet feed? It's $9 per 50# the last I looked. I'm sure it's even cheaper if you've got a feed store around.

If you truly need meat in the freezer, give your local LEO agencies a call. They often make a list of people who want auto struck deer and call when one gets hit....Sure, some may be mangled and bruised, but often times there is very little damage.

ColtPythonElite said:

If you truly need meat in the freezer, give your local LEO agencies a call. They often make a list of people who want auto struck deer and call when one gets hit....Sure, some may be mangled and bruised, but often times there is very little damage.

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Yep. Call Fish and Game or whatever you have, the game warden. They also will hand out confiscated poaching kills. They don't like wasting a kill. They don't give out old stuff either, only fresh. Usually the kill is reported (as with road kill) and they know the time. I sure wish I knew about this growing up... We got free meat from poachers instead, not the best of sources.

You can also use salt. Salt licks are the original American baiting system --used successfully by Natives all over the country for millenia. Don't know about legality, Baiting of any sort was illegal where I grew up.

Old krow said:

Have you though about sweet feed? It's $9 per 50# the last I looked. I'm sure it's even cheaper if you've got a feed store around.

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Zombiphobia said:

Yes I've considered that, but figured it'd be way out of my budget.

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Old Roy is $20 for 40lbs. Shell corn is $15 for 100lbs. Hard for me to figure how you think dog food is cheaper than corn. Corn will not turn to mush of it gets wet. Deer will eat corn as it is a natural food for them.....'ell, most dogs won't eat Old Roy unless they're starving. Most vets don't recommend Old Roy as it has been found to have some nasty stuff in it. For bait to attract deer, it has to be something more desirable than what they already have available. I don't think any kind of dog food is that.

x2 on corn seems like a better value over dog food...However, my dogs have never gotten anything but Ol'Roy and have all lived beyond their expected years for their breed with no health problems. I figure if it's good enough for a billionaire's dog, it's good enough for mine.

If you are going to be cheap, a deer digestive system and a lamb/goat digestive system are almost identical...hint hint .

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

ColtPythonElite said:

my dogs have never gotten anything but Ol'Roy and have all lived beyond their expected years for their breed with no health problems. I figure if it's good enough for a billionaire's dog, it's good enough for mine.

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Just 'cause it's named after Sam's dog don't mean Old Roy was forced to eat it. Here's results from an independent test of Old Roy's Dog food......Old Roy

I like the part where they say

What a shameful collection of man-made additives and agricultural waste.

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This from another review of Old Roy.....

Ol’ Roy was submitted for testing for pentobarbital in 1998, under suspicion that euthanized animals were included in the formulas. Testing was positive for pentobarbital, which was thought to be from rendered cattle used in the formulas.

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A good dog deserves better.

If a bag of corn is just too expensive, perhaps you should fore go baiting a deer and actually try stalking and "hunting" them - less expensive that way; otherwise corn is a lot less than dog food

Wow remind me to never eat OL' Roy if times ever get hard!!

Alpo

Remember the Alpo poster where the dog was watching his owner eat the dog food?

I wouldn't feed the deer around my place with dog food. These Blacktails are too finicky.

The only harmful thing I know that a "bovine" will accidentally eat is tansy. Anything else they might eat won't hurt em.

They do share the white salt blocks and granules with my beef cows. They don't hit the brown mineral blocks at all. They are slow hitting my animal-grade molasses (3 gallons for 12 bucks) but once they start, man
oh man.

I seen where people with catfish farms use dog food, maybe they will buy your surplus...

Around here, I have to compete with a century-old fruit orchard down the road so I planted several fruit trees (to include persimmons) and I pruned my own wild apple trees so they produce more fruit.

My advice would be to spend the same amount of money and develop a good deer habitat on your land or elsewhere; by the time it is ready, our grandchildren will be hunting over them. I've popped a couple fruit trees in just about every place I hunt.

Clover, grasses and broad-leafed plants like flowers and shrubs....

Good luck.

Meat protein won't hurt the deer, especially not the tiny amount that's actually in that crappy ol'roy.

^^^ The beef industry says that about ground up cow they feed back to the cows too. That doesn't make it true.

Okay...fair warning here.

IF the deer don't take, the dog food will rot. My nephew left some Alpo (the hard stuff) in a dish for a couple of weeks (moved his dog elsewhere and left the food). When I found it and dumped it, it was one of the most foul and offensive odors I've ever smelled. It was eerily similar to a dead person. The smell made me weak in the knees causing me to spill some on my hand and arm. I immediately rinsed my hand...then washed it with the closest thing I could find which were car wash followed by windex. I mean I royally scrubbed...with a car wash bug scraper sponge. When I got home, my girlfriend asked me what that #$%#@# smell was. I sniffed my arm and wow, it was still on me. I eventually sprayed my arm with the harshest thing I could find...carb cleaner. That took care of it but irritated my arm (which I knew it would but the smell was making me nauseous). Lysol, goo-gone, clorox...nothing helped. It was really, really rank. Oh, and the area where I spilled it still smelled of that awful odor even after the hurricane that came through NC. I had to scoop up a few inches of dirt to rid the area of the smell. I kid you not.

We are now feeding some calf and mule sweet feed. It's cheaper than corn and the deer love it. It's also higher in protein than corn.

ForumSurfer... Anything with meat protein in it will do that if it rots. There were probably maggots in it.

I had a book called "living with deer in N. America"...

There are witness accounts of whitetail eating skipjacks blowing up on a Michigan beach. ( a skipjack is a small fish or smelt or fry )

Mucho Proteins ( like 24%), just sayin'. No tellin what an animal will do during drought/whatnot.

^^^ That's interesting. I had no idea deer would eat fish.

If a bag of corn is just too expensive, perhaps you should fore go baiting a deer and actually try stalking and "hunting" them

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This seems to be your best viable option!

Old Roy is $20 for 40lbs. Shell corn is $15 for 100lbs.

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I honestly thought that shell corn would be more expensive that Ol'Roy. I must have read the same report because I've never even looked at it.

Have you considered simply planting a garden? If I want deer to come around, all I have to do is plant something that I want to eat.

Shelled corn is a bit over $20.00 a hundred in my area (50 lb bags).

But even if "Ol Roy" was free, I wouldn't have the heart to feed it to Deer (let alone my dog).

FK... You never fail to either crack me up or impress the heck out of me with your knowledge. I bow to your genius. If you were a young GAL I'd be tempted to ask you out. Thank GOD you're not, LOL!!