How early to place mineral licks?

They say are better in spring, and I tend to believe it from holes I have seen in, other than deer season. They say they need the minerals in the spring.

I'll still throw one out once in awhile during season, with hope of keeping deer around. First deer was shot off lick. But that was before baiting was so big. I know some people who swear by them.

Few years ago made couple hundred pounds of a recipe that is really common on internet. Di-so something, salt, mollasses, and something else. Deer by me never touch it.

Once it freezes beets are used around here. They get sugary. I have heard of guys putting them in freezer.

As soon as the ground thaws.

I put mine out early spring, but keep it going all year long. It sees it's most use during the late spring through summer. I usually use Trophy Rocks because they're easy, unwrap and dump. Even when the rock is gone trace minerals remain in the soil. At the spots I've established them the deer have basically licked a small hole. One of my sites:

Bucks need the minerals for new antler development and does need it for fawn production. A "special" cow mineral which contains less salt and more calcium and magnesium is best. It only comes in 50 lb. bags but is cheaper than any deer 'attractant' that you can buy.

Look for a spot with a good percentage of clay so the minerals won't leach way down in the ground. Start the lick with a trace mineral block and once there is a lot of usage, switch to the special cow mineral.

This is how we did licks on our 6600 acre Alabama lease and 2 of the licks were used so much that they were wider and longer than a 4-wheeler.

Around here, salt and mineral licks get pretty much ignored during the regular hunting season, but come spring and summer they get hammered. Only time I see them on licks in the late fall/winter is when they are walking by on their way to somewhere else. Sometimes they will linger for a little while, but it's readily apparent they are not there for the licks. The old established licks get covered with snow from non use in the winter. Even putting out a new site late in the summer right before bow season is a hit or miss proposition.

We keep blocks out year round. They get used more in the spring and summer but we keep them going year round.

We have them out all year as well, cows don’t quit licking them because it cold.

jmorris said:

We have them out all year as well, cows don’t quit licking them because it cold.

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As with nutritional/caloric needs, a deer’s need for minerals changes throughout the year too. The spring and summer are the most critical times of year for deer to get enough minerals in their system, while fall and winter don’t offer as much of a benefit. In the spring and summer, deer primarily eat lush green vegetation that is high in water content. Deer need to maintain the minerals and salts in their bodies when they’re consuming so much water. In Southern states this may be a tad different as it is is areas where deer feed primarily on placed dried Ag products like corn and hay. In areas where they feed on natural browse, they do not drink much water and live on the water the get from their browse. Thus their demand for salt/mineral dwindles and so do the visits to the salt block.

In the winter in the northern part of the country, most cattle live on hay, which is basically void of salt. They also drink water quite a bit, milk cows will drink 30-50 gallons of water a day in the winter, sometimes twice that much in hot weather, thus their natural desire for salt does not diminish in the winter like it does in deer. Most herdsmen top dress feed with minerals too, because of this demand.

While deer and cows are both ruminants, they are different animals and have different needs. The mistake so many hunters make is placing salt blocks intended for cattle, out for deer. Plain salt blocks, while they attract deer, will not provide needed mineral for antler growth and milk production in does. Make sure you place blocks intended for deer. That way you are not only attracting them, but helping them out by making them healthier.

The salt and mineral blocks we use are for the cattle, just sitting there so “on demand” as it gets.

A year or so ago someone had some small brick size blocks with nice looking packaging for deer. I don’t think anything ever consumed them. Protein pellets were a different matter all together. About 200lbs a week and you could see the difference in the racks, from the year before.

I put two 50 pound red mineral blocks from the local feed store out and replace as needed. One goes by the corn feeder (about 400 lbs whole corn a month during the 'brown' months) and one in the back clearing. Deer lick it all year long, but much more in the spring, summer, and early fall. Ive even seen the coons licking on it.

The deer blocks ive bought didnt last but a day or two. Not what im after.

PonyKiller said:

Good morning ladies and gents. In jersey we are allowed to hunt over bait. I will be hunting late January. How long do the mineral attractant bricks need to be out to be effective, never really used them in the past. Heres what I'm looking at, buck week in jersey is the week after next. I've grown to avoid being in the woods that week. I'd like to get in the week or two after, scout around the swamps and place some licks and hopefully tip the scales in my favor at the end of next month when the pressure is largely off and the temperature is bitterly cold.
The first day in out I typically travel very light and drop some sweet potatoes in spots I've seen recent sign. I'd like to have some go for the first day this year

Thanks

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Wished I knew illegal to bait in Virginia period. You can hunt over PLANTED food plots, but nothing dumped out or on mineral sights period. They will use soil samples to charge you with baiting. Now farmers have them for livestock, but if you hunt "in the path" deer/bear take to reach those, you guessed it.

jmorris said:

The salt and mineral blocks we use are for the cattle, just sitting there so “on demand” as it gets.

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Kinda how most do it. We used to top dress the grain rations we fed to dairy cows when they were producing heavy with mineral and protein because like professional athletes, they couldn't get enough of them within their regular diet. We also found that spreading certain minerals like Boron on our Alfalfa fields not only made the hay better, but helped reduce cases of milk fever.

jmorris said:

A year or so ago someone had some small brick size blocks with nice looking packaging for deer. I don’t think anything ever consumed them. Protein pellets were a different matter all together. About 200lbs a week and you could see the difference in the racks, from the year before.

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Hunters are all too eager to try anything that promises instant results. Whether it be scent, bait or minerals to increase antler growth. So it's easy for sellers of such products to make claims that cannot be proven. Hunting both ridge and bluff country with a ton of lime/calcium available in browse and water and hunting Pine Swampland that has most all of any type of mineral leached out of the peat ground, I know well how much influence good mineral has not only on antler growth, but overall herd health. Available feed also has a dramatic input. One can tell by rack size some years how harsh our previous winter was, not on individual antler size, but overall antler size on all the bucks in the area. It's much more prevalent where Ag crops and supplemental feeding are not available. One can also tell by the height of the browse damage in the area.

buck460XVR said:

Hunters are all too eager to try anything that promises instant results. Whether it be scent, bait or minerals to increase antler growth.

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I think animals also avoid things that are foreign to them. If they are not used to protein pellets, I have seen them avoid them completely. Put a little in corn, that they are used to, so they will at least try it and subsequently decrease the amount of corn to 100% pellets and they will clean it up.

A possible reason they didn’t touch the mineral bricks.?

jmorris said:

A possible reason they didn’t touch the mineral bricks.?

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Very possible. Many mineral blocks for deer have scent or something like molasses to attract them to it. Could be they were different, they were never found or the deer had other options at that time of year. I've found piles of apples in the woods, in areas where apples are not usually found, that have rotted before anything ate them. have had folks tell me about piles of corn they put out in non-Ag areas and while the piles disappeared, there were never any deer tracks around. Back when I was a kid and we would have die offs in the big swamps to the north, I would go out with my dad and his local sportsman club to try and freed them corn and hay. Go back out two weeks later and they would all be dead with their bellies full. They did not have time to make the enzymes needed to digest the corn and hay. We would have been better off to cut down poplar trees so they could have fed on the twigs/buds.

Deer are much more complicated that most folks think They see a lush green woods and think there is a ton of food out there. Ain't always the case.

jmorris said:

I think animals also avoid things that are foreign to them.

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We had farmers planting soybeans and cotton on our lease for ages. Then the owner decided to put all but 150 acres in pine trees. We planted corn in 3 food plots and iron clay peas in 11 others. The deer hammered the peas but left the corn alone. We found out that no one in that area had ever planted corn and the deer ignored it.

Patocazador said:

We had farmers planting soybeans and cotton on our lease for ages. Then the owner decided to put all but 150 acres in pine trees. We planted corn in 3 food plots and iron clay peas in 11 others. The deer hammered the peas but left the corn alone. We found out that no one in that area had ever planted corn and the deer ignored it.

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I may face the same thing with my chestnut planting experiment. From everything I've read and watched deer love them, buuuuuuut they're not (or no longer) native here. So in a few years when they start dropping I may find myself shelling some and mixing them with the corn from my feeder and hoping the deer take the hint. Hopefully the squirrels will figure it out and I can then claim I planted the chestnuts for them.

I'm kind of dreading the "I told you so, combined with the how much did this cost" from my wife IF it doesn't work.

Chuck R. said:

I may face the same thing with my chestnut planting experiment. From everything I've read and watched deer love them, buuuuuuut they're not (or no longer) native here. So in a few years when they start dropping I may find myself shelling some and mixing them with the corn from my feeder and hoping the deer take the hint. Hopefully the squirrels will figure it out and I can then claim I planted the chestnuts for them.

I'm kind of dreading the "I told you so, combined with the how much did this cost" from my wife IF it doesn't work.

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Plenty of other nut trees around here that id think they would investigate. And i imagine they will eventually come to like em. Much tastier than corn I bet. We had a few mature mulberry trees in our yard that they would brave the 2 dogs to come eat.

There is a grove of pecan trees down on the Blackjack Battle grounds in Baldwin that im sure gets the deer coming in. Harvested and eaten a few myself. Even dried and raw, they were sweet and delicious.

Chuck R. said:

From everything I've read and watched deer love them, buuuuuuut they're not (or no longer) native here.

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I don't think you have a thing to worry about. Deer love mast crops and oily nuts appeal to them most. It helps them put on fat for the winter.

My brother kept on hunting alfalfa and corn fields but the deer shunned them when acorns started to fall. Finally, he moved to the oaks and nailed a couple.

Patocazador said:

I don't think you have a thing to worry about. Deer love mast crops and oily nuts appeal to them most. It helps them put on fat for the winter.

My brother kept on hunting alfalfa and corn fields but the deer shunned them when acorns started to fall. Finally, he moved to the oaks and nailed a couple.

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It also helps that we can bait in KS, and many baits have chestnuts in them.

We keep mineral blocks out all year but I have yet to kill a deer at one. We use them for antler growth and to help the does get what they need while pregnant. The best attractants that I have used have molasses or peanut butter in or on them. I set out a corn feeder and it went untouched for a week. I smeared peanut butter on the legs of the feeder and had deer there in 2 days.

Patocazador is dead on. I see it happen every year. All of a sudden the deer that have been in the fields or at the feeder everyday disappear. You can bet your last dollar that the acorns or beechnuts are falling.

I may face the same thing with my chestnut planting experiment. From everything I've read and watched deer love them, buuuuuuut they're not (or no longer) native here. So in a few years when they start dropping I may find myself shelling some and mixing them with the corn from my feeder and hoping the deer take the hint. Hopefully the squirrels will figure it out and I can then claim I planted the chestnuts for them.

A neighbor on the south side of my place as 20 acres of dunston chestnuts and when they are falling the deer seem to care about nothing else.