What Can You Feed Deer? The Safe Foods, the Risky Ones and the Three Rules (2026)

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First, the rumen: why “can eat” is not “can eat safely”

A deer is a ruminant. It carries a four-chambered stomach, and the first chamber — the rumen — is less a stomach than a fermentation vat, stocked with bacteria, protozoa and fungi that do the actual digesting. The deer supplies the plant matter; the microbes break it down. That partnership explains almost every feeding rule on this page, because the microbes are specialists. Montana State University Extension puts it plainly: a deer that has been feeding on aspen or willows has built up the microorganisms that digest aspen and willows — and if that same deer suddenly fills its stomach with corn or hay, it may not have the microbes to digest them. It can starve to death with a full stomach.

The partnership is also seasonal. Through autumn the rumen population shifts toward the fibrous winter diet of twigs and buds, and Wisconsin DNR notes that deer adjust their gut microbiome to winter food sources as the cold arrives. A food that is perfectly digestible to a deer in October can be indigestible to the same deer in February — not because the food changed, but because the workforce did. This is why “deer eat it eagerly” tells you nothing about whether it is safe: deer will gorge on foods their current microbes cannot handle, and eagerness is not evidence.

When the mismatch is a sudden load of carbohydrate, the failure has a name: rumen acidosis. The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s disease guidance describes the sequence — carbohydrate-loving bacteria overwhelm the normal flora and flood the rumen with lactic acid, driving rumen pH to 5 or lower; the normal flora can die within two to six hours of a toxic load, and the most severely affected animals die within 24 to 72 hours. Corn, wheat and barley are the grains most often responsible; the Commission also names apples, grapes, bread and sugar beets as less common causes. Wisconsin DNR warns that even a single feeding of corn or similar feed can trigger it in winter. Keep those two facts — specialist microbes, seasonal shift — in mind, and every verdict below follows logically from them.

What can you feed deer — the map at a glance

The table below is the whole page in one screen. “Safe” always carries the rumen’s conditions: legal where you are, introduced gradually, clean and dry, and in portions that match what a deer actually processes — a wild deer eats roughly three percent of its body weight a day in forage, and animals at a winter feeding site take in the region of two to five pounds of feed a day.

Verdicts summarise the agency and extension sources cited in each section below. Where a food has its own full guide on this site, the section hands you over to it rather than repeating it.

Natural browse and mast: the foods deer evolved to eat

Before any bagged feed existed, deer ran on three food groups, and rumen-content studies show they still do: in a Texas study of 242 deer, the year-round diet worked out at roughly 36% browse, 20% forbs and 20% mast, with grass a minor 12%. Browse — the twigs, buds and leaves of woody plants — is the year-round backbone and the entire winter diet in the north. Forbs, the broad-leaved weeds of field edges and clearings, are the spring and summer protein. Mast is the autumn calorie pulse: hard mast such as acorns and beechnuts, and soft mast such as persimmons and crabapples. If you want to “feed” deer the way agencies approve of, this is the menu — Maine’s wildlife department tells winter feeders to offer exactly this, naming dogwood, maple, ash, birch and witch hobble cut so deer can reach the twigs.

Acorns deserve their own paragraph because they are the mast that matters most and the one people actually gather by the bucket. Deer take acorns from both oak groups, but not in the same order: white-oak-group acorns carry less tannin — the bitter compound that also slows digestion — so they are usually eaten first, while the more bitter, higher-fat red-oak-group acorns are left until later. The groups also keep differently. White-oak acorns germinate almost as soon as they fall and rot quickly; red-oak acorns need a spell of cold before they can sprout, so they sit sound on the ground — and in your storage bin — well into winter. In practice: feed white-oak acorns first and store the reds. Acorns are best scattered or trough-fed; whole nuts can bridge in narrow gravity heads and jam small spin plates.

How to store acorns for deer

Storing acorns is mostly a quality sort followed by cool storage. Collect at the autumn drop, from under healthy trees, and be picky at the bucket: discard any acorn with a small round hole (an acorn weevil has been inside), any that are shrivelled, cracked or showing mould. Float-test the rest: cover them with water for a few hours — acorns with a fully developed kernel sink, while floaters are usually empty, weevil-hollowed or dried out, and get discarded. Dry the keepers on the surface — spread them out so the shells are dry to the touch; wet shells in a sealed bin are an invitation to mould. Store cool: a refrigerator or a genuinely cold, rodent-proof space, in breathable containers (mesh or onion-style bags) rather than sealed plastic, checking weekly and throwing out any that mould or sprout. Cold storage of this kind holds sound acorns for months. Two feeding rules close the loop: use white-oak-group acorns early because they sprout even in storage, and treat any mouldy batch the way you would mouldy corn — out, not fed — for the reasons in our guide to cheap deer feed and aflatoxin.

Grains: corn, oats, wheat and soybeans

Grains are what most feeders actually run on, and the honest summary is short: whole grains are legitimate deer feed with one hard condition — gradual introduction, every time, because of the rumen mechanics above. Whole corn is the energy benchmark and the cheapest feed per pound: roughly 9% protein against the highest energy rating of the common grains. Oats are the gentle option and the grain agencies themselves name as a supplement — Maine’s guidance lists oats or acorns as the additions to a browse-based winter site. Wheat carries more protein than corn but sits with corn and barley at the top of the Game Commission’s acidosis list when it arrives suddenly and in bulk. Soybeans are the protein grain — raw seed analyses put them near 35% crude protein — usually fed blended with corn or in roasted form in retail blends. Rice bran adds fat and protein but is feeder-fussy: meal bridges and cakes, so it belongs in troughs.

Which grain, at what cost per pound, running through which feeder, and with what storage discipline — that is a whole guide of its own, and it is our cheap deer feed guide: dated cost-per-pound table, the aflatoxin buying rules, bulk buying and storage, and the feeder-fit detail for every grain on this page. If grain is your plan, read that next; this hub’s job is only to place grains correctly in the bigger food map — safe as a category, dangerous as a surprise.

Formulated deer feeds and pellets

Formulated pellets are the one option on this page manufactured for deer rather than borrowed from the farm: a consistent, guaranteed analysis — programme feeds typically run 16–20% protein — with fat, fibre, vitamins and minerals built into every pellet. That formulation is what separates them from the grain bin: corn is an energy feed with gaps; a protein pellet is a ration. It is also why they cost more per pound, and why the case for them is seasonal — protein demand peaks in spring and summer, when bucks are growing antlers and does are carrying and nursing fawns.

Two cautions survive the marketing. First, “formulated” does not exempt a feed from the rumen rules: a pellet a deer has never eaten still arrives as a sudden carbohydrate load, so new feeds get mixed in over a week or two like anything else. Second, pellets must stay dry — a soaked pellet swells, cakes and moulds in the hopper, and a gravity protein feeder exists precisely to keep them dry and flowing. The full programme — which feeds, which protein level by season, when to start and stop — is our best protein feed for deer guide, and how pellets fit a feeder strategy for attracting bucks is covered in what to put in a deer feeder to attract big bucks.

Produce and garden foods

Sweet potatoes answer their own question in farm country: yes, deer eat them — enthusiastically. University of Delaware Extension has documented deer chewing sweet potato leaves and digging into the ground to feed on the tubers, with damage that can be severe in small plantings, and North Carolina’s extension plant database lists sweetpotato as frequently damaged by deer. The vines are eaten as forbs and the tubers as a starchy energy food, which makes cull sweet potatoes a reasonable thing to put out on the ground or in a trough in quantities deer finish promptly — treat them like any rich food and don’t dump a truckload on deer that have never seen one.

Apples and pears are natural soft mast, and deer need no introduction to them — orchard fruit is on the standard list of what feeding deer means in state guidance. The nuance is volume: the Game Commission names apples among the foods that can produce acidosis when a deer suddenly gorges on them, which in practice means scattered windfalls are a food and a dumped bushel basket in front of unaccustomed deer is a risk. Cut or smash large fruit if you are putting it out, and spread it out rather than piling it. Pumpkins are eaten the same way — Colorado Parks and Wildlife photographs deer feeding on them every autumn — and that agency’s instruction is to trash or compost Halloween pumpkins rather than leave them out, because deliberate feeding is illegal in Colorado and yard feeding draws deer into conflict with people, traffic and predators. Both things are true: pumpkin is a food deer eat, and where agencies ban feeding, the pumpkin goes in the compost, not the yard. Carrots and root vegetables are eaten as occasional items; note that Maine’s do-not-feed list specifically names cabbage and lettuce trimmings — the watery garden clean-outs — so garden waste is not automatically deer food just because it is vegetable.

One mechanical rule covers all of it: produce never goes inside a spin, gravity or tube feeder. It jams plates, ferments in hoppers and draws insects and raccoons to the feeder itself. Ground or trough, fresh, in finish-it-today amounts.

Minerals and salt: what’s actually in the block

A mineral block is not food — a deer gets no meaningful energy or protein from one — it is a supplement deer lick at free choice, and what is in it depends on which kind you bought. A plain salt block is essentially sodium chloride and nothing else: an attractant and a source of sodium. A deer mineral product is a different thing, and the label of a typical one (Purina’s AntlerMax Premium Deer Mineral) shows the pattern: calcium at 9–10.8%, phosphorus at 5% minimum, salt at 9–10.8%, then magnesium, potassium, and trace minerals in parts per million — copper, selenium, zinc — plus added vitamins A, D3 and E. Pressed supplement blocks add a feed component on top of the minerals; one national brand’s whitetail block guarantees 14% crude protein alongside 8–9.6% calcium and 12–14.4% salt. Read the guaranteed analysis before you buy: the word “mineral” on the front tells you nothing, the percentages on the back tell you everything.

What are the minerals for? Calcium and phosphorus are the structural pair in bone and antler, and demand peaks when antlers are growing and does are lactating — spring and summer are when mineral sites see their heaviest use, and when a mineral programme earns its place. A block in a trough, a block holder or a soil lick site all work; deer take what they need at ounces a day, not pounds. One legal wrinkle before you site one: several states count mineral and salt licks as feed or bait in law — Virginia’s guidance lists them explicitly — so the legality section below applies to the block exactly as it applies to a bag of corn.

Commercial attractants and “deer candy”

“Deer candy” is a product name that has become a category nickname, so here is what the thing actually is, from the manufacturer’s own description. Boss Buck’s Deer Candy — the product behind most of the searches — is sold as “nutrient-rich meal and pellets” providing “essential minerals and irresistible flavor,” and its stated blend is roasted peanuts, corn and bran, with berry flavouring. That is the category in miniature: a base of palatable grain and meal, a sweet or fruity aroma-and-flavour layer to pull deer in from distance, and a mineral addition for the label. Other attractant products rearrange the same parts — grain, bran, sugar or molasses notes, flavour, minerals — in meal, pellet or block form.

Judged nutritionally, then, an attractant is not a ration and not magic: it is mostly the grain it is made from, plus scent. Deer come to the aroma; what they eat is corn-and-bran calories. That means the rumen rules apply to it undiluted — a deer that has never eaten it should meet it in small amounts, not as a dumped bag in front of a trail camera — and it means attractants sit in a feeding programme as the invitation, not the meal. How hunters actually deploy them alongside pellets, corn and minerals is the subject of what to put in a deer feeder to attract big bucks; this page’s verdict is simply that the category is legitimate, ordinary in composition, and governed by the same gradual-introduction rule as every grain on it.

Foods to avoid: the short list that can hurt deer

Everything on this list is here because an agency or extension source put it there — not folklore, and not foods deer merely dislike. Read it as five mechanisms, not five superstitions.

• Mouldy or spoiled feed. Mould on grain can mean aflatoxin, the Aspergillus poison that concentrates in exactly the cheapest, worst-stored corn. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension’s rule is the one to follow: corn at 100 ppb aflatoxin or more should not be fed to wildlife, and safe buying means corn labelled under 20 ppb. Maine’s guidance is blunter about storage: keep feed dry and off the ground to “prevent mold, which can be fatal.” The buying and storage rules are in our cheap feed guide’s aflatoxin section.
• Any rich food, suddenly. The single most dangerous item on this page is not a food but a pattern: a full feeder of corn, wheat or barley appearing in front of deer whose rumens are tuned to browse. That is the acidosis scenario the Game Commission documents — flora dead in hours, animals dead in one to three days — and Wisconsin DNR warns a single such feeding in winter can do it.
• Hay and straw, especially in winter. Wisconsin DNR’s winter guidance carries the bluntest line in deer feeding: “DO NOT feed hay to deer… Deer can have full stomachs of hay and still die from starvation,” because a winter rumen has downshifted its fibre fermentation and cannot break hay down. Saskatchewan’s environment ministry and Maine’s do-not-feed list (straw hay, named first) say the same. Alfalfa hay is a rich livestock feed the rest of the year and still the wrong thing to introduce to winter deer.
• Kitchen scraps and processed human food. Maine’s official do-not-feed list reads: straw hay, whole corn (as a sudden winter feed), kitchen scraps, potatoes, cabbage/lettuce trimmings, animal proteins. Bread deserves its specific mention: the Pennsylvania Game Commission names bread among the carbohydrate foods that can produce rumen acidosis. Processed food also brings salt, fat and mould from the counter — none of it belongs in a rumen.
• Ornamental clippings and yard waste. Never offer hedge or garden clippings: you are handing deer plants nobody vetted as food. The extreme case is yew. Yew clippings are among the most toxic plant material a landowner can put within reach of animals — USDA’s poisonous-plant guidance attributes the toxin taxine to all parts of the plant, and Idaho Fish and Game has documented a mule deer fawn killed by Japanese yew, noting that a few ounces can kill deer, elk, moose or livestock. Whitetails appear unusually tolerant of yew compared with other animals (Cornell’s poisonous-plants database notes this) — but “the local whitetails might survive it” is not a feeding strategy, and for any other hoofed animal the clippings are lethal. Clippings go to the landfill or the burn pile, never to the wood’s edge.

Feeding through the seasons

The map changes with the calendar because the rumen does. Spring and summer are the protein-and-mineral window: natural forbs carry much of it, formulated feeds and mineral sites add the rest, and this is the season pellets justify themselves. Autumn belongs to mast — deer shift onto acorns and fruit to lay down fat, and feeder feed plays second to a good oak flat. Winter is browse season and the danger season: the rumen is set for twigs and buds, energy foods help only deer already accustomed to them, and a well-meant new feeder in January is the classic acidosis setup. Winter feeding has its own rules, timing and agency warnings, and they get a full page: our guide to what to feed deer in winter. And if your question is narrower — corn is the default, what else is there — the alternatives, with their trade-offs, are laid out in what to feed deer instead of corn.

Check it is legal before you feed

Nothing on this page matters if putting the food out is illegal where you stand. Feeding and baiting are regulated state by state — and often county by county — and the categories surprise people: Virginia’s wildlife department counts corn, pelleted feed, apples, bird seed and mineral and salt licks all as feeding, and bans feeding deer statewide from September 1 to the first Saturday in January, and year-round in dozens of counties on disease grounds. Colorado makes feeding wildlife illegal outright, which is why its pumpkin guidance is “trash or compost.” Montana prohibits supplemental feeding of deer by statute. Other states allow feeding outside hunting season, allow it for viewing but not hunting, or restrict it inside chronic wasting disease zones, where feeding is discouraged or banned because concentrating deer nose-to-nose at one food source is an efficient way to spread a fatal, always-lethal disease. There is deliberately no state table here — rules change, and the only version that protects you is your own state agency’s current page. Check it before the first bag, not after the first ticket.

Related guides & resources

• Cheap deer feed — grains costed per pound, aflatoxin buying rules, bulk buying and storage
• Best protein feed for deer — the 16–20% programme feeds and the seasonal protein plan
• What to feed deer in winter — winter rules, timing and why January is the danger month
• What to feed deer instead of corn — the corn alternatives and their trade-offs
• What to put in a deer feeder to attract big bucks — pellets, corn, minerals and attractants as a feeder strategy
• Best deer feed troughs — the right feeder for bran, produce and other non-flowing feeds
• PVC deer feeder build guide — which of these feeds flow through a tube, and which cake in one
• Pennsylvania Game Commission: Rumen Acidosis — the disease behind most of this page’s warnings
• Wisconsin DNR: Avoid feeding deer in winter — the agency case against casual winter feeding

What-can-you-feed-deer FAQs

What can you feed deer safely all year round?

The foods deer evolved on: browse (twigs, buds and leaves), forbs and mast such as acorns — those are safe in every season because the rumen is built and seasonally re-built for them. Bagged feeds — whole grains and formulated deer pellets — are also year-round options provided they are introduced gradually, kept dry, and legal where you are. What changes with the season is not the safe list so much as the risk: a feed that is unremarkable in October can be dangerous as a sudden new food in February.

Do deer eat sweet potatoes?

Yes — vines, leaves and the tubers themselves. University of Delaware Extension has documented deer chewing sweet potato foliage and digging into the ground to feed on tubers, sometimes severely in small plantings, and North Carolina’s extension database lists the plant as frequently damaged by deer. As a feed, treat cull sweet potatoes as a rich ground-or-trough food: fresh, in amounts deer finish promptly, and introduced like any other new food.

How do I store acorns for deer?

Collect at the autumn drop and discard any with holes, cracks or mould. Float-test the rest in water for a few hours — sound, fully developed acorns sink; floaters are usually empty or weevil-hollowed and get thrown out. Spread the keepers to dry on the surface, then store them cool — refrigerated or in a cold, rodent-proof space — in breathable bags, checking weekly and discarding anything that moulds or sprouts. Feed white-oak-group acorns first: they germinate quickly, while red-oak-group acorns keep sound well into winter.

Can deer eat bread?

They will eat it, and you should not offer it. The Pennsylvania Game Commission names bread — along with apples, grapes and sugar beets — among the carbohydrate foods that can produce rumen acidosis, the rumen pH crash that can kill a deer within one to three days of a sudden gorge. Bread is grain with the fibre milled out and salt and yeast added; it has no place in a deer’s diet. Maine’s wildlife department puts kitchen scraps, bread’s whole category, on its official do-not-feed list.

Do deer eat apples?

Yes. Apples are soft mast — a natural autumn food deer seek out on their own, and state guidance lists apples among the feeds people put out for deer. The caution is volume and novelty: the Game Commission also names apples among foods that can cause acidosis when deer suddenly gorge on them. Scattered windfalls or cut fruit spread over an area are a food; a bushel dumped in front of deer that have not been eating fruit is a rumen risk.

Can deer eat potatoes?

Don’t feed them. Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife puts potatoes on its official winter do-not-feed list, in the same line as kitchen scraps and cabbage and lettuce trimmings. Raw potato is a starchy kitchen food deer never encounter in the wild, and it brings them nothing browse and proper feed don’t do better. Note that sweet potatoes are a completely different plant — and deer eat those readily.

Can deer eat hay or alfalfa?

In winter, this is one of the most dangerous things you can offer. Wisconsin DNR’s guidance is blunt: “DO NOT feed hay to deer” — a winter rumen has downshifted its fibre fermentation, hay fibre cannot be broken down, and “deer can have full stomachs of hay and still die from starvation.” Montana State Extension makes the same point about suddenly introducing alfalfa hay to winter deer. Hay is livestock feed for livestock rumens on a hay routine; it is not a rescue food for deer.

What is deer candy made of?

“Deer candy” is a commercial attractant category named after products like Boss Buck’s Deer Candy, which the manufacturer describes as a blend of roasted peanuts, corn and bran with berry flavouring, sold as meal and pellets with added minerals. Most attractant mixes rearrange the same parts: a grain or bran base for calories, a sweet or fruity aroma layer to draw deer from distance, and minerals for the label. It is an attractant, not a ration — nutritionally it behaves like the grain it is mostly made of, so the gradual-introduction rule applies to it too.

Can deer eat pumpkins?

Yes — Colorado Parks and Wildlife deals with deer (and bears) eating pumpkins every autumn. That agency’s instruction, though, is to trash or compost Halloween pumpkins rather than leave them out for wildlife: feeding wildlife is illegal in Colorado, and yard feeding draws deer into neighbourhoods, traffic and predator attention. Where feeding is legal, plain fresh pumpkin put out on the ground in modest amounts is a normal seasonal food; where it isn’t, the compost bin is the right destination.

What’s in a mineral block — and is it food?

It is a supplement, not a food: no meaningful energy or protein. A plain salt block is almost entirely sodium chloride. A deer mineral product adds the structural minerals — a typical label (Purina AntlerMax Premium Deer Mineral) guarantees calcium at 9–10.8% and phosphorus at 5% minimum, salt at 9–10.8%, plus magnesium, potassium, trace minerals such as copper, selenium and zinc in parts per million, and vitamins A, D3 and E. Pressed supplement blocks may add a protein component (one national brand guarantees 14%). Read the guaranteed analysis on the back, not the word “mineral” on the front.

How much does a deer eat in a day?

A wild deer eats roughly three percent of its body weight a day in forage — browse, forbs and mast gathered bite by bite across the day. At a winter feeding site, Maine’s wildlife department estimates an average deer consumes about two to five pounds of feed per day, depending on the feed’s quality. Both numbers make the same point: deer are built for a steady trickle of food they gather themselves, which is another reason sudden mountains of any single feed are the dangerous pattern.

Is it legal to feed deer in my backyard?

It depends entirely on where you live, and the answer is “no” in more places than people expect. Virginia bans deer feeding statewide from September 1 to the first Saturday in January and year-round in dozens of counties, and counts mineral licks and apples as feeding. Colorado and Montana prohibit feeding deer outright. Other states allow it outside hunting season or restrict it in chronic wasting disease zones. There is no national rule — check your state wildlife agency’s current guidance before putting anything out.

Final verdict

What can you feed deer comes down to a map and three rules. The map: browse, forbs and mast are the diet deer are built for; grains and formulated pellets are sound feeder feeds; produce is a sensible extra in honest amounts; minerals are a supplement, not a meal; attractants are flavoured grain and should be judged as grain. The rules, which matter more than any item on the map: introduce everything gradually, because the rumen’s microbes — not the deer’s enthusiasm — decide what is digestible; never feed anything mouldy, because the cheapest feed is the one most likely to carry aflatoxin; and confirm feeding is legal where you are before the first handful, because in a growing list of states and counties it simply is not. Feed inside those lines and you are supplementing a wild diet. Feed outside them and the kindest-looking pile of food on this page can be the thing that kills a deer.

Last updated: October 23, 2026. Food verdicts are drawn from the agency, extension and manufacturer-label sources below; feeding law changes often and is stated as examples only — your state agency’s current rules are the ones that apply to you.

Sources

• Pennsylvania Game Commission, “Rumen Acidosis” wildlife disease page — sudden high-carbohydrate diets disrupt rumen microflora, pH falls to 5 or lower, flora die within 2–6 hours, death within 24–72 hours; corn, wheat and barley most commonly responsible, apples, grapes, bread and sugar beets also named
• Wisconsin DNR, winter deer feeding release and corn-toxicity guidance — corn and alfalfa are not natural winter foods, even a single feeding can cause rumen acidosis, winter gut microbiome adaptation
• Wisconsin DNR, “Considerations for Winter Deer Feeding in Wisconsin” — “DO NOT feed hay to deer… Deer can have full stomachs of hay and still die from starvation”; cut browse recommended instead
• Montana State University Extension, MontGuide “Reasons Not To Feed Deer” — rumen microbes specialise by food; sudden corn or hay can mean starving with a full stomach; feeding congregates deer and spreads CWD; supplemental feeding illegal in Montana
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, winter deer feeding guidance — do-not-feed list (straw hay, whole corn, kitchen scraps, potatoes, cabbage/lettuce trimmings, animal proteins); mould can be fatal; introduce foods gradually over several weeks; browse list (dogwood, maple, ash, birch, witch hobble); oats and acorns as supplements; 2–5 lb of feed per deer per day
• Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, “Don’t Feed the Wildlife” — four-part stomach and winter microbes; hay indigestible in winter; carbohydrate-rich emergency feeds can be fatal
• Texas State University (Southwest Texas State), seasonal food habits of white-tailed deer, Cross Timbers & Prairies, rumen contents of 242 deer — diet 36% browse, 20% forbs, 20% mast, 12% grass
• Journal of the American Rodent Society (Virginia Tech), white-tailed deer review — mast feeding in fall, twigs and buds in winter; deer consume about 3% of body weight daily
• University of Delaware Extension, Weekly Crop Update — deer damage in sweet potatoes: leaves chewed, tubers dug up and fed on, severe in small plantings
• North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — sweetpotato “frequently damaged by deer”
• Penn State Extension (acorn guidance, via Maryland forestry board reprint) and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, University of Texas — acorn float test (sinkers carry a fully developed kernel), discard holed or mouldy acorns, refrigerate and keep cold; white-oak group germinates soon after falling, red-oak group requires cold first
• Colorado Parks and Wildlife, pumpkin and feeding-wildlife releases — deer and bears eat pumpkins left out; CPW instructs residents to trash or compost pumpkins; feeding wildlife illegal in Colorado
• Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, “Should I Feed the Deer?” — feeding defined to include corn, mineral and salt licks, pelleted feed, bird seed and apples; statewide seasonal ban and year-round county bans
• Purina Mills, AntlerMax Premium Deer Mineral guaranteed analysis — calcium 9–10.8%, phosphorus min 5%, salt 9–10.8%, magnesium, potassium, copper 600 ppm, selenium, zinc, vitamins A/D3/E; SWEETLIX Whitetail Deer pressed block label — protein min 14%, calcium 8–9.6%, phosphorus min 1%, salt 12–14.4%
• Boss Buck (GSM Outdoors), Deer Candy 40 lb product page — “nutrient-rich meal and pellets… essential minerals,” blend of roasted peanuts, corn and bran with berry flavours
• Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, “Hunters Use Caution When Feeding Corn to Wildlife” — aflatoxin thresholds for wildlife corn (under 20 ppb recommended; 100 ppb or more should not be fed)
• USDA NRCS poisonous-plant guidance on yews and Idaho Fish and Game reporting — yew toxin taxine in all parts; Japanese yew documented killing a mule deer fawn, a few ounces potentially fatal to deer, elk, moose and livestock; Cornell University poisonous-plants database notes whitetails’ unusual tolerance of yew
• FAO feedstuffs tables and MDPI Animals (2020) soybean analysis — corn about 9% crude protein; raw soybean seed 34.8% crude protein (full detail in our cheap deer feed research)