I'm hunting a family place that was not hunted much if at all for many years. Over the last 3-4 years, my brother and I have built a few pens with corn feeders and begun lightly hunting the place. We have seen lots of deer including lots of young bucks but have also sporadically seen a few big bucks.

I think the place has some good potential, and I'd like to see what we can do if we keep letting young bucks walk, keep feeding corn and building up habitual traffic areas, and start feeding protein.

This may be a stupid question, but do we really need big protein feeders stocked with pellets? Is there a good reason that we shouldn't just buy deer blocks with lots of protein content and just keep our deer pens stocked with those blocks?

Thanks for any advice you've got.

We started off using blocks but they weather too quickly. When you protein feed...you want the deer to eat as much as possible(some where around 2-3 Lbs per day/deer. A protein block would not last very long depending on the number of deer visiting your feeder pen. Plus, the smell of fresh protein placed in a barrel feeder will last longer than a block placed on the ground. Don't expect a protein feeder to be the magic bullet in seeing larger antlers. It takes many years to see the affects plus you need to reduce the buck to doe ratio if it is out of whack,while removing select "cull" bucks.

Good Luck.

HEY I'M NEW TO THIS PROTIEN THING TOO BUT ONLY TWO YEARS AGO ONE OF OUR HUNTERS STARTED PUTTING ONE BAG OF ANTLER GROW OR WHATEVER... IN WITH THE REST OF THE CORN IN HIS 55 GAL FEEDERS. WE HUNT 1000 ACRES AND HE HAS 6 OUT OF 20 FEEDERS. THIS YEAR WE SAW MORE AND BETTER BUCKS THAN WE HAVE EVER SEEN IN 9 YRS OF BEING THERE. WE HAVE ALSO TRIED TO "MANAGE" TO SOME DEGREE BUT I GIVE MOST THE CREDIT TO THE FEED. THIS YEAR MY FEEDERS WILL GET -AT LEAST- ONE BAG WITH EACH FILL UP!
IT WAS A HOT AND DRY YEAR SO I CAN'T IMAGINE THE NATURAL BROUSE IS WHAT MADE BIG HORNS (OK ANTLERS).

I'll put it this way...we own about 670 acres and have 8 protein feeders and we go through about 18 tons a year. Currently we are using Record Rack but have used Purina in the past. it will take a good year to get the deer to eat the protein on a constant basis. Even though we went through 18 tons of protein we still saw bucks that went down hill in the antler department(bad drought year). If you want to see BIG bucks you gotta let the bucks get to the 5.5-6.5 year old age class. The protein is used to "take the edge off" the drought years. You also have to have "good genetics". It's amazing how much a buck will grow in the antler department from 2.5 to 3.5 and from 3.5 to 4.5.

Hey OldChunk

Be careful about improving the place too much!

I had a similar situation where I was hunting family property. The last five years I fed protein and was really begining to see the fruits of my labor when I was told that they were going to lease it out next year. Needless to say I was very disappointed. Now I could have leased it myself but I had a hard time paying for a place that I had hunted for free the last 10yrs.

To answer the rest of your question I would think that a pelleted feed would provide much better results than blocks.

I had 2 Outback feeders on 1300acs. In my resaerch, most biologists recommend 1 protein feeder per 300-400 acs.

Good luck.

I agree with the statements about protein blocks weathering away. Rain can really wash them out. But I have also seen deer scratch the ground and dig where some used to be to get a lick at the minerals.

It sounds like to me that since this is your family place its a good bet to start feeding protein and see what it does. You may not see a really big difference. The local genetics of our deer in our high fence didn't really change drastically. It's got some that may have been 110"-120" deer before to be more like 130"-140" deer. But there is a point that you will soon see that its more or less the genectics of your deer herd that may hold you back. The best way to tell is to start feeding protein for a year, maybe two and go from there.

You don't need to put a lot of money into it. I would stick with a protein with a good amount of fiber in it to supplement your deer. You don't need a high protein percentage. Its more important to look at your minerals in the protein, in my opinion.

After reading the post, IMO these guys are right on in the advice they have posted. Before we started feeding protein, I visited with a deer breeder who uses protein feed on a regular basis. His advice was just like what has been given here. The only thing that I would add to this is that he said that the first noticible difference would be in body weight and condition followed in year three to four with antler mass. We started feeding Record Rack last March and fed till Sep. when we started our corn feeders. We had two bucks taken this year that were the heaviest we had seen in body weight. All the deer taken were in very good condition. I understand that it can vary from place to place,but we didn't have any problems getting our deer started on the protein. We mixed a little corn in at the beginning, but tappered it off as we went through the summer. We have two 650 lbs feeders that we fill up every thirty days. Yep it cost but can be very well worth it.
You might think about building your own feeders, we did and that saved a bunch.
Good luck.

I really appreciate all the information.

Can you feed some of these protein feeds, such as Record Rack" or others you might mix with corn, through corn feeders? Or do we need to buy protein feeders?

As you can probably tell, I'd prefer not to have a make a large initial investment, but I'll bite the bullet if necessary.

Just don't try to feed any kind of pelleted protein from the corn feeder with a power spinner on it. Gravity feed is best. The 12v or 6v motors are powerfull enough to break up the pellets before they hit the ground. You will see evidence of this when you start it up and especially on a rather wet day. On a wet day the dust from the pellets breaking up will collect on the feeder spinner plate. That in turn collects the moisture, carries it right up inside the feeder and before you know it you got one realy big mess to deal with and lots of expensive moldy feed.

You can mix your protein with corn. Its OK to do that. Record Rack is a good feed. Personally, I like it better than Purina.

Is there any kind of protein that's safe to feed through a corn feeder wth a power spinner?

Not unless you remove the spinner.

Record Rack makes a deer corn substitute called Golden Nuggets. I tried that once in a feeder in place of corn, not protein. I had problems with it breaking up.
Today, I don't know of any protein made that works well with a 12v or 6v spinner plate throwing it out.

I hear some folks talking about running protein through a spin feeder, but I hear more talk about how it either stops up the feeder or breaks the protein pellets as it spins. We haven't tried to spin it and will not. A thought is to fix your spin feeders in a manner that you can remove the motor and attach a down spout for protein. This allows you to use the same barrel or whatever your feeder is made of. If you are inclined, you can make a fairly simple protein feeder from barrels without a lot of expense. I built two that hold about 650 lbs each. They cost me about $75 each.
Here is the dinner plate and down spout.

Here is the entire feeder.

Feeder being used.

Let me know if I can be of any help.

Thanks very much for the information.

That is nice work, droptine.

I am going to ponder how I might be able to adapt my current feeders or set up a separate gravity-style feeder.