acorn vs deer feeder

Deer corn not attracting deer to the feeder. Another hunter told me that deer are still eating the acorns and need cold weather to make the acorns go bad. Is it true that cold weather make acorns go bad?

Its really the rain that does the damage. The moisture causes them to rot and the deer wont mess with them anymore.

Our neighbor has three feeders and he said they were only getting moderate usage. I picked a spot in our place, threw 25lbs of hand corn three different times and each time it was gone within 36 hours, and we don't have hogs.

The rain weve been getting should help rot the acorns pretty soon. Our feeders are seeing very little activity. Hand thrown corn seems to be doing better right now.

I don't think rain will rot a healthy acorn.
Think about it. Come spring time, all the healthy acorns that didn't get eaten will sprout into "little trees"!!!

I think this is the right answer....it's the moisture. In VA the acorns last a long time after they drop. we get a heavy mast crop and deer will feed on them into January.

We run 8 feeders and some deer will never go to a feeder in their life. Hand throwing corn works much better IMO.

But we have observed deer this year eat acorns and never look at the feeder still last weekend.

In my experience deer will choose acorns over corn every time.

Has anyone tried hand throwing acorns? No acorns in my hunting area. I have a few acorn trees at home and a few young boys that would love to gather them for me. Would crushing them up help?

Yes we have tried gathering them up in the yard and around the house and it works quite well after the hogs and squirrels have vacuumed them all out of the woods.

Thanks agseller. No hogs to worry about at my place. Next year I will have to give this a try.

This is the 5th year on lease. First 4 yrs the deer really hit the corn feeders big time. Just like clock work, the deer would be waiting in the cover for the feeder to go off. Once the feeder went off, they would move in to chow down. This year the deer will still visit the feeders much much less frequently in Oct & Nov, and they will only feed for a few minutes rather than scarfing up all the corn. In Sept had plenty of deer hitting the feeders, but in Oct the deer visits fell off dramatically. My thought is that the acorns started falling in Oct. I've started sitting up on the game trail and it has paid off so far.

We have been hand throwing acorns and it is getting a lot more activity than any of the feeders or the hand thrown corn. But, the food plots are still the number one draw. Weve also had luck in the past with rice bran but haven't used any of it this year.

I have had a feeder going for over 2 months and have not seen any sign of the deer hitting it at all, corn is ankle deep under the feeder. I will try to get some acrons and throw them into the feeder pen to see if that helps get the deer feeding on the corn.

My boys will have a new hobby collecting acorns.

I guess I am lucky. There is only cedar trees where I hunt. No oaks at all, so no acorns at all. The deer hit the feeders all year long.

I've heard deer will only eat acorns from the same species of oak as what's native to their area, has anyone else had the same experience? Couple/few years back, I picked up three grocery sacks of acorns from my neighborhood, and scattered them here and there at the lease. They just rotted into the ground.

Is that typical?