Ohio Valley Outdoors Magazine

Whitetail Forage

By Tommy Kirkland

Tend the food plots, manage the timber, check the ph, and get rid of the weeds. We’ve all heard and know it. Working the land year-round helps to assure the best nutrition to sustain healthy whitetails; but before engaging in active land management, it’s essential to know the exotic and native foods consumed by deer. Then, whether it’s your own land, a lease, or access to public lands, you’ll be able to make recommendations or tackle nutritional management head-on.

Foremost, whitetails’ physical needs are basically the same – be it the frigid northern states or the hot sultry regions of the south. Although northern deer require more fats, proteins, and carbohydrates due to extreme weather and periodic food shortages, these browsers need the basics of good nutrition - obtaining at least 10% to 20% crude protein plus sugars, vitamins, and good minerals to successfully interact and breed.
Throughout whitetail country, deer ravage the leaves of various brambles - particularly the common blackberry. In the spring, if a late freeze doesn’t damage foliage, whitetails manage to avoid the prickly thorns on the stalks to nibble the tender leaves which are a source of vitamin C and B. Once the fruit of brambles begins to ripen in the summer months, deer will target the berries – plucking them off with their tongues and teeth.
Having bramble patches for whitetails is a must for they not only provide nutrition during the spring and summer months; these briar/shrub areas also give deer vital cover – especially does rearing infant fawns. In fact, if brambles ripen early or does give birth while predators, such as bears and coyotes, are ravaging brambles; then predators are preoccupied and less likely to have much of an impact on fawn recruitment.
Brambles, such as blackberries, don’t need a lot of hands-on labor, just adequate rain and sun. They thrive along fence rows, fields, and the edge where the trees adjoin open areas. Once every 5-7 years bramble patches can be bush hogged or burned on a sectional basis – assuring that while new growth is occurring, there will always be clusters of these nutritious foods for whitetails to consume.

As we all know, managed food plots are an excellent way not only to draw deer to a particular area, but provide whitetails with good quality nutrition. Various types of legumes such as red clover, and white clover are rich with nitrogen which not only stimulates the legume itself, but the soil and surrounding plants as well. But even if clover isn’t seeded and planted into the ground, most types have an amazing resistance to extreme conditions, and will flourish anywhere sunlight can reach it. If weeds and grasses are periodically suppressed through burning or mowing – clover grows, giving deer a prime food source, especially when natural forage is lacking.

Whitetails, due to their wary nature, instinctively prefer to feed along edges where woodlands meet fields or watershed tributaries with thick foliage adjacent to open areas. Here, natural succession of diverse nutritious foods can thrive – not just legumes of all sorts, but succulent flowering plants known as forbs. The most common are lespedezas, snailseed, ragweeds, coralberry, partridge pea, and honeysuckle.
Having plots and sunlit areas with good timber edge is vital and basic in providing whitetails with food and refuge which leads to another highly important aspect for deer – the need to have sufficient acreage of woodlands. Within secluded timber, undisturbed forested sites allow deer not only to establish prime bedding sites to chew cud and digest nutrients consumed, but also allows them to forage for decaying matter like fungi growth.
Stands of timber provide whitetails not only pockets of seclusion from the elements of heat and humidity, but gives them a labyrinth to avoid roaming predators such as coyotes. Woodlands are utilized by whitetails to evade hunting pressure; and for hunters, forested areas add to the thrill and challenge of a harvest.

If timber is receiving adequate rainfall, fungi can thrive – working to supplement the whitetails’ diet. Even if acorns and pliable forbs are available, deer still consume their share of fungi such as morels, boletes, waxycaps, and ringstalk mushrooms.
Being that most fungi are digestible for deer, the non-flowering plants are predominantly water. During times of drought, whitetails will utilize these woodland sanctuaries - seeking moisture from fungi and plants. Depending on the environmental conditions, most mushrooms contain minimal fat, but are relatively moderate in protein. Vitamin B and C are high
nutrients in fungi. They are also loaded with potassium, an important mineral for the white-tailed deer.
As to whether mushroom toxicity adversely affects whitetails remains a mystery. The animals appear to avoid highly poisonous fungi; and yet will consume other toxins such as fescue grasses, rhododendron, and laurel leaves — primarily in the Appalachian Mountains when other preferred foods are lacking. Surprisingly, deer still occasionally consume minimal amounts of these toxins even when more preferred food sources are available - leaving their forage patterns unpredictable and baffling at times.

Though still debatable amongst deer experts, it is believed that white-tailed deer can distinguish certain colors and shapes far better than one might conceive. This inherent capability in combination with an acute sense of smell enables them to pinpoint fungi rather easily. The animals can locate hidden clusters of mushrooms thriving amongst deadfall tree decay and debris from distances of 10 to sometimes 20 feet. Here, the type of fungi spores being released into the air also enhance the foraging process — detected by their acute sense of smell.

Once fungi clusters are discovered, deer usually consume every morsel, stem and all parts, that is if the pickings are pliable enough to satisfy their digestive process. While whitetails are inclined to consume the entire fungus growth; on the other hand, squirrels nibble mushrooms, leaving evidence of remains upon the forest floor. This is one way to decipher if white-tailed deer are consistently feeding in one particular area.
Lichen growth such as shell and boulder growing on decaying blowdowns and tree trunks are foraged by deer, but only to a small degree in comparison to plush mushrooms. Whitetails will also root up rich topsoil dirt - searching for truffle fungi and the like. Here, the parasitic plants grow underground on the root systems of various trees - providing the animals with a host of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen.

By all means, mushrooms and lichen alone are not sufficient food sources to substantiate proper growth, but certainly the plant species do provide important supplemental nutrients and is a preferred delicacy for these diverse foragers. Remember, dense woodland pockets of pine, hemlock, and oaks that provide seclusion for the whitetail also possess the right conditions for fungi growth. If yearly rainfall is adequate, then the white-tailed deer may limit their exposure in fields and plots - spending time devouring fungi and other woodland browse while bedding amid the timber. These realities need to be considered when evaluating your hunting land.

So, when you’re scouting for the upcoming season, take note of other areas where whitetails might be feeding. Yet remember that if certain native feeds are more readily available and more abundant than others, that’s where the deer will be. And if the oak crop is sparse whitetails can still fall back on the cool season vegetation for survival.
All of this activity varies from year to year and can dictate where and when you will have the best opportunity to harvest. In the next issue of Ohio Valley Outdoors, we will look at some interesting aspects of whitetails during the rut.