Ok I have read all the great comments here! Got me thinking the would a supplemental feeding program (where legal) yr round outside of hunting seasons make a huge impact on the bucks in your hunting area? Correct me please if I'm wrong but here in iowa I believe we can feed outside of the deer seasons? Oct1 through Jan 10th is a no no but Jan 11th through Sept is ok? So especially Jan 11th through Aug would a good feeding program add some nice inches and extras to the bucks in an area? Anyone doing or have tried this ? Looking for input/results? Thanks
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I know several guys here that feed mineral all year outside of hunting season. there are alot of debates on this. A wild buck will actually get most of its genetic potential from the Mother and her nutrients and feed habits will affect the growth of her buck fawn. So the mineral you are feeding here in IA for instance, it would take years for it to make a HUGE difference. Will it make some immediately, from all the research that I have read and heard NO. But I suppose you have to start sometime if thats the road you want to take.
Take georgia for instance. They do not have near the browse and food that we have here in IA. So the antlers just dont grow as big. But you cannot just add a mineral site down there and expect the antlers the next year to be large, its just genetically not possible(in the wild).
But i do know there have been some tests done down south where they took an adult doe and started to feed her correctly, corn, clover, basically the stuff we have here and she never produced a large buck.
Then they took a doe fawn, began feeding her immediately all the good stuff. And after her 3rd breeding season she began to produced larger antlered animals...all of this was because they basically broke the genetic cycle.
I hope some of this makes sense. Basically what I am saying is that if you put out supplemental feeding you cannot expect that it is just going to grow large antler bucks, you have to basically get into new genetic cycles for it to work like that....