A buck in winter: Deer can take care of themselves.
For years my next door neighbor has been feeding the neighborhood deer population in the winter. I don’t mind the deer it attracts, but is it helpful to feed them?
Not at all, according to a state expert.
Andy Labonte, a wildlife biologist with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, reports that winter feeding of deer causes more harm than good.
“Deer are ruminants, meaning they have a four-part stomach with microbes that help digest woody vegetation,” Labonte explains in the latest issue of the DEEP magazine, Connecticut Wildlife. “Deer acquire specifically adapted microbes over a period of time that digest specific food material. For example, during spring as the green-up of vegetation slowly occurs, deer will slowly begin to use the new food source as the season progresses.
“When deer eat large quantities of food that has not been part of their diet, such as grain suddenly placed out during severe winters, the specific microbes are not present to help with digestion.”
Labonte says, “Deer will eat any readily available handouts during winter; thus they may fill their stomach with indigestible material. It has been documented over several years that deer have died with stomachs full of food (hay and corn) that was placed out during harsh winters as an emergency source when limited natural foods were available.”
He added that feeding deer in winter can cause them to congregate in small areas, damaging the natural vegetation and acclimating them to humans, “thus increasing their use of urban areas and the destruction of ornamental landscape plants.”
“Feeding deer,” he warns, “often makes them more vulnerable to starvation, predation, disease, and vehicle collisions.”
Labonte explains how deer are well equipped by nature to deal with winter, even severe winters. As the weather gets colder, they acquire winter coats that have special hollow hairs for insulation, helping them retain body heat and reducing energy demands. Fat reserves put on by deer in the fall provide energy and heat over the winter. In addition, deer significantly decrease their metabolic rate during winter, which reduces food requirements to about half of their summer needs.
“All of these factors contribute to substantially decrease winter energy demands, which can be met with limited natural browse and supplemented with fat reserves,” Labonte says. “Even when food is abundant, deer use their fat reserves and lose weight over the winter.”
What’s more, he says, a deer can totally fast for several weeks without any harmful effects.—J.S.
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