In the paper for the final I have decided to watch white tail deer behaviors. White tail deer is one of my favorite animals among many. I have done this by Sitting in my stand and have used my past experiences watching my fair share of deer. Which has lead me to look even further. I have concluded that there are eight different ways a deer moves its tail. I also wanted to know more about how they eat, what they eat, and how they can digest al theses different types of food.
Deer are generally browsers, meaning they eat primarily young twigs, buds, and leaves of trees and shrubs. However, deer eat a wide variety of items including grasses, sedges, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, and forbs. Their consumption of these foods varies by season and depends …show more content…
Cattle are grass eaters, and depend heavily on grasses for their diet. grasses are low in crude protein and digestibility.
White-tailed deer are what people call “concentrate selectors.” Their rumen which is the first chamber of the stomach is small relative to their body size. a whitetail’s diet must be higher in nutrition value and capable of being rapidly broken down in the rumen. Therefore, white-tailed deer rely primarily on forbs and browse leaves and twigs of wood plants, which are usually higher in crude protein and digestibility than grass. grass comprise only a very small part of the overall diet of the white-tailed deer, about less than 8%.
Only grasses that are rapidly digested in the rumen, like small grains and ryegrass, are used to any extent by deer. Therefore, winter food plots containing these grasses work. Other useful introduced forages include both warm and cool season legumes. Native plants used by white-tailed deer include browse, forbs, soft and hard mast (fruits, acorns), and mushrooms. Adequate forage is usually available during the spring and fall seasons because of mild temperatures and increased rainfall. A variety of foods and habitat types is important to good deer production and …show more content…
Whitetail food habit studies indicate a significant change in deer feeding habits from summer to winter. Management efforts that seek to improve deer body condition should be directed toward insuring adequate food supplies during all seasons of the year by maintaining the proper carrying capacity, enhancing natural habitat, or through supplemental whitetail foods. I had also considered how deer communicate and learned how to tell when deer are most relaxed and know when they are sensing danger. By doing this I looked up the different movements of a deer’s tail, being they use this as a form of communication to other deer. Number One is the wag or swish this is a side to side tail wagging or a swishing motion. In my research this is found as gentle and casual, is a good sign this means that the deer is relaxed and at ease. In my research and experience, it was noticed and stated that some deer wag more than others, and they will swish more at different times of the year also, like in the summer for instance in the early bow season, when there are still a lot of bugs around. Number Two is the Twitch. In a similar way, it’s like the wags or swishes, but instead with sharp twitches of the tail. The twitches or switches moves kind of like a cow or horse does with its tail, are similar. Number Three is the Casual Flick. with this one, a feeding deer will stop often and lift its head up
Deer are generally browsers, meaning they eat primarily young twigs, buds, and leaves of trees and shrubs. However, deer eat a wide variety of items including grasses, sedges, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, and forbs. Their consumption of these foods varies by season and depends …show more content…
Cattle are grass eaters, and depend heavily on grasses for their diet. grasses are low in crude protein and digestibility.
White-tailed deer are what people call “concentrate selectors.” Their rumen which is the first chamber of the stomach is small relative to their body size. a whitetail’s diet must be higher in nutrition value and capable of being rapidly broken down in the rumen. Therefore, white-tailed deer rely primarily on forbs and browse leaves and twigs of wood plants, which are usually higher in crude protein and digestibility than grass. grass comprise only a very small part of the overall diet of the white-tailed deer, about less than 8%.
Only grasses that are rapidly digested in the rumen, like small grains and ryegrass, are used to any extent by deer. Therefore, winter food plots containing these grasses work. Other useful introduced forages include both warm and cool season legumes. Native plants used by white-tailed deer include browse, forbs, soft and hard mast (fruits, acorns), and mushrooms. Adequate forage is usually available during the spring and fall seasons because of mild temperatures and increased rainfall. A variety of foods and habitat types is important to good deer production and …show more content…
Whitetail food habit studies indicate a significant change in deer feeding habits from summer to winter. Management efforts that seek to improve deer body condition should be directed toward insuring adequate food supplies during all seasons of the year by maintaining the proper carrying capacity, enhancing natural habitat, or through supplemental whitetail foods. I had also considered how deer communicate and learned how to tell when deer are most relaxed and know when they are sensing danger. By doing this I looked up the different movements of a deer’s tail, being they use this as a form of communication to other deer. Number One is the wag or swish this is a side to side tail wagging or a swishing motion. In my research this is found as gentle and casual, is a good sign this means that the deer is relaxed and at ease. In my research and experience, it was noticed and stated that some deer wag more than others, and they will swish more at different times of the year also, like in the summer for instance in the early bow season, when there are still a lot of bugs around. Number Two is the Twitch. In a similar way, it’s like the wags or swishes, but instead with sharp twitches of the tail. The twitches or switches moves kind of like a cow or horse does with its tail, are similar. Number Three is the Casual Flick. with this one, a feeding deer will stop often and lift its head up