|
FEEDING AND BEDDING The bow hunter should acquaint himself with the feedingand bedding habits of deer. Like all ruminants, deer fill their paunches and then retireto safe cover where they finish the process of mastication bychewing the cud. Since the hunting is done in the Fall, the bow hunter need only to study the food eaten by deer at that time of year.Autumn is nature's time of harvest. Fruits, vegetables and nutsare ripe; tubers are mature. Deer seem to pay less attention tobrowsing and are prone to seek out the more fattening foodssuch as nuts and grain. Some of us old timers can remember when the chestnut treewas the staff of life for squirrel, turkey, and deer. It was a sadtime for wildlife when pests wiped out these wonderful trees.It was not so very long ago at that. Go to any forested sectionand you will see the white skeletons of dead chestnuts stillstanding hither and yon throughout the woods. Many of theold hunters will tell you that venison is not nearly as sweetnow as it was when deer were fattened on these highlynutritious nuts. |
|||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
