Friday, March 29, 2024

Cheap and tasty deer feed

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The feeding of fodder beet is a potential win-win for both farmers and deer. Deer like it and weaners will gain weight on it. For farmers it’s one of the most cost-effective winter feeding options provided crop yield was 23-plus tonnes of drymatter (DM) a hectare, Lincoln University’s fodder beet expert Jim Gibbs said.
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Deer, unlike cattle, required little in the way of protein supplements while grazing fodder beet, which is what made it a cheap feeding option.

“The rule of thumb is the crude protein from the leaf and bulb is about 11-15% which is spot on for deer,” Gibbs said.

Deer only required daily supplements of about 250-500g of drymatter. This minimal requirement was a real cost saving given that the cheapest supplements started at about 20c/kg DM and fodder beet cost 6-12c/kg DM to grow.

But to stack up, a good yielding crop had to be grown which some farmers struggled to achieve without specialist help.

“Fodder beet is a vegetable and in general farmers aren’t good at growing them which is why they should get professional advice on how to do it.”

The upright varieties were ideal for deer because of the way they consumed them.

“They knock them over or will chew them right down so there’s little waste.”

Brigadier was the first-choice for deer and sheep. The second most palatable was Sugarbeet, a deep-rooted hard variety with 25-30% drymatter. The downside of Sugarbeet was that it had to be lifted, which wasn’t ideal for deer: “Wherever possible deer should graze it behind a wire.”

Just why deer typically sour of the crop after 60-70 days is unclear, Gibbs said.

It could be related to the low phosphorous levels of the crop but no research had been done to confirm this assumption. Farmers faced with the problem should take deer off the crop for one to two weeks preferably on to saved grass. 

Another possible option was a phosphorous supplement, although the practicalities of administering it could be difficult.

Unbeatable beets

Mendip Hills manager Simon Lee is in his fifth winter of feeding fodder beet to deer and despite the worst crop ever will stick with it.

“The good thing is that it keeps for a long time.”

Usually a 24-25t/ha crop is grown but this year it will be about a miserly eight tonnes.

“I’ve come unstuck once in five years and that’s because of the dry – we’ve only had 20mm of rain since December.”

Fodder beet is fed to Mendip Hill weaners – last year 270 grazed a 4.4ha crop for 80 days. That’s about the maximum they’ll tolerate as Lee discovered one year when weaners went sour after being left on beets for 90 days.

“In hindsight I should have taken them off and given them a rest.”

Transition to the crop happens over a week.

“We’ve learnt a lot about break sizes – they don’t need to be big and we have a long face rather than a short face so they don’t end up trampling their feed.”

The break is usually shifted daily but in very wet weather it will get shifted twice a day.

Lee keeps an eye out for deer that aren’t doing well – he drafts them off when needed and puts them on to grass.

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