The question is to feed or not to feed? What is the value? How does it impact your deer? If it adds inches of bone what is the average benefit per deer (generally speaking of course).
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I have read numerous articles about ranches feeding cottonseed in STX, the Hill country and recently on this site in Mexico. I have heard its good, it helps the bucks, it makes no difference, it takes up to three year to see results.
As a backdrop we purchased a ranch near Roosevelt in 2012. Protein had been fed in the past. In 2013 we began protein mid February thru late October and added cottonseed to the mix from early March thru August. I was disappointed in any perceivable jump by my mature bucks. In fact a couple were down from the previous year. The only other variable was rainfall. In 2012 we received rains in February and March. In 2013 the rainfall hit in April and May. It took the deer six days to figure the cottonseed out and they pounded it all summer along with the protein. So armed with this information where is the value in adding cottonseed as a supplement when your already feeding protein? The end goal is to grow better bucks. In this case any additional boost was not observed. Are there any studies out there with whitetails? I have seen papers from our biologist involving exotics however nothing regarding straight whitetail research. So I close with the question I asked in the beginning - Can anyone substantiate exactly what cottonseed does for whitetails
Backup
I have read numerous articles about ranches feeding cottonseed in STX, the Hill country and recently on this site in Mexico. I have heard its good, it helps the bucks, it makes no difference, it takes up to three year to see results.
As a backdrop we purchased a ranch near Roosevelt in 2012. Protein had been fed in the past. In 2013 we began protein mid February thru late October and added cottonseed to the mix from early March thru August. I was disappointed in any perceivable jump by my mature bucks. In fact a couple were down from the previous year. The only other variable was rainfall. In 2012 we received rains in February and March. In 2013 the rainfall hit in April and May. It took the deer six days to figure the cottonseed out and they pounded it all summer along with the protein. So armed with this information where is the value in adding cottonseed as a supplement when your already feeding protein? The end goal is to grow better bucks. In this case any additional boost was not observed. Are there any studies out there with whitetails? I have seen papers from our biologist involving exotics however nothing regarding straight whitetail research. So I close with the question I asked in the beginning - Can anyone substantiate exactly what cottonseed does for whitetails
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