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Are Deer Really Eating
Your Food Plot?
It
happens hundreds of times each year, a landowner or hunting club will
spend lots of time and dollars planting food plots and, after a rain or
two and several weeks time, they return to see the crop green but with
little height. At once they blame the seeds they purchased, or the
planting crew for doing a poor job.
In
areas of high deer populations food plots are consumed heavily just as
soon as they emerge; and even though everything was done right and the
seeds were good, overgrazing occurs. Knowing what is really going on with
the growth of your food plots has a lot to do with how you manage your
wildlife habitat and deer population. The easiest way to get a good idea
about the growth and condition of food plots is to put an exclusion cage
in each plot.
An
exclusion cage, sometimes called an exclusion barrier or excluder pen, is
an easy to make device that can be placed in a food plot to protect a
small area from deer feeding. The protected area within the cage is
planted the same as the rest of the food plot and it gets the same amount
of rain and sunlight. The only difference is the exclusion of deer
feeding. If the plants do not come up inside or outside the cage, then you
know you had seed or planting problems. However, if you have lots of
growth inside the cage and there appears to be little outside, then you
can estimate the amount of deer feeding in the food plot.
Making
exclusion cages for your food plots is simple. Using heavy duty hardware
cloth, chicken wire or welded wire fencing, make a roll that is four feet
in diameter and at least four feet tall. Make sure the mesh is small
enough so deer cannot stick their nose inside. Some landowners with high
wild turkey populations also want it small enough so turkey cannot stick
their head inside and feed.
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An exclusion cage should be placed in each food plot immediately after the plot is planted. The exclusion cage tells the food plot manager how heavy the plot is being grazed. This cage was made from welded wire fencing. Hardware cloth and chicken wire can be used.
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