What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen a whitetail eat and what time of year was it?
Fortunately, I've never seen it, but apparently they will eat us: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/deer-eating-human-forensics-decomposition/
FYI: If you ground hunt, be careful if you decide to take a nap!
I watched some does feeding on dead carp that had come into our cornfield during a flood. They got stranded went the water went down. A few days after the flood I went to check out the damage and watched several does nibbling on the fish carcasses. There were a lot of different types of fish that had died, but it seemed like the deer had focused on the carp.
Yep those definitely qualify as wierd.
There are vids on youtube of deer eating birds. I guess their bodies crave protein so they take what they can when the opportunity arises.
There used to be persimmon and apple scented gel attractants, not sure if theyre still available. My friend had good luck with the persimmon one, but the deer just ate the gel, even though the bottle said not for animal consumption.
When I was a kid in my town at Christmas time they had animals in pens in the middle of town. In one cage they had deer.
Us kids would feed them cigerattes non filtered. That's kind of weird then and now. :-)
I saw a buck stand on its back legs to reach sumac seed clusters
One of my very best pals killed a button head with a warmouth in its stomach. Thats a fish similar to a rock bass.
I've seen them licking dirt roads to get the salt, but I don't know if that qualifies as weird.
I heard a story from another hunter (not sure of his credibility) about how he dropped his bologna sandwich from his stand on accident and a deer later came by and ate it.
Years ago... I dropped my can of SKOAL out of my tree stand. Had a doe walk in from behind me, and lick it up...??
(Now I make sure I carry 2 cans...)
When I was growing, we went to the Ross Allen/Silver Springs Boy Scout Encampment every year. We always enjoyed going to the Bartlett Deer Ranch, where we saw deer take all manner of things out of purses-$20 bills, handkerchiefs, cigarettes, what ever they could grab hold of.
One very rough winter with deep snow I saw deer feeding on cow manure spread in the field. They were probably picking out the grains and corn.
I've seen them eat duck eggs, bones in the spring, dry leaves in the fall, but bacon grease at a bear bait seems to top it off.
I saw one eating on a dead rabbit on the road when I was a kid.
Not too weird but I saw a button eat an orange maple leaf in the fall Bet they taste sugary. Also saw a deer eat a ripe locust pod. Had one end in his mouth and just kept chewing as it got shorter and then disappeared.
I've put out table scraps for hogs before and got pics of does picking at them. Not sure what exactly they were after
I have also seen turkeys picking at a deer gut pile.
The biggest buck I've ever killed was eating my Apple flavored skoal when I shot him.
Not the weirdest but fun to watch. I saw a doe waded out into a remote lake in NW Ontario. She would come up with a face full of giant lillypads, stare at us a few seconds as if unaware of how rediculous she looked and then suddenly pound them down in a couple chomps.
Mini Snickers bar. Slipped from my hands and down to the ground. Doe came by later and enjoyed my snack.
I saw a deer eat up a chicken of the woods mushroom. I looked it up, apparently they are a delicacy for people as well. I guess that would explain why they are out of reach most of the time when I find them.