You don’t have to buy protein pellets to provide deer with supplemental food.
QUESTION: We have heard that mixing cotton seed hull with our current feeding of corn and Antler Max is very beneficial for white-tailed deer. Is that true? Also, we have gathered lots of oak acorns and plan to add them to the mix this year. This is stuff we put in our gravity feeders. What are your thoughts? We are hoping to improve the overall health of the deer, plus produce bigger racks. — Sandi C.
ANSWER: I had never heard of using cottonseed as a deer food/attractant until a hunt I did several years ago in west Texas. The deer loved it! I have since learned that cottonseed is a very good supplemental feed for several reasons. It’s high in protein (23 percent), does not easily degrade under moist conditions, is readily available and less expensive (about half the cost of formulated pellets) and most other animals don’t eat it.
There was some concern over problems (toxicity, infertility) associated with feeding cottonseed to deer but those have largely been dismissed. You should be fine feeding it to free-range deer as a supplement. As for acorns, they are also another great natural source of protein, fats and carbohydrates, and the more you can feed to your deer, the healthier they’ll be.