Whats your deer mineral recipe.

I just made up a thousand pounds of trace mineral salt,stock salt,di-calcium phosphate,and dried molasses. I was wondering what else i should add to help with antler growth? Any suggestions would be appreciated. It cost me roughly .25 a pound so much cheaper doing it myself than buying pre mixed mineral. Thanks for the help.

An appropriately limed and fertilized foodplot (woodlot/orchard/whatever) is the single best way to get the necessary minerals to the critters that consume them. Attempting to supplement mineral intake via a pile of minerals to wild critters is "iffy" at best...simply because what they eat isn't controlled (as it is with livestock). A comprehensive soil test is probably the single best way to make sure you are delivering the best nutrition available to your deer. If your soil is lacking something...add it. The plants will take up those minerals and deliver to the deer that consume them.

So by the DNR rules....fertilizing a food plot would be illegal? Fertilizer is minerals that you put on the ground.

We usually leave about 10 acres or so of standing corn. Usually close to that amount in brassicas as well. This year was unique by us in that corn moistures were very high and really delayed the harvest. The part of our land that we lease out for farming wasn't harvested until about New Years. Also, on the backside there was a 30-40 acre corn patch that wasn't harvested until mid February. We had a 6 foot wide deer trail coming from our woods into that patch. When shed hunting in March there wasn't much left for cobs in our standing corn, there are a decent amount of single kernals down every row that the deer and turkeys lose while eating in the snow. Once the snow melts that food is now exposed, they'll just walk down the rows like vacuum cleaners and pick up the loose corn.

Holy buckets, you have corn left. How much corn do you leave standing.

Agreed and I should have specified that part as well. I've got clover and rye planted and the deer are always on it early. Plus they are digging through remnants of brassicas and still going into the standing corn. One of the clover patches we have is right by some south facing conifers and is one of the first spots of clear ground each year, so it is a great spot for that crop.

"If you really want to boost your deer's antler development, make sure they are well fed all winter." Yup...but don't forget to have food immediately available at spring green up. Winter rye/white clover does that better than anything else. My WR/WC plots have been green here for over a month...while nothing else for a few miles in any direction has been. Early spring nutrition is extremely important for does (who make the bucks) as well as for giving winter stressed bucks an early food source.

"Just would like to know if anyone else has some good deer mineral recipes that maybe provide more nutrition for the deer's antler development." If you really want to boost your deer's antler development, make sure we are well fed all winter. Nearly all of the plots/crops we plant are geared towards fall and winter food. If your deer are well fed and come into spring in great shape, their bodies will be devoting nutrition to antler development immediately and a higher percentage of what they consume will go towards antler development. Now, obviously age is a factor as well. Your bucks will be slightly bigger at all ages, but 5.5 and beyone there will be a definite difference. Bucks take about 4 years for their frame to fully develop. After this point, they just need "maintenance level" nutrition and not "growth level". This leaves more nutrition available for antler development. Think about it, what good are minerals in the spring of the deer is starving? If the deer needs to get their fat levels restored they will be delayted in antler growth. Now, I'm not trying to call anyone out on minerals or anything, just providing my opinion that making sure they don't starve over the winter is a bigger piece to the puzzle. We had a neighbor explain this to us about 5 years ago. He was newer to the neighborhood, and the property he bought, which was good before, became great in short order. Seeing his results, we followed a lot of his advice starting about 5 years ago. On a piece of property we have had for 15 years, half of our Top 10 have come in the past 3 seasons, so the management plan is working.

"I have never even thought about hunting over the mineral site" Same here..it would be pretty dumb to do so. The whole point of placing salt/minerals is to insure they get used. The surest way to not have them used is to screw up the sites by hunting near them or having too much human presence in the area. My sites get refreshed 2 times a year most years...I check the SD cards in my cams when I refresh the sites and maybe 2-3 other times throughout the year...other than that I stay the heck away from them.

I was using the Antler King mineral up to this point but it was getting a little pricey. I do think it is good for the does since they seem to visit the mineral sites several times a day. It does help for knowing what you got going on but can be depressing at times. Last year I figured I had five shooters that were visiting the mineral regular up to about September 10 and after that not one picture of a shooter on the mineral after that. I was worried they had all left. I did find a couple sheds within a few yards of the mineral sites this year. I have never even thought about hunting over the mineral site or thought it could be used as bait. So I think it is a little different than a corn pile in some aspects as I don't use them to hunt over.

In an area with decent soil, deer will rarely use minerals without a fairly high percentage of salt....because they don't taste good. Here's a commercial deer mineral and its composition. http://www.mfa-inc.com/Feed/Minerals/MineralFeeds/DeerMineral.aspx I have no desire to get into deer husbandry...I just like getting a trailcam inventory of whats there. Makes it much easier to pass that 110" 2.5 year old when you know there's a better/older deer around. Deer do indeed need salt when local soils don't have enough sodium, and most midwest soils do not.

The lower the percentage of salt in the mixture the better. Deer require some trace minerals that cannot be found in many commercial supplements meant for domestic livestock. From the research that I have done, Antler King looks like one of the top deer mixtures on the market. If you live in the Eau Claire, WI area, the farmers elevator in Fall Creek sells a deer mixture that is the same as Antler King for considerably less. A question, why putting out such large amounts?

drptine...check out the commercial mixes that deer farmers use if you're really wanting to maximize nutrition/mineral supplementation. That said, there's zero research that either does diddly squat in wild deer.

Each there own. But i would think feeding corn year round would get a bit pricey. There always a lot of assumptions being made here with no proof of any laws being broken. Just would like to know if anyone else has some good deer mineral recipes that maybe provide more nutrition for the deer's antler development.

"So mineral in the spring is ok and corn in the fall is not??" Here in MN the former is legal and the latter is not...so here, not hypocritical at all.

If you click on drptines profile it says hes from Wisconsin so that what I was answering. Yes is you are using a block that is larger than 2 gallons you would need to cut it up plus you would only be able to put it out during the hunting season (when it really doesn't do any good) and it would have to be removed at the end of the season which would mean digging up all the soil around it. So pretty much in Wisconsin it's illegal to use minerals unless it's within 50yds of your residence.