I have 3 feeders running on about 500 acres. About 3 months ago I moved 1 to be further away from the other 2 . Initially I just had the feeder running with no fencing around it, but the rancher told me he was moving cows to that pasture and suggested I put up barbed wire to keep the cows out, which I did. Traffic to that feeder slowed a little, but nothing drastic. After this last week I was afraid the feeder stopped running because the deer that do show up aren't staying long at all. I went and checked it at lunch thinking it would be dead battery or a bad motor. Nope, there's corn all over the ground and it ran fine when I tested it. Any ideas about what would make these deer pass up all that corn? Is it possible I loaded a bad bag of corn? The other 2 feeders are running at the same time of day and every bit of corn gets eaten when deer show up.

barnag said:

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My deer arent' eating corn either. There's a lot of good stuff on the ground, a ton of acorns.

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This, lots of goodies to eat from end of summing going into fall. Once winter hits, it will pick back up as food gets scarcer.

agreed - if you got producing oaks around they will head to that first.

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. There's a ton of acorns where I moved this feeder. Is there anything I can add that'll make my corn more attractive, or is it just the waiting game for the acorns to run out? Thanks for the info and advice.

Our deer are hitting corn and protein but it's mostly out of habit right now. They're getting closer to tracking the time of feeders and do on some spots more than others, but for the most part, they're just sort of cruising through out of habit.

Maybe this last rain will help rot some of the acorns and get them hungry sooner rather than later.