November 7, 2013 | seo
By Kurt Upham, Founder of ohDEER
As I drive around, I think about what a beautiful fall we have had, especially given the past couple of years. Unfortunately, fall doesn’t last very long and winter will soon be upon us! The last of the robins and black birds have moved on, but there is one animal that will not migrate, and that’s deer.
And you either love ‘em or hate ‘em! The whitetail deer has just begun its winter survival mode. They’re loading up on acorns and any few crab apples that might be left on the ground.
The bucks are ramping up for the breeding season, which starts in November, when most of the mature does will be bred. Once the acorns and apples are gone, the struggle really begins.
Typically, the first frost kills off the remaining natural green vegetation found in the woods, which means the deer will now be looking to your landscape for the necessary food to get them through the winter.
The does will be pregnant and they will be looking to nourish their fetuses and the bucks will be looking to put back on the 25% of body weight that they lost during the breeding season chasing the does. Your landscape plantings don’t have the fat and nutrition that the acorns and crab apples provide, it’s basically “filler”, but it’s food and it helps them get through the winter.
By way of background, the white tail deer consumes roughly 2000 lbs of food a year which comes out to 5.4 lbs of food a day. Now, that may not seem like a lot, but I say try weighing 5 pounds of rhododendron leaves, it’s a lot! And this feeding will begin to happen well before the snow arrives as I mentioned above. A few inches of snow on the ground will put the deer in a whole different mode. The more snow that falls, the more difficult their world becomes. Meaning, as the winter rolls on and the snow situation worsens, so does the deer population. As cruel as it sounds, snow and cold winters are Mother Nature’s way of controlling the deer population
Enter, ohDEER! We are ready for the cold and snow and provide protection to your landscape all winter long, beginning in October (our winter deer control season). Deer Clear, our proprietary deer control product, is all natural and doesn’t harm the deer or your pets. It does however, deter the deer from feeding on your landscape! Our 4 different solutions are based on the seasons and the deer do not like the smell or the taste, so they go elsewhere. Ultimately leaving your landscape in tact and looking great come springtime NOT looking like it has just been pruned from the bottom up.
I love talking deer, so please (+1-888-643-3378) call if you have any questions…and happy winter!
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