Deer Feeders

[Thin Blue Line]

Anyone use electric feeders for deer? What is the bestfeed, grain or cracked corn, maybe a commercial product?

[weekender]

I just use shelled corn. The cleaner the better. Most feeders will clog if you have stalks/stems/cob chunks.

[clt_capt]

Same here - shelled corn

[Bird Dog]

+2 on the shelled corn

I sometimes would mix it with dried molasses

[NY Bearhunter]

SHELLED CORN AND SWEET FEED MIX...

[Thin Blue Line]

I went to the grain store and they have a corn thats coated in molasses. It's dry and not supposed to clog elevtric feeders. Any way to help the deer find this stull a little quicker?

Im in an area where there are not a lot of deer.

[weekender]

yes, after putting out your feeder, scatter 50 lbs of corn very thinly over a half acre around the feeder. Also you can run a couple corn trails from your feeder say 200-300 yds trying to cross any deer trails in the area. These corn trails can be very sparse just a light sprinkling as you are walking away from the feeder. Some apples scattered about the feeder won't hurt either. If the deer aren't already use to eating at feeders, these steps will help get them started. I would set the feeder to only go off one time a day and only throw about one pound of corn till the deer find it. Then you can increase to a morning and evening feeding, you probably won't need more than that.

[pitch bait]

Is there any feedersd that a re better then others I lookeds at a couple of the 5 gallon feedersd and they have bad reviews on Cabellas. There seems to be alot of problems with timers and clogging. Which kind of timer am I looking for.

[weekender]

I have had a bunch, most are OK but DON"T buy a Wildgame Innovations model TH-6VQ, it's a POS. The last one I bought to replace it was a Moultrie Pro Hunter with digital timer. Very user friendly and has worked as designed. I would stay away from the anolog timers with rotating clock wheels and pins, tried several and they are poor time keepers and malfunction much more than the digital ones. Size of the barrel/bucket is up to you, I get the 225# barrels so it last a while. It's just like everything else, with 3 main things to make it successful. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. They won't work well just anywhere. It's a mystery to me why one can be a total failure in one place that I know holds plenty of deer, move it 100 yds and have them all over it. The biggest thing in bowhunting is the wind, with a gun you can back off quite a bit and help that situation.

As for the clogs, CLEAN corn is the only ticket. If I am forced to use dirty corn, I use a homemade sifter bucket with a rat wire bottom in it. It takes a little time but I had rather sift it than work all week looking forward to seeing some game and find out the feeder quit the day after you put it out because of a stem or cobb chunk.