So as I wandered around at the Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo this past weekend, some things really jumped out at me. There is some things with deer that you don't want to do.
I saw a big name, up and coming company with supplements that has a deer feed that was ground medium fine, looked really dusty and was a high corn mix. Here is what is typical for deer and most animals in general. Animals do not like dusty, ANYTHING. It lowers their consumption and when you put a fine, dusty product out in the wild it gets mushy fast. The end result is a leftover pile of really smelly stuff that will mold and cause sick animals, even if they do eventually consume it.
The same thing i witnessed with deer mineral. One of the last things i spotted after the show was a bag of deer mineral that a company pawned off on a new friend, I could spot the quality from 20 feet way. Even with deer mineral, you don't want it dusty. Most companies loose palatability because they use dusty forms of calcium and monocal. The company that makes mine up using monocal with a larger partical size and with dust controls on the calcium they bring in. We also use another thing at the correct amount per batch to keep the dust down. Another added benefit to that is better mix ability.
I also saw the usual high number of companies selling seed that contained 35-50% seed coatings. No matter what they claim, the science is only 1 in 6 years you will benefit from seed coatings. In our case, we use natural growth promoters and high germ count seed that even takes that 6th year out of the equation. Our seed will grow good unless there is absolutely a lack of rain. I get NRCS mixes about every day to quote and they request only PURE LIVE SEED. So, why is there coated seeds out on the market place.......PROFIT MARGIN!!!!
I'll stop right there today but there was numerous other things I saw that made me cringe as a nutritionist that has has seed buying groups, worked for distributers and currently also have a mini seed distribution company that caters to the true independents.
