Roses deer love when in the Bud/bloom stage, just like apples, they have a time they gorge on them, clover is a year around food source and beets are a good fall source along with apples. Roses hold their attention during the spring/summer, as does all the new growth foliage. Come late Oct until Spring, the food sources dry up or go dormant, dropping their protein content, below what is needed to survive, and they have you use fat reserves along with dormant browse to survive, very hard on mature rutting bucks. During the winter until green up, I will supplement 80% sweet cob, 10% black oil sunflower seeds, 10% soy beans. Bringing it to about an 18-20% protein mixture, bucks recover very fast from the rut, horn growth starts a few weeks earlier, does and fawns are super healthy, and the bears are sleeping, so I do not get raided. I only do this once a week, two five gallon buckets each feeder.
