Spent grain as deer attractant?

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grrickar

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Anyone tried this? I took some spent grains, mixed up a batch of liquid consisting of apple juice, apple sauce, salt, dark brown sugar and baking soda. I then poured it into a 5 gallon bucket with 13 lbs spent grain.

I just tossed it out in the field to see if the deer are interested. If so, this stuff is cheap to make if you buy store brand items...

We made horse biscuits with a similar recipe but baked those. I saw the thread for dog biscuits also.

Also froze some, to toss out later if they seem to like this 'sweet apple mash'. It smelled decent enough...
 
I put the spent grain in the corner of my yard and not one critter appeared to be interested in it as a food source. Maybe if you coated it with enough sugar they would eat it. It is good a compost.
 
I routinely dump my spent grains at the edge of the woods. I check the next day and find a lot gone a lot of tracks and scat. So... yes, I works. But I don't mix anything with it.
 
I don't know anything about the OP's state, but I assume that depends on whether or not you intend to kill it.
 
The deer eat my spent grain on schedule. My buddy takes it during deer season and reports good results.

Not sure there is a need to fortify it....they will eat it as is.

My buddy claims deer are curious, and spent grain being a different food source will have them at the bait pile.

Fwiw, baiting and hunting is legal in NJ....the deer are thick here. I toss them stale bread from my deck....it's fun to see how close you can lure them.
 
My buddy claims deer are curious,

Seals are also quite curious. If you bring your mp3 player and some speakers, you can blare some rock n roll and they'll come 'round just to see what it is.

Food for all!
 
Yes, it is legal on private land. If you are hunting public land it is not. To me attractants are more something you put out when you are not hunting, to get/keep them interested in an area.

With all the crops about, most of it being corn, I suspect if they will eat the spent grains it gives me something to do with them and could land some meat in the freezer for me. I have added so much to the garden box that I suspect there is more grain that dirt in there now LOL.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

I don't put it 10 yards from where I am hunting, I put it somewhere that even if I caught a deer actively eating it and took the shot it wouldn't be a 'gimme', even with a crossbow. I'm using it more to keep them coming to an area, and once they are there hopefully spending more than 30 seconds within kill range.
 
I put some spent grains out also. They walk around it like the plague lol. Then again I have about 100 lb of Corn out next to it... deer are very strange sometimes. Had a similar experience with pears which they usually maul. Left them all alone.
 
I've never had any wildlife interested in the spent grains I dump at the edge of the woods
 
I too, keep hearing of spent grains being eaten by all sorts of critters. I dump mine in my compost pile. The only critters I have seen on the spent grains are flies!!! I watched a squirrel on my compost pile last week, it walked all around, then got to the edge and started digging. There would have been no spent grains where it was digging. Maybe it found an acorn.......
 
Has anyone seen or heard of mice or rats eating the spent grains? I was debating mixing it with the shubs and flower beds but I don't want to ring the dinner bell for rodents.
 
Has anyone seen or heard of mice or rats eating the spent grains? I was debating mixing it with the shubs and flower beds but I don't want to ring the dinner bell for rodents.

Armadillos like to go through it. I think they are pulling out bug larvae though, and not the grain itself. You guys in Tx have them. Squirrels and other critters don't seem to touch it oddly. Never seen rats on it, but they have much better eatings down here with all the fruit on the trees. ALL of my spent grain goes in planters along the small wood behind my house.
 
If I dump my spent grains in the woods during the winter months, the deer will make short work of it. Any other time, they just ignore it.
 
Sometimes they eat it and other times it ferments (warm months) and just stinks.

Not my chickens...they plow through it in a day
 
I used to dump it in a pile for the random critters to eat it.
Oddly enough it never got touched.
Now i just give it to a farmer whom feeds his goats/chickens the stuff.
 
Sometimes they eat it and other times it ferments (warm months) and just stinks.

I once buried some in a section of the lawn that wasn't growing grass very well. Then for some reason I had to dig in that area a week later. The smell was awful. No, beyond awful.

Sounds like most have a wooded area in their yard or a farm nearby. I'm stuck in suburbia with no such dumping area. I hate just throwing it in the garbage but there aren't a ton of nearby options. Maybe next house we'll have some woods.
 
I recommend using an old bicycle to build a small trebuchet.

Makes getting rid of garbage much more fun.
 
Nothing seems to want to eat my grains except bugs. And slugs. Any time I put the grains on my little flower bed or under my bushes I get lots of slimy slug trails over the next few days. So if anyone likes fresh slugs have I got a suggestion for you...
 
Nothing seems to want to eat my grains except bugs. And slugs. Any time I put the grains on my little flower bed or under my bushes I get lots of slimy slug trails over the next few days. So if anyone likes fresh slugs have I got a suggestion for you...

Good to know. I'll pass on that! Guess I will stick with the garbage.
 
Nothing seems to be touching what I tossed out in the woods, even with the apple juice and sauce and brown sugar.
 
Nothing seems to be touching what I tossed out in the woods, even with the apple juice and sauce and brown sugar.


If you are in an area with a healthy stand of hardwoods ( white oaks,red oaks,pin oaks,etc....) then the deer will walk right past it to get to the acorns. Throw that same mixture out post rut when it's cold and food options are limited and you might have something worth messing with.
There's just to much hard and soft mass available at this time of the year to really tell if it will be effective.
 
If you are in an area with a healthy stand of hardwoods ( white oaks,red oaks,pin oaks,etc....) then the deer will walk right past it to get to the acorns. Throw that same mixture out post rut when it's cold and food options are limited and you might have something worth messing with.
There's just to much hard and soft mass available at this time of the year to really tell if it will be effective.

No acorns around, but plenty of field corn...
 
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