In my wildest dreams, I never anticipated the explosion of interest in deer management over the last decade. When we first developed our series "Building Your Own Deer Factory" for North American Whitetail in the mid-1990s, we seemed to have "ignited a fuse" leading to this explosion! Everywhere you turn and in almost every issue of the host of outdoor publications available, there is "sage" advice on increasing the size and quality of your deer.

Even though whitetails have long been able to thrive in areas that are nutritionally challenging, this does not mean that dietary supplements are unnecessary. Supplemental nutrition can improve the health of almost any herd.

Two of my colleagues recently attended a workshop on supplemental food plots. They came away scratching their heads over the incredible amount of misinformation offered by the "expert" putting on the workshop. Since there is a great deal of confusion and false information floating around about whitetail nutrition, I decided to develop this series on the subject. Hopefully, I can clear up some of the hype surrounding this subject.

First, let me inform you that consumers (in this case, you deer managers out there) do not enjoy the same level of governmental protections enjoyed by the average farmer or rancher. Deer supplements, food plot varieties and feeds have not even been on the radar screen of state and federal consumer protection agencies. Many of the products sold today are considered "attractants," putting them under the heading of a completely different type of regulatory oversight. Fortunately, recent actions by the USDA and other agencies may lead to better protection for folks like you, but you should be cautious just the same. Now, let's turn to what we know about whitetail nutritional needs.

WHITETAILS ARE RUMINANTS
Whitetails fall into a category of mammals that showed up sometime just before or around the Pleistocene epoch (2 million years ago). Prior to their appearance, the herbivore community was dominated by groups we call monogastrics, meaning one stomach. For millions of years, mammals -- and the dinosaurs before them -- carried on a type of adaptive warfare with plants.

The cycle is continuous -- plants develop defenses, animals develop solutions. One of these defenses was to produce plants that were less digestible. The grasses fell into this category. They not only placed most of their bodies below ground, but they also became fibrous and difficult to digest. The ruminants became the newest and greatest adaptations on the evolutionary block! They developed three chambers in front of the stomach to deal with breaking down plant fibers and cells like those found in grasses. These are the well-known "stomachs" of ruminants (four in all).

Understanding What Deer Need Don't miss Part 2 of this story, available here.

The name "ruminant" comes from the habit these animals have of regurgitating their food, re-chewing it, and then swallowing to start the process all over again. Being a ruminant also had a safety advantage. An individual could run out, feed quickly (chewing very little), and then retreat to a safe place to process and digest its food.

Ruminants have some allies in this process. The first chamber is the rumen, which comes from the Latin word for "throat." The pH of this chamber is almost neutral, and for good reason. The large amount of liquid (about a gallon in deer) is home to a host of microorganisms. Chief among these are bacteria, fungi and ciliate protozoa (single cells with "hairs," allowing them to move). The more fibrous the diet, the more diverse these organisms become.

Ruminants are classified into several categories based on the type of diet. The most efficient digesters are animals such as cows, classified as "grass-roughage" eaters. At the opposite end of this spectrum are the "concentrate selectors," to which whitetails belong. They have fewer types of organisms to aid in their digestion. In fact, they may have only a single species of protozoan, but that has not been fully documented.

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