How whitetail deer eating habits change in winter

We humans only slightly modify our eating patterns during the depths of winter when compared to whitetail deer.

Virtually the same food is available to us in the middle of the winter, as at the height of summer.

But nature has given us a different survival game plan than whitetails that have to deal with cold, long nights, and ice and snow through the winter months.

Deer are forced to radically change their diets when winter sets in.

Since they can no longer forage on herbaceous plants and fruits like apples and acorns in season, their gastronomic chemistry must shift.

Whitetails have developed a system to assimilate woody browse almost exclusively.

That is, they feed on living twigs and buds … the terminal tips.

A whitetail’s digestive process in the north goes into a different gear with each change of season.

In the summer the whitetail’s diet is mainly herbaceous plants. In the fall, it shifts to being able to process mast (apples, acorns, beechnuts, etc.). But in the wintertime, the whitetail’s food sources are mostly browse, augmented by fortuitous encounters.

Deer get most of their nutrition during the winter, here in the North, mostly on twigs and herbaceous growth.

Inside each living twig’s tip is an embryonic leaf getting ready to unfold in springtime. Nutrients from each stem concentrate there.

And that’s where the whitetail finds its wintertime sustenance.

The twig tip browse is a lifesaver to northern whitetails in winter.

Deer prefer some varieties of trees and shrubs more than others, and often it’s the fancy, expensive imported ornamental shrubbery right next to our houses.

Humans in the northeastern United States, on the other hand, eat pretty much the same things as we do all year long.

But by being inside more, almost within arm’s reach of the refrigerator and a supply of food, we tend to consume quantitatively more than usual, especially during the holiday season.

We who live in areas with real winters, in contrast to deer, often gain weight through the…