Originally Posted By: CPiper
Originally Posted By: deerman24
FOR A COUPLE YEARS THE FARMERS AROUND US WAS GROWING SOY BEANS AND CORN. THE LAST COUPLE YEARS THEY ARE GROWING COTTON. OUR DEER HERD SEEMS TO HAVE DEMINISHED. DEER DON'T EAT COTTON.


Deer do eat the plant when it is young and just coming up out of the ground. Once it gets about 6" out of the ground they stop eating it. Once the plant tops out, they do eat the tender tops and small tender leaves. Deer eat the blooming flower and the cotton "pod".
Because of the height of the plants they feel comfortable traveling in the cotton and they do bed up in it. Cotton is sprayed with insecticides for bugs. This equates into fewer bugs to pester the deer.


Deer will also flock to cotton fields once the cotton is picked to get the weeds that will grow during the fall and winter. We saw 5 times the number of deer in cotton fields than we did when the same fields were planted in corn. Once the corn was gone so were the deer. I am happy because cotton is being planted again this year.