Despite the title I'm nor sure which is the appropriate slot for these comments
Some years ago I bought a pallet of Rumevite deer licks ( round, 22.5 kg) from a local animal nutrition factory as he gave me a good price on them.
I've used them intermittently since on sika and reds and thought that I wasn't getting very good results from them. I tried tipping food grade salt on them to make them more palatable with no apparent results. When I brought 2 KNZ blocks home from Scotland signs of use were much more obvious, but I haven't overcome the transport costs yet. In both cases there are sheep (without permission) on the ground and I did what I could to keep them out of reach. I did not want to give the woolly maggots a treat or be accused of poisoning them. I think it's the copper levels that are wrong for sheep.
Anyway I have recently acquired a piece of private ground in Sligo for fallow, where I felt safe to try out my new game cam, and the results have made me rethink my original opinions on the use of licks. I put out the lick in an old bog wood with peaty soil which is quite dry and crumbly under shelter, so no mucky clay where animals congregate. Because of fencing there are a number of defined deer paths and I went close to one of these. I cut half a dozen lengths of ivy off the trees and used them to as bait for the deer. Over a three week period the cam took over 300 images, of which about 30 were overexposed because I faced the camera south. You don't think of these things when you don't see the sun for weeks on end.
When I looked at the lick after 3 weeks my initial reaction was that there had been minimal use -a little wear round the edges and a few unidentifiable teeth marks on the top. The ivy needless to say was long gone. I scraped the top with a sharp stick hoping that might scatter a few crumbs to interest the deer, shook out a bit of rock salt that I had acquired, cursed, changed the SD card and went home to see if the images on the SD card were the result of tree shake or whatever.
To my surprise and pleasure a lot of the images do show fallow working on the lick, for up to 10 minutes at a time. Most of them are working on the edge of the lick or the ground around it. I'm used to domestic livestock having a noticeable effect on licks, whereas the deer seem to have a much more delicate approach. I had not really stopped to think that smaller size of animal and stock numbers would be reflected in signs of use. I've learnt a lesson there.
If I've got the pic's right the first two show the same doe on the lick for about 15 minutes just to illustrate the length of time some of them spent there.
The 4th pic shows the lick pretty much as I saw it after 3 weeks use. The 3rd pic shows the best count of deer, 5 in total. The 2nd pic is the middle of a sequence of a doe with her muzzle on the lick
The bulk of the fallow are Melanistic. Numbers have only built up recently. Body weights are good, but foot rot is endemic as there is a lot of low lying wet ground.
I thought I'd share these thoughts as without the camera I would have have had a much more pessimistic view of my investment in the licks. By the way the site is in the same area as a high seat, but can't be shot over.
Ion
Sorry folks , resubmitted pic's without ID. No 5 should be first . It's taken me an hour to edit. I've gone for a liedown!
Some years ago I bought a pallet of Rumevite deer licks ( round, 22.5 kg) from a local animal nutrition factory as he gave me a good price on them.
I've used them intermittently since on sika and reds and thought that I wasn't getting very good results from them. I tried tipping food grade salt on them to make them more palatable with no apparent results. When I brought 2 KNZ blocks home from Scotland signs of use were much more obvious, but I haven't overcome the transport costs yet. In both cases there are sheep (without permission) on the ground and I did what I could to keep them out of reach. I did not want to give the woolly maggots a treat or be accused of poisoning them. I think it's the copper levels that are wrong for sheep.
Anyway I have recently acquired a piece of private ground in Sligo for fallow, where I felt safe to try out my new game cam, and the results have made me rethink my original opinions on the use of licks. I put out the lick in an old bog wood with peaty soil which is quite dry and crumbly under shelter, so no mucky clay where animals congregate. Because of fencing there are a number of defined deer paths and I went close to one of these. I cut half a dozen lengths of ivy off the trees and used them to as bait for the deer. Over a three week period the cam took over 300 images, of which about 30 were overexposed because I faced the camera south. You don't think of these things when you don't see the sun for weeks on end.
When I looked at the lick after 3 weeks my initial reaction was that there had been minimal use -a little wear round the edges and a few unidentifiable teeth marks on the top. The ivy needless to say was long gone. I scraped the top with a sharp stick hoping that might scatter a few crumbs to interest the deer, shook out a bit of rock salt that I had acquired, cursed, changed the SD card and went home to see if the images on the SD card were the result of tree shake or whatever.
To my surprise and pleasure a lot of the images do show fallow working on the lick, for up to 10 minutes at a time. Most of them are working on the edge of the lick or the ground around it. I'm used to domestic livestock having a noticeable effect on licks, whereas the deer seem to have a much more delicate approach. I had not really stopped to think that smaller size of animal and stock numbers would be reflected in signs of use. I've learnt a lesson there.
If I've got the pic's right the first two show the same doe on the lick for about 15 minutes just to illustrate the length of time some of them spent there.
The 4th pic shows the lick pretty much as I saw it after 3 weeks use. The 3rd pic shows the best count of deer, 5 in total. The 2nd pic is the middle of a sequence of a doe with her muzzle on the lick
The bulk of the fallow are Melanistic. Numbers have only built up recently. Body weights are good, but foot rot is endemic as there is a lot of low lying wet ground.
I thought I'd share these thoughts as without the camera I would have have had a much more pessimistic view of my investment in the licks. By the way the site is in the same area as a high seat, but can't be shot over.
Ion
Sorry folks , resubmitted pic's without ID. No 5 should be first . It's taken me an hour to edit. I've gone for a liedown!
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