Home » Mineral Madness: What truly are the benefits of running summer minerals for deer?

Mineral Madness: What truly are the benefits of running summer minerals for deer?

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Whitetail Deer in Farm Field

With the growing addiction to producing trophy bucks on a property, hunters look for every nutritional advantage possible. But when it comes to deer minerals, are they truly supplying a nutritional “bang” for their bucks.

By the time deer hunting begins in most states, mineral sites tend to look like small craters. For months, deer have visited the sites sometimes only in passing, other times for what seems to be hours. The outdoor industry is packed with mineral products. From powders to granular to blocks, these products have become a multi-million dollar niche. With many sporting a picture of a buck that most deer hunters will only ever see in their dreams (or behind a fence), the advertising seems to state that it is not merely a question of “if” you can produce deer like the one on the package using this product, but when. However, like most products, advertising is simply a tool used to generate attention. The question for consumers looking to invest in deer minerals in order to grow bigger bucks is, “Do they truly work?”

 

Consuming Attraction

We have already discussed the consumer attraction to deer mineral products; why wouldn’t you believe that a product sporting a picture of a giant buck can’t at least “help” improve the quality of deer on your property? But rather this section discusses deer consuming the product. No one will argue the fact that if you put out mineral, especially in the spring; deer are going to hammer it. If you don’t believe that, you haven’t used minerals at the right time of year or there are very few deer in your area.

Minerals are a great way to bring deer into an area. Whether to take trail camera pictures and formulate more specific details, like age and score of bucks, or in some states it is legal to hunt over minerals increasing harvest opportunities. This makes them much more desirable than products like attractants or grain, to those looking to continuously bring deer to a site over a longer period of time without “refreshing” the area. Minerals tend to leach into the soil, and deer will continue to wear out the site long after the initial product is gone. So what keeps deer coming back again and again?

Many of today’s minerals also contain some type of food ingredient, usually in the form of sugar like molasses. Though the packaging reads “mineral,” this instantly makes it illegal to hunt over in “Mineral Only” areas like parts of Missouri. Therefore, consumers should pay close attention to the ingredients in order to prevent the mineral from going up significantly in price due to a citation.

Most of the minerals on today’s market are composed of mainly salt. In fact, find the percent break down in ingredients, and many will be well over 75% NaCl, CaCl, or Na…that’s fancy for sodium or SALT! Believe it or not, this lone component of a mineral product is the main reason deer will destroy mineral sites from spring through early summer. During this period, vegetation is extremely high in water and potassium content. The high water content of the consumed plant causes an increased amount of water exiting the body (i.e., urine), and in turn higher amounts of salt/sodium go with it. The high levels of potassium also affect the deer’s digestive ability to absorb salt/sodium. Basically, the deer’s desire to visit these mostly salt sites is not because of taste, but rather a physical response to their body being depleted of salt/sodium. A doe may have twice the salt/sodium requirements than bucks, particularly due to pregnancy and nursing of new fawns. Often this will show through observations as does will tend to occupy a site much longer than bucks.

 

Will Minerals Make Monarchs?

So we now know that there truly is a physical need for minerals, particularly during the spring and early summer when deer are depleting their salt/sodium supply rapidly. Though that is extremely important in growing a healthy deer herd, it still does not mean that providing minerals will increase body and/or antler size. After all, this is probably the reason that 90%+ of consumers purchase deer minerals.

First off, we know that no matter what we provide nutritionally to deer, they will never become a true monsters unless we can put some age on them. Though we have all likely seen the photographs of 200-inch, ridiculous non-typical 1 ½-year-olds in a pen, those types of deer are not realistic for free-ranging herds. Second, genetics is always a topic of discussion. But regardless of how hard we try, the majority of hunters will never be able to affect the genetic composition of their local deer herd. So with that being said, if we can’t change genetics and we let them grow older, then nutrition is the lone factor affecting a buck’s body and antler size.

From salt to calcium to zinc, there is a myriad of macro-and microminerals in the products on the market. If we specifically look at the minerals that are most likely to affect body and antler size, then we can narrow it down to two (2): Calcium and Phosphorus. Over 90% and 80% of Calcium and Phosphorus in a deer’s body are found in bones, respectively. Though major components of antlers as well, Calcium and Phosphorus are typically obtained in more than adequate amounts through foraging on natural vegetation even in poor soil fertility and arid regions with little forbs available.

Research conducted in poor soils of the Southeast showed that neither body mass nor antler size differed from deer harvested on properties providing mineral sites and similar properties that did not. To further emphasize this effect, researchers looked specifically at the 1 ½-year-old age class, as those would be the bucks to show the most apparent effect with the high dietary mineral requirements for rapid body growth and antler development. The result was no difference between those exposed to mineral sites and those with no minerals.

Though micronutrients like Copper, Zinc, and Selenium are required by deer to support healthy immune systems and muscle function, no effect on antler size has ever been documented. So even though healthy deer can produce better antlers than sickly deer, it is not a direct antler size increasing effect but rather a by-product of having a healthy herd.

 

Marketing Manipulation

If the mineral product you are purchasing amplifies the pure attractiveness to deer, then it is not off-target as we know deer will be lured into these sites, especially in the spring and early summer. If the mineral product even goes so far to say that it will “assist” in producing a healthier herd, then again it is not off-target as deer do truly require certain minerals for overall herd health; though most are obtained in adequate amounts through foraging, supplementing the naturally occurring minerals cannot hurt. BUT if the product you are purchasing claims to directly produce bigger bucks…then it’s best to look in another direction.

While marketing is the key piece to having a successful product or business, it can also mislead many consumers. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that I observed (and later confronted) one of the most convincing, yet misleading, schemes I’ve ever encountered. A certain deer mineral company had a booth at a well-known outdoor expo. As I walked by, I heard a claim “Just using our minerals one year, doubled his antler size!” Of course, as a deer biologist, such an absurd claim had to be studied more in-depth…but he was actually telling the truth! Well, partially…The two antlers were likely from the same deer, and from two different years. The problem was that this “snake oil salesman” was holding the left shed of a 1 ½-year-old in his right hand, and the left shed of a 2 ½-year-old in his left hand. Regardless of if they were from the same buck, the true problem with his pitch lies in the life-cycle of a buck. At 1 ½ a buck has grown just over 20% of his antler size potential on average. By 2 ½, he has reached more than half of his potential. I will spare you the math and simply say that on average a buck will double, if not TRIPLE, the total inches of antler from 1 ½ to 2 ½ years of age. So the company was not selling some revolutionary mineral, but merely a convincing marketing ploy.

There is no doubt that minerals will attract deer into an area, and that they provide an additional supply of required macro- and micro minerals for deer health, just in case they are lacking in the natural environment. But to say that commercially-sold mineral has a direct effect on the body and antler size of deer is simply not supported in science. The next time you reach for a bag of minerals, take a look at how the company portrays its effects, the truth goes a long way for me.