Grazer or Browser?

When I see them in my plots they usually just browse a while and move on but sometimes they will stay and eat for quite a while. While I think they are both i believe they are more browsers than grazers.

I also think it depends on the time of the year. In the spring, summer and fall when the plants are green i think they are more browsers but in the winter when food is scarce and the green plants are gone they become more grazers. h.h.

OK,if you believe so...

White-tailed deer have evolved to consume a large variety of foods, including herbaceous material (e.g., grasses, ferns, sedges, forbs), hard and soft fruits (e.g., apples, acorns, etc.), mushrooms, lichens, vines, woody browse (new woody growth and buds of trees and shrubs), and even dry, dead leaves and bark. For this reason, deer are categorized as both grazers and browsers. However, deer are highly-selective feeders and they choose foods that are the highest in quality and require the least amount of energy to find.

www.whitetailstewards.com/articlesonsite/deerbiology/seasonalhabitatrequirementsdeer.htm


Grazing 1. to feed on growing grass and pasturage, as do cattle, sheep, etc

Browse 8. tender shoots or twigs of shrubs and trees as food for cattle, deer, etc.


www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/uses/browseandgraze.shtml

There is a great article about this in the quarterly Whitetail Institute Magazine which I received yesterday. I believe they are indeed opportunistic but the majority of their food does come from Browse. I consider a food plot or corn/soybeans dessert for a whitetail.

I am the one wasting my time,getting my laughs too by the way...You have NO clue what you are talking about!Educate yourself on deer then come back and talk about it...Gooday

Find me a picture, a video, anything of deer mowing through a clover field, a bean field, and rapsberry bush, anything, like cattle do.

It can't be done.

Even when standing in a clover field, deer pick and choose.

They are designed to take in large VARIETY, not large QUANTITY.

Even for their size they do not consume as much as cattle.

Argue all you want. They browse. Standing in a clover field eating does not constitue grazing.

Awwww, you're being condesending, how cute...

Not really!Ijust have more productive things to do,than argue with you.If you want to continue the discusion,you are more than welcome to come over to my site,I won't do it on Woody's.

Just wanted to lay this to rest. You will tell me I am wrong or whatever, but here you go...

PHYSIOLOGYRuminant animals are grouped into three categories: (1) Grazers: roughage feeders that select mostly grasses and sedges; (2) Browsers: concentrate selectors that feed mostly on forbs and the leaves, twigs, and bark of trees and shrubs; (3) Mixed Feeders: intermediate feeder between grazer and browser - adapted to grazing grasses, forbs, and woody plants. Bison and beef cattle are classified as grazers. Elk are considered mixed feeders, and white-tailed deer are browsers (concentrate selectors). In all seasons white-tailed deer select only the most nutritious, rapidlydigestible plant species and plant parts rather than an average of all the forage available. Compared to grazers, browsers have a relatively small and simplified rumen which is not capable of digesting large quantities of feed high in cellulose. White-tailed deer eat more frequently, averaging 10-12 feeding bouts/day compared to beef cattle at 3-4 bouts/day. Browsers pass feed through the digestivetract more rapidly, and extract fewer nutrients from feed compared to mixed feeders and grazers.



The entire article can be found at www.agr.gov.sk.ca/docs/production/DeerPasture.pdf

Key word - "mostly"...