Who eats the most feed?

I had always heard and thought that fawns ate more feed in the winter than adult deer.



I currently have a pen of 12 fawns 11 doe and 1 buck. I feed them free choice out of tube feeders. in the last two days they have eaten about 7 gallons of textured feed.



In the pen next to them I have 9 deer. 5 doe fawns 1 buck fawn and 3 adult doe. This pen ate 7.5 gallons of feed.



The next pen has 6 buck 4- 2year olds and 2 yearlings. They ate 5 gallon.



This has been the case for about a couple of months now. So I would assume that the buck eat the most then the adult does and then the fawns the least.



How does this compare to your farm?

Your right Dennis.



That is why I was wondering how much you all feed.

What I didn't tell you was that I am housing the fawns in the pen of 12 fawns and I am feeding them a different feed than I feed my own deer. (This is @ the owners preference) What I am trying to figure out is that his feed cost about $100 more per ton than mine, but if the deer eat less than it would payoff to feed the more expensive feed than my feed.

We both feed 16% protein but his has a custom blend pellet and I use a name brand pellet. (didn't use the name because i didn't want this to be a who's pellet is better thread)



So do your 7 mo. old fawns eat more than your yearling or adult deer?



Thanks