With all the hoo-haw over KYHillChick, a lot of chores have needed to be spooled off.    She’s fine, by the way.  Thanks for asking.

I tried a few weeks ago to start mowing around camp.  After less than 10 minutes, the belt on the Cub Cadet went smoking into oblivion.  I couldn’t do anything at the time, but fuss and fume. I had to get back to town.  Last weekend was the first time I’d been able to get back down and cart the mower over to Chatham for repair.  Mister Poe is all backed up at the moment.  It’ll be some time before the yard gets mowed.

Before I left camp, I wandered out with a bag of mixing salt to refresh the big salt lick at Campground.  Yes, it is late to be starting a lick.  Truth is, I could have probably let this one go for a year and the deer would not notice.  I have been dumping 50 pound bags of salt in there since 2002. Sure enough, the deer had already started hitting the lick in earnest.  If I had wanted to start a new lick, I would have been doing this back in March or even back last fall.

But shaman!  Why just salt? Aren’t you supposed to use some sort of fancy recipe?

Yes, maybe the best way to build big antlers is to dope your lick with all sorts of additive.  Di-Calcium Phosphate is probably the most popular.  KDFWR has this to say about it:

Mineral Licks

The thing of it is that for all the years I was doping my licks with di-cal, the deer always treated my licks like a kid being given medicine.  Yes, it might be better for the bucks if they got some extra calcium, but I had to step back and look at my motivations.

The prime directive here is making the doe happy.  Happy doe stay on the property. Happy doe make happy doe tracks all over the place.  Big bucks?  The don’t care squat about how much di-cal is in the hole, but they do like to put their nose down and sniff doe tracks.  You want big bucks?  Make the doe happy.  Doe don’t like the taste of all the mediciny stuff.  They like salt.

But shaman? Why loose salt? Why not a block?

If you read the aforementioned article on mineral licks, you’ll see why.   I bury my salt so the deer have to work at it a bit to get some.  That helps regulate how much they get.  A lower dose of salt is better for their digestion.  That’s why they crave the salt– to help them digest all that fresh green stuff they are eating.  Too much salt makes them thirsty and they have to drink more water. If you bury the salt deep, they make more trips to the lick, making more happy doe tracks along the way.

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