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What plants do deer prefer as food?
By
Laurie Schoonhoven
Deer diets vary based on the time of year, availability of preferred food sources, and location. For example, striped maple is preferred food for New York deer and less desirable to Pennsylvania deer. The following is a list of preferred deer foods:
- mast - acorns, beechnuts
- leaves - trees, shrubs, brambles, herbs
- fruit - apples, cherries, crabapples, pears, pokeweed berries
- trees - sugar maple, white ash, tulip-poplar, birch, oak (red, white, chestnut), cucumber, basswood, dogwood, apple, pin cherry
- vines and shrubs - hobblebush, juneberry, sassafras, wild grape, silky dogwood, honeysuckle, autumn olive
- brambles - blackberry
- herbaceous - trillium, mayapple, trout lillies
Less-preferred foods are:
- herbaceous plants - hayscented and New York fern, grass, bracken
- shrubs - alder, blueberry, mountain laurel, sweet fern, spicebush,
- woody species - beech, striped maple, black cherry, sweet birch, hemlock, pine, ironwood, hornbeam