It is illegal to feed deer. If I pour corn on the ground for the deer it is illegal but if I grow corn in the ground for the deer it is legal and called, 'good game management and habitat improvement.'
Same for the plots, you can grow clover and other plants for the deer because it is considered baiting not feeding sense you grow it in the ground and you are not dumping it on the ground.

I feed birds all year as well. I work from home and hang my feeders outside my office window for year-round entertainment. Seed, suet, nectar, and stale bread/cereal. Something for everyone. I've never done a bird bath, but we live around plentiful water (ponds, creeks, pretty much year-round mud puddles).

.. Sounds like you got it going on! Have you ever tried popcorn?

Which birds eat popcorn? I never tried that because the family eats it.

I don't see it as much but we use to use popcorn for packing material and mom would throw it out. There were plenty of grateful birds, especially the European Starlings. Air Popped, plain.

House sparrows eat popcorn.
My dad used to run a theatre when I was a kid, and would bring home the left-over popcorn and throw it out for the sparrows.

Susan,

Is it illegal to feed deer in every state? How do you know this? When year was the law started? Is it a federal law? What about people putting out salt lick blocks?

The deer come and eat the food I put out for the birds and rabbits and some years I would put out cracked corn to keep them from eating my more expensive bird seed. I haven't put out the cracked corn for a few years now, since I don't really have the money to spend on it.

I looked it up on KY hunting and you can put them out but you cannot hunt over a pile during gun season. It must be prior.

Thanks Teresa!

DH and I don't hunt. We just enjoy seeing the birds, rabbits, deer and an occasional wild turkey & fox.

Not too thrilled to see lot of squirrels and possums eating all we put out.

Our house was built on the edge of a hayfield. So we didn't have mature trees when we moved here 28 yrs ago.
We did plant 2 maples that are now nice trees and I have one remaining apple tree. So the critters don't want to venture across the open field much to our house.

It was so nice this afternoon that I filled up my Yankee feeders. Which I had gotten the large size but these were on sale. I buy blk sunflower seed and niger seed for the goldfinch. I put out the woodpecker blocks of suet. The little nuthatch were out there eating on it.

I saw a cardinal today too!

Illegal in New York State. B ig fines if you are caught.
I wasnt referring to whet deer eat from bird feeders.There are people who put out bailed hay and other temptations just so the deer will come to their yards.
The costs in autoaccidents is bigger that you would think.Fatalities too.
Population s here live and drive too close together .
There is a 4 lane that goes from east to west thru a park and gets heavy use duering commuting hours.
There is controlled hunting in the park due to the large herd that lives and multiplies there.
People get killed and maimed trying to avoid the deer.

Thanks Jo Ann! I can understand how feeding the deer would encourage them to cross the highways and interstates. It was such a problem in one state that they built a wildlife bridge and I posted a picture a while back.

Marilyn , I only looked up NY, but this morning I looked up VA. and they also passed a law back in Aug, 2012. Here is the link.

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/n...

I think it is ok if it is on your private property for Kentucky. Here is state by state, but not much information. Probably depends on the hunting laws, in some states hunting is a major source of income for the state because of the licences.

I haven't found out what state this is in but when I googled it I found that america has 8 Billion road kills a year. Yikes!

It's interesting to see how they've tackled the problem of wildlife being killed on the highway through Banff National Park. Unfortunately, the highway is a very busy one - because of the mountains, there are not many passes that major roads can be built through, and this is the main east-west highway through Canada. The fact that people disobey the speed limit and drive like maniacs doesn't help! Also unfortunately, they've had to fence both sides of the highway to prevent mass slaughter (fencing is not exactly what one wants to see in a "wilderness"!) The rangers used to call the highway "the meatmaker". By 2014, there are supposed to be 38 underpasses and 6 overpasses built through the park.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=...

Thanks! Very impressive.

LOL maybe if the signs are moved the deer would cross somewhere else

http://fox4kc.com/2012/10/18/w...

I saw that thing about the deer crossing, I think the lady is missing a few screws.

How did I miss this thread?

We feed the birds here, but don't do birdbaths, except in the summer. We have a running stream, so they have water all year round.

Jo, someone from the DEC told us it was OK to feed the deer here if you own a certain amount of property, I forget how much, and are not attracting them for hunting. I hope that's the case, as we put out salt licks. But if not, who's going to check way up here anyway. So, who cares.

I believe there are people in the Adirondacks who put out salt and bales of hay.Maybe they just like to watch them feeding.I had heard the ban on feeding was to discourage enlarging the herds in populated areas so your turf is probably big enough so they dont cause problems on the highways where there is a denser population.

I read that it is illegal to feed White Tail Deer. If you dump out a bag of corn it is illegal but if you grow corn it is legal and good. The reason for this was not road kill but to control diseases that they spread to each other when they are attracted to a place in herds.
[quote]
“Feeding deer artificially concentrates them in one location for extended periods of time,” says the NYSDEC. And that is bad because it creates a greater possibility for the transmission of diseases such as Chronic Wasting Disease.

“CWD is most likely transmitted from deer to deer by direct contact between animals, or indirectly through contact with waste food, urine, and feces that build up at feeding sites, although the exact transmittal mechanism is currently unknown.” [quote]

I don't think it is talking about a salt lick.

http://www.wellsvilledaily.com... (there are two pages here)