Do deer eat carrots?

Hello! I'm a doe and I am enjoying my carrots!

In this educational / entertainment post:

our deer eating carrots (pictures, videos)
do deer eat carrot tops?
what fruit and veg can deer eat?
should you feed the deer?

I hope this answers the question of 'do deer eat carrots' right there. They can and will eat these vegetables if they come across them.

Our deer welcome carrot showers (when a lot of chunks get thrown to them), and also make funny faces as the pieces fly and when chewing them.

Our animals get carrots as a supplement quite often, and every day during summer droughts, when there's less vegetation available.

Therefore, we gotta have some storage for those carrots to keep them fresh summer. So instead of a beer-fridge, we have deer-fridge, as in, it's for the deer (not with deer in it):

fridge full of carrots

Anticipation is showing. All eyes on that human preparing to make a throw of the delicious, crunchy, sweet vegetable...

deer awaiting carrots

More flying carrots and deer faces in anticipation:

funny deer and carrot picture

They don't mind being hit by their food, but also have learnt some defensive techniques.

INCOMING!

deer under carrot shower

Go get those carrots, quick!

Watching deer chew their food is entertaining. Capturing awkward-looking moments is even funnier.

That moment was so funny it deserved to be immortalized into a picture, an animated gif and a video.

Feeding deer carrots

In this video, a group of deer gets some carrots and some bread in the end. The vegetables get eaten whole, and carrot tops are just as desired.

Deer Miss Red once got lucky passing by on her own and getting to eat a carrot uninterrupted by competing fellow deer. We didn't have it cut into smaller chunks at that moment, so she had to chew it whole. There was no complaints.

Pretty deer crunches on a carrot

Watch this pretty hind chew carrot in front of a camera.

Carrots are highly desirable, but when fed both those and bread at the same time, most deer will choose bread first. Bread is king! But please don't feed wild deer big quantities of bread, it's something their digestive system needs to get used to.

How a herd of deer eats carrots. Watch in the following video.

You can notice towards the end some bits being continuously ignored, deer get a sniff of them and walk past without eating. Why do you think that is?

Do deer eat carrot tops?

Easily. Both the tops and the roots will be enthusiastically consumed by deer.

What fruit and veg can deer eat?

Deer will eat practically anything when food supplies are low, but otherwise they adore carrots, apples, bananas, pears, berries, especially blueberries and blackberries, beets, quite enjoy some leafy greens, spinach, turnip, cauliflower, peas, beans or broccoli, strawberries, plums, pumpkin, cabbage, sweet potatoes and sweetcorn. Nuts are also very appealing to deer. We find citruses are not on top of their list but deer will eat them if there's no better alternative, even lemons, whole.

Not fans of onion, garlic and fennel, although our ones didn't mind garlic bread.

Should you feed wild deer?

Depending on where you live it may be illegal for you to do that.

Winter is a challenging time for deer, and a nature's way of culling the weaker herd members. (( As heartbreaking as that may be, supplemental feeding of them presents its own set of problems and according to many reputable sources can do more harm than good. Such as:

introducing improper food. Corn, bread will be eaten by deer but can kill them. Small amounts are fine, but if one leaves a bunch of it and only one or a couple of animals find it and eat the whole lot they can die from indigestion. With wild deer not approaching it until you leave, you can't control how much any one of them will consume.
by attracting the deer into one spot people cause them to congregate in large groups, and that can lead to increase in communicable disease spread, like CWD (not present in NZ). Everybody knows what social distancing is these days and the merits of it. Well, by promoting concentration of deer people are endangering their health.
it's hardly sustainable long-term, as deer will habituate the feeding spot and eventually hang out there most of the time, stripping any and all vegetation present in the area, destroying trees by eating bark and rubbing antlers on them.
Where a few deer are today tomorrow can be a hundred. In deer world 'the word travels fast'. So more animals will burn their precious fat deposits hoping to come and dine at your sites. If they then arrive to an empty spot or there's only enough to feed half of them you may have made a bad situation worse;

Even if you succeed in saving more deer one winter through supplemental feeding, overpopulation of these animals does not benefit them in the end. Since you stop supplement feeding in spring, they're on their own but in bigger numbers than vegetation in the area can sustain. There will also be detrimental effect on the birds whose habitats deer eat away.
concentrating deer near inhabited areas may result in increased traffic accidents;
attracting deer near peoples' property through feeding can also attract predators, like cougars or coyotes. Also, deer can under certain conditions be aggressive themselves and are capable of causing serious injuries to humans;

If you want to help deer survive winter:

You can do this by creating and maintaining good quality deer habitat and improving food resources that will actually benefit all wildlife.

plant mast producing trees and shrubs, and protect those plantings until they are large enough to survive deer browsing;
plant evergreen trees for winter thermal cover
cut sections of mature forests to create forest openings and increase the amount of woody browse available to deer.

If you can't resist feeding deer, follow these guidelines:

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To make sure food is safe prefer tree branches (oak, aspen, crab-apple) over artificial foods, otherwise use deer pellets (Purina Antler Advantage, MONSTERMEAL) or coarsely milled oats;
To promote better dispersal of animals feed in several sites;
To avoid human/wildlife conflicts feed well away from any roads or peoples houses;
Spread the food really well, so numerous deer can have simultaneous access to it without fighting. Stronger bucks will often hoard the best spots for themselves and kick approaching competition. So instead of dumping all in one spot make thin, long lines of food, they can go parallel, as long as there's enough room between them for animals to stand. The wider you can make the area the better.
If you begin feeding in fall, continue until snow melt in spring, as deer can become dependent on you. Prepare to give more feed as more deer will discover and frequent your sites.

Deer eating carrots. Feeding deer.

How a herd of deer eats carrots. Watch in the following video.

Do deer eat carrot tops?

What fruit and veg can deer eat?

Should you feed wild deer?

If you want to help deer survive winter:

If you can't resist feeding deer, follow these guidelines:

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