I went up to the place to make sure the deer feeders were full before opening weekend so my family would have good hunting and wildlife watching the first weekend. I was in for quite a shock. As I pulled up to the first feeder it was turned over and the motor completely torn off the barrel. The legs looked as if someone had run a truck into the standing feeder. At the second feeder a similar but more disastrous scene awaited me. The feed pen the feeder was in was torn down, the feeder demolished and my game camera pushed off the tree and down into the dirt. My first thought was that someone had come through and tore everything up out of pure meanness. Upon examining the scene it was discovered that cow tracks were everywhere along with plenty of cow patties on top of my now destroyed pop up blind. I had been wiped out by cows.
My mother had recently purchased a few new cows at the sale barn and apparently they knew how to get corn out of those fancy deer feeders. I brought the camera memory card home and one of the guilty was caught on camera just as it was pushing through the wire fence of the feed pen. I had never had a problem with the rest of the cows on the place but would bet they all know how to destroy feeders now.
I will be rebuilding the feed pens out of cattle panels and T posts instead of net wire and trees for the future. I am thinking about building platforms to set the pop up blinds on as I really do not want to have to fence them in and have to shoot through the cattle panels. A word to the wise is to build your stuff cow proof the first time as it will be cheaper in the long run.
Good hunting, Wild Ed
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