#49 - Nutrition: Proteins vs. Fat / Macro and Micro nutrients in Mineral - Know what you need!

Published: 2021-02-01
Episode page
Duration: 67 min

In this episode

aerial-ripoff

• Don says anyone charging money to just mark up an aerial photo without walking the property, even a small fee, is ripping people off. 22:13

blessing-obligation

• Don states he feels it’s his duty to share his blessings with others because he’s been so richly blessed himself. 16:31

book-delivery

• Don personally hand-delivered and signed a set of his books to a young fan whose ordered copies hadn’t arrived in time for the boy’s birthday. 10:10

buck-scoring

• Do you think social media has ruined the notoriety of a buck’s true score, given how many mismatched scores get posted? 60:13

chasing-giants-hats

• Terry announces the first round of Chasing Giants hats went out this week, selling far more than expected. 51:35

closing-blessing

• Terry closes by urging listeners to try to be a blessing to somebody and make a difference in a kid’s or neighbor’s life. 66:55

coaching-story

• Terry once made a plaque for a player who scored their 1,000th point, telling them to remember the feeling and pass it on to someone else someday. 17:07

consultant-integrity

• A competing land consultant at a Northeast Ohio show told people Don only wanted to sell them seed. 26:06

consulting-visits

• Don did seven land consulting visits this week, more than his typical five or six, mostly in Indiana and Illinois. 7:51

deer-nutrition

• Don’s early captive deer had scours (diarrhea) for their first two years because he fed them feed that was too rich in protein before he understood whitetail nutrition. 37:06
• Don recommends a whitetail’s overall diet average about 16 to 18 percent protein rather than chasing the highest protein number available. 37:21
• Don learned from visiting Wilderness Whitetails in Wisconsin how critical fat is in a deer’s diet. 38:03
• Don notes commercial deer feeds are typically around 5 percent fat or less, while top captive breeders get great results with fat levels around 12 percent. 39:12

doe-harvest

• Since our DNR zone only allows harvesting one deer per hunter per year, should we be concerned our doe numbers will get too high? 53:41
• Given that super does pass on their father’s genetics, what’s the best way to harvest a doe for herd management without removing a good gene-pool doe? 58:12

episode-50-plan

• Terry announces next week’s episode 50 will focus on spring food plotting, pulling together listener questions about plot planning. 3:24
• Don doubts all the food plot questions can fit in one episode and suggests they may need two episodes. 4:15

fat-vs-protein

• Terry advises hunters looking to improve herd nutrition to focus on fat levels just as much as protein for better results. 45:13

food-plot-diversity

• In states without supplemental feeding, Don recommends planting a diverse blend like Deadly Dozen so deer can balance their own nutrient needs across many plant types. 44:07

food-plot-role

• Don says food plots won’t help you kill big deer by themselves and are only a small part of managing a property to produce mature whitetails. 27:06

land-consulting

• Don says over 80%, probably 90%, of the time his pre-visit plan for a property is completely scrapped once he actually walks the land. 19:37

land-management-guide

• Terry says the land management guide is given away free on the Real World website, with buyers only paying $3 shipping. 5:15
• Don says the land management guide’s print run grew from 15,000 copies distributed through Real World dealers a year ago to 120,000 copies this year. 5:56

mathews-archery

• Don says Mathews Archery had dug over 70 water wells in third-world countries as part of quietly supporting missionaries. 14:29

micronutrient-browse

• Terry recalls Dr. Bronson Strickland’s account of deer repeatedly browsing a shrub, later found by tissue analysis to contain a micronutrient unavailable elsewhere in their diet. 42:07

mineral-ratios

• Don states phosphorus and calcium need to be in a two-to-one ratio for a deer to properly utilize a mineral product. 46:11
• Don says zinc and copper should be in a four-to-one ratio in a quality deer mineral product. 47:00

nutricrave-corn

• Don says Real World’s Nutri-Crave Corn has roughly five times the fat level of typical hybrid corn tested from ag fields. 41:02

personal-health

• Terry hasn’t gotten much done this week because his back is out and he’s dealing with sciatica. 7:31

podcast-authenticity

• Don believes the show’s straightforward, faith-forward approach explains its strong reception compared to sales-pitch-driven hunting media. 2:11

podcast-milestone

• The podcast reached episode 49 on January 31, having started a little over a year earlier, and Terry says he’s humbled by the growing support. 1:08

property-walkthrough

• Don visited a property this week whose aerial looked terrible, but walking it completely changed his opinion and revealed strong potential for a client. 21:31

real-world-soybeans

• Don believes Real World Soybeans’ popularity and ability to pull deer off other soybean plots comes down to their higher fat level. 41:38

scripture

• Don recounts that Mathews Archery founder Matt McPherson shared the scripture ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’ during a phone interview years ago, a line that stuck with Don. 15:45

terrain-reading

• Don explains a subtle dip along a switchgrass-to-food-plot edge hides deer as they travel out of cover, something clients often walk right past. 31:55

travel-plan

• Don plans to be in Southern Illinois the next day with his real estate license, listing properties with his buddy Todd Hewing. 65:44

Deer activity

• Smoky (harvest) 31:33
• Mel (hunt) 61:03
• unnamed buck (harvest) 61:33

Listener questions

Question: Since our DNR zone only allows harvesting one deer per hunter per year, should we be concerned our doe numbers will get too high? 53:41 — asked by Matt

• Answer: Don says state DNR agencies are well tuned to their deer herds and will adjust regulations if doe numbers get out of line, so it likely isn’t an issue yet. 54:45
• Answer: Terry agrees hunters often panic too quickly about needing to shoot does when they’re really just seeing extra deer drawn in by good food plots. 57:35

Question: Given that super does pass on their father’s genetics, what’s the best way to harvest a doe for herd management without removing a good gene-pool doe? 58:12 — asked by Bob Longo

• Answer: Don says there’s no way to visually identify a doe’s genetic quality in the wild, so his practical rule is to harvest the doe traveling with button buck fawns. 59:09

Question: Do you think social media has ruined the notoriety of a buck’s true score, given how many mismatched scores get posted? 60:13 — asked by Ryan Howe

• Answer: Don doesn’t think social media has ruined the sport, but believes many people simply don’t know how to properly score a deer, rather than being dishonest. 62:08
• Answer: Terry says the exaggeration isn’t caused by social media itself; social media just lets more people see behavior that always existed. 63:30

Sponsors this episode

• BuyAFarm.com
• 360 Hunting Blinds
• QuietKat
• Lone Wolf Treestands
• Mathews Archery
• Real World Wildlife Products
• Vortex Optics

This episode marked the show approaching episode 49, with Terry noting his surprise at the growing audience and Don crediting the straightforward, faith-forward approach for its reception over sales-driven hunting media. Terry previewed episode 50 on spring food plotting, though Don doubted all listener questions on it would fit in one show. Don shared how Matt McPherson’s message about giving back shaped his sense of duty to help others, illustrated by hand-delivering signed books to a young fan. Much of the discussion centered on deer nutrition: Don explained his early captive deer suffered from too-rich protein feed, recommended an overall diet near 16-18 percent protein, and stressed fat’s importance, noting Real World’s corn and soybeans carry higher fat levels than typical competitors. He also gave phosphorus-calcium and zinc-copper mineral ratios. Listener questions covered doe management under one-tag DNR zones, identifying gene-pool does, and whether social media has distorted buck scoring, which Don attributed to scoring ignorance rather than dishonesty.

Unofficial fan project. AI-synthesized from public episodes; may contain errors.