Deer favorite fruits

Pears, Apples, Persimmons, Plums, or Mulberries?

Pears Are a Deer’s First Food Choice

Deer love pears: they are sweet, tasty, and crunchy. As whitetail specialists, we have isolated pear trees that deer particularly love: Kieffer pears.

Bartlett pear is soft and buttery and deer love it. Kieffer pear is harder and crispier. The Kieffer pear tree is more versatile and resistant to warm and humid springs. The Bartlett pear is more sensitive to fire blight.

We suggest you plant various pear cultivars on your plant to deliver more options to deer and have better pollination. You will also extend pear availability over longer stretches of time.

Deer Love Their Apples

Deer love apples, as they are crunchy, sweet, and easily digestible. We have chosen specific apple species like the Anna Apple and the Dorset Golden Apple for their sweetness.

When deer have a choice between apples, they will always choose the sweetest ones, which is why we don’t plant Granny Smith apples in our wildlife orchards. The apple varieties we have chosen deliver sweet apples. As a bonus, the Dorset Apple will start dropping apples in June, giving deer plenty of reasons to stay on your land.

Deer Also Like Persimmons

Deer like persimmons because of their sweetness, juiciness, and crunchiness. Persimmons help deer reinforce their energy stock, particularly with winter coming. Winter months are lean months, during which deer have fewer food choices. Deer will do better in the winter if they have built up their fat and energy in the fall—and that’s where persimmons come in handy.

Mulberries and Berries

Berries are great for deer. Blackberries, strawberries, and berries, in general, are easy to graze on as most of them are bushes that grow to a level where deer can easily reach them. Because berries are small, deer like to nibble at them, moving from one berry bush to another.

Mulberry trees are taller than bushes but drop their berries on the ground where deer can peck at them. Mulberry crops are usually very large and give plenty of berries for deer. This makes mulberries a great snack for deer in the early summer.

Plums

Plums are sweet—and that’s what attracts deer. Plums’ sugars build up deer energy stocks in the late summer and early fall: that’s exactly when deer need to accumulate extra energy for the coming winter. Plums also have significant proteins, which is great for antler, muscle, and bone development.