Turnips have long been recognized as excellent livestock feed. However, this forage was quickly adopted by deer managers about a decade ago as a preferred item when warm-season foods such as clover, chicory and alfalfa disappeared from the whitetail’s menu due to the changing seasons.

Of course, deer have a mouth structure more suited for nipping browse than munching large tubers, yet the ever-adaptable whitetail makes due when humans offer this highly nutritious food source.

In most Northern climates, whitetails are not fond of turnips during the warm growing months. However, after a few hard frosts, starch in the plant’s leaves converts to sugar, making turnip greens attractive to hungry deer.

In some areas, it’s not uncommon to have 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground by mid-November. Consequently, deer in these Northern areas begin feeding on turnip leaves about the same time. Deer eat by nipping off about 2 inches at a time. If you walk into a turnip field that is beginning to be used by deer, you will see circular cuts in the leaves and stalks where the deer nip the plant off with their bottom incisors.

After the deer have fed in a field for a while, most of the leaves will be removed and the deer will begin to nip the remaining stalks, again about 2 inches at a time. Occasionally, the whole stalk will break off and the deer will eat the entire leaf in conveyor-belt fashion.

With smaller turnips in loose soil, the whole tuber will sometimes come up with the plant. The deer will eat everything, munching the tuber like an apple. However, consumption of the turnip tuber takes a little longer to kick into high gear.

Although deer will nibble the turnip tubers throughout fall, heavy consumption normally doesn’t take place until early December in the North, and January in the South. From then on, deer will heavily feed on the tubers until they are gone.

Deer eat the buried turnip tuber by digging their incisor teeth into the flesh, giving the turnip the appearance it has been scooped out with an ice-cream scoop. In ground that is not frozen, the turnip will often come out of the soil as the deer eats it.

In frozen ground, a deer will create a cavity as it eats the turnip directly out of the soil. Deer that are eating turnip tubers often have muddy muzzles.

Because of the effort it takes for deer to eat the turnips in frozen ground, many hunters find shed antlers in the plots when the snow melts.