What once started as a tribute to his Grandpa has now become Grandpa Ray Outdoors – John O’Brion’s organic approach to wildlife nutrition. From deer fuel to wildlife attractants that work, every product is all natural. Grandpa Ray Outdoors offers great winter energy sources for deer, such as turnips and rutabaga. They offer only the most innovative products and services for wildlife, food plots, crops, lawn and gardens. It’s not just what you have in the ground this year, but what you’re going to plant next year – and how you can set yourself up for success for years down the road.
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Make sure you tune in to part two of John O’Brion, Grandpa Ray Outdoors. He’s going to be talking about creating funnels, creating pinch points, and creating cover so you can get to your blind or your tree stand without being seen. How does he do it? He does it with something called Egyptian weed. He does it with a lot of tall growing forage-type products that he knows works and he’s got a great friend in Wisconsin that’s helped him figure out how to do this and how to make the right crops for the right situation to have deer actually move toward your stand. Brad Jones is his friend who’s helped him with this.
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Reload P2 John O’Brion Grows Deer
I’m with John O’Brion from Grandpa Ray and this is part two. We’ve got a really good show going. We’ve got some good thought patterns on making deer a goal where you want them to go in using forage and different types of crops. John, let’s stay with what your buddy has talked about, Brad Jones, about how he moved deer or creates pathways and funnels and specific areas where deer are going to use so then he’s got a stand set up pretty much maxed out. Let’s continue talking about that.
One place where I invited you to come visit when you come over into Wisconsin is a place called Drop Tine Hollow. There are some videos that we put out there that we’ve shown people and they were able to see how that was set up. A few little terms I’ll use and I’m trying to paint people a little bit of a visual just for the words now is I love creating scrape lines along the woods’ edges. Other reasons for that some people overlook is if you’re planting corn and beans. Think like a farmer again, when you plant corn and beans along those woods’ edges which tend to be shadier, they tend to not do very well. Why do that? The clover blends will tend to tolerate that better. Another way of looking at it, trying to maximize the amount of forage that you’re providing to your deer. Create this little edging, create some really good perennial forages, utilize that area to the best of whatever it’s able to grow. If you’re going to be doing some screenings, we will put that out there and it could be 30 yards out, which is something some people might want to consider is if their bow hunting in their effective range, that’s the same as 25 yards, 30 yards. Maybe plant your perennials out to that point so when a deer is out in that field and if they’re just outside your scrape line, your perennial clover, your perennial legume blend, it’s easier to range those deer, if that makes sense.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
A lot of guys I work with, if they do want to plant corn, corn can be an effective screening product. Think like a farmer and you should really rotate your corn and soybeans every year. I have a number of people that’ll plant strips. If you do have a slope, there’s a term called contour strip farmer where you’ll run and you’ll alternate the corn and beans. You’re also being a conservationist where you’re helping hold soil. You can run a strip of corn and then the next strip got to be the beans and then the following strip again will be corn. Use corn as a food source or destination source or even a screening source where depending on how your stand is laid out on your property, is to help get you into the stand.
If I talk to people, I’d like to have a third of mine be perennials, I like a third to be corn or soybeans or a soil-building type product, and then lastly your brassicas, one little thing that some people overlook. I actually do like to have my brassica blends especially if they have bulbs like the rutabagas, turnips, fodder beets, sugar beets or whatever people are using for winter bulbs. I actually prefer to have those farther out in the field because that’s going to be a winter source. It also is more of a cold tolerance source especially when you’re hunting most season and earlier, the deer are going to be needing those clovers. They are going to be wanting to go after those, then they’re going to be moving into the beans, then they’re going to be moving into the corn. I like to just layout your food plots that way. Starting with clovers, moving into your corn and beans, and then moving those winter bulbs and most cold season forages a little bit farther out in the field if you do have a larger-sized field.
Do I need an aerial map or use Google Earth to make my hunt plan, my food plot plan, to take into consideration the things we’re talking about, making funnels out of props and in other cover crops?
There’s so much technology out there. When people call me and email me, I do this all day long, what I like to do is whatever they can provide, whether it be Google Earth map or I use an app myself that’s called Huntstand. In Huntstand, I’m also able to look at their properties if I can’t get out there in person. It’s got the measuring tool where people can even do a lot of the work themselves and put their stand locations, do a lot of that, and then email it to me and I can see where they’re going to set their stands up and how the fields are located. Then when they are able to provide pictures which you can put on that Huntstand app and get it to me, it’s one thing to see pitched from the ground, but when you also have pictures from the air, it gives you a different perspective. There’s so much good technology. There are so many other apps that the people have told me they use but I’m pretty partial to Hunstand. I love it when people provide me their information where I can give a better recommendation based on those technologies.
I’ll give a shout out from a couple of gals, Lisa Thompson and Danielle Johnson out here, they have a company called Hunt Data and it’s similar to what you just shared. I use it in the Rocky Mountains because you can pin things, it’s a GPS. It’s all in one. Just like John said, you’d take topographic maps out here and you can see the funnels, you can see the north slope to the south slopes, you can see the saddles, which I love hunting saddles. If you’re not hunting saddles as a whitetail hunter, change your mind because deer run contours. All critters run contours. Why? Because it’s the easiest way from A to B and they’re no different than you and I. If we had to climb up the hill and down a hill, not so much, but if we take the stairs up and down, works pretty good. They’ll take the path of least resistance in normal times. When they’re pressured, all bets are off. In normal times, and that’s how you want to hunt, you want a hunt unpressured deer if you can. Some people have to go on public land, and even there, if you do your scouting correctly, you can find out the places that people just won’t go. That’s where you put your stands. John, let’s continue talking because you brought up some things about using garlic for flies and worms and stuff. I didn’t even really understand what you’re talking about in the warm up. Let’s dive into that for a few minutes.
We talked about nutrition and also imagine tends for grazing, so there are a lot of things we’ve been using for many years that very few people are aware of in the hunting industry. Garlic, you brought that up. My ultimate deer mineral and my cover scent all have five different flavors. Two are the ones I will tell people about our anise because it’s pretty obvious. People can smell it and it’s a natural attractant to all animals, but the other is garlic. Garlic is great for immune system. Garlic is what we will use for people where it’s legal to be using supplemental deer pellets. During the summer months, we’ll put an additional amount of garlic into the deer feed and it will help keep the flies and the ticks right off their back. A guy that I had this conversation with a couple of times here at different shows, I won’t use his name, but somebody a lot of people know about and works for one of the most high-profile archery companies out there. He’s got guys out there that are making claims that they’re seeing tremendous growth on their deer by using worming and insect control. I agree. It’s a huge factor in the cattle industry. For example garlic, we have it in the deer mineral, where it’s legal using deer mineral. I’ve had people that are using a lot of that product that had said their friends and them have notice that they’re not seeing as many flies on the deer’s backs on their trail camera pictures. I always explain to them, “Nothing’s a guarantee in life, but it definitely helps.”
Nothing's a guarantee in life, but it definitely helps. Share on XFlies kick up a lot of issues. I’ve seen and you’ve seen pictures of deer that are majorly stressed from it. If a deer is stressed, if it’s a mature buck, they’re not going to reach their full potential for rec growth. If it’s a doe or any kind of deer that’s stressed and their immune system’s compromised, there are just a lot of bad things that could happen. Another little part of the equation, the garlic does have worming type of properties. Most people do not know the deer are carriers of lung worms in many areas of US. My clients that have farms in those areas where there are high deer densities. We’ve had to more aggressively worm the cattle that are out on those pastures that the deer also out in eating. The one thing we will be doing a lot of educating with for people is what’s something you can do, not just to help keep the flies off the deer’s back, but also have them be healthier by having a lower worm load. Would you like me to discuss a couple of those a little?
Yes. This is something that nobody else has brought up on the show. Let’s keep rolling on that.
We’re legal again. There are blocks that are called safeguard blocks. A lot of people use them in the cattle industry and they’re very effective on lung worms and some other worms. We’re legal. A great tip for people is go to your local farm stores and egg supply stores and see if they have any safeguard worming blocks. That’ll really help the cost. There’s another little trick for people that do have water tanks. For those that I’ve worked with that actually our piping hydrogen peroxide, food-grade hydrogen peroxide into the water systems, it will not kill the worms but it will help flush them through the system.
One example, I worked with numerous people in the Amish community in the past. We’d measure out based on how big the cattle tank was, how much water’s in there, and we would put so much peroxide in the tank and when they would have their horses drink the water and if you would actually go and look in the manure of the horses, you would actually see not dead worms, they actually would be alive, but it would flush them through the system. For people who do have supplemental waters, there’s a lot of really ingenious people out there, if you could actually have your water tanks set where it’s able to be metered using the Dosatron meter or whatever ingenious contraption you come up with, you can keep your supplemental waterholes or tanks where you’re getting about ten parts per million of hydrogen peroxide out there. It’d be great for the animals’ health and it would have worming type benefits.
One other little thing we’ll talk about are forages. Most grazers do know this. Very few people in the wildlife industry, I never heard people talk about this, which is actually what drives me. This is why I am doing what I do is to try to educate people in self-forages. It’s been known for a long time that chicory has good gut health benefits. It has worming type property, so a lot of the sheep people, goat people, grazers, that’s one of the reasons they started dabbling with chicory twenty, 25 years ago, which is why I like chicories for deer. There are other forages that are good and that has worming type properties. I’m not going to touch on all of them because I haven’t released all my new exclusive line up yet, but for example, we touched on plantain. Great nutritionally, have some gut health benefits, and worming type property benefits. Another product, tree foil. Not many people have used tree foil and there are pros and cons with every forage but tree foil have some gut health worming play properties. I actually have a product that I’m releasing that we’ve been testing for two years across the US that is a high yielding for perennial forage blend but has four different forages that all have the ability to help worm your deer. Very unique industry. Worming, in my opinion, you’re looking at potentially ten, fifteen more inches of extra antler growth. Again, talking to a guy in the industry, he thinks it’s exponentially higher than that and very conservative. No matter what, you’re going to see healthier deer, better immune system, and better with their overall digestion of whatever you plant for the deer.
Let’s talk about it. There’s many other options of things we can do, but safeguard blocks, garlic, peroxide, they’re just a few of the things that I’ve been doing for a long time and some of my customers have been doing for a little while and I’ve talked to numerous people about them the last couple months and that’s going to be Grandpa Ray’s focus on education in 2017. Beyond talking about the soil is let’s find other ways to keep these deer healthy.
Now I’m sitting back, took some notes, and hope everybody else did because you just made the statement to 10% to 15% increase of horn growth.
I would say probably ten to fifteen inches, which could be 10% to 15% too, but that’s what my prediction would be. For example, those people that also are deer farmers and you see these 200, 300, 400-inch deer, there are many reasons for that, but that’s the thing I could point out to some people and they show me pictures of their deer on their trail cameras. Some people were wondering, “What is wrong with that deer?” Based on my experience, I’m looking at hair color and other factors. There are deer I’ve seen in my trail cameras that got some worm issues. If you’re not sure, you could actually collect different manure samples and send them into the lab to get analyzed. Worming is inexpensive. Lung worms are a bigger issue than most people realize. No matter if you’re talking a buck, a doe, or a faun, same issues that happen to them also happen to cattle. Most farmers that are grazers realize if you do not worm, there’s not a lot of great that comes out of it. You’d be losing 20% production if you have a high worm load. It should also be equated to deer. It’s a little harder to gauge the cost versus benefit, but we do know that it is a big factor.
Folks, we’re trying overall improved deer health. That’s for the does when they’re in the lactose period, feeding their faun. We want healthy deer coming out in the winter time. We want bucks. If they’re stressed, they’re going to the rut anyway. You and I know that because they’re cruising, they’re sleeping when they can grab a few winks, and they’re running and gunning, literally. Thinking about that, all these little tips that John’s sharing with you that other people on the show had shared with you all help give you a healthier herd. Now there’s some predication that you have healthy deer and you got more and more deer. You’re going to have some predication and you’re going to have some crop damage. You can have all these things. That’s where the hunter comes in and you help manage the herd and that’s what we’re trying to do.
You talk to anybody that knows anything. I think of Grant Woods and Matt Dye and the guys at GrowingDeer.tv, they talk about all the time not just shooting big deer, they talk about a balanced herd, a healthy deer herd. You have a healthy deer herd, you have generations of great hunting and so many people already have that. Some of you audience already got great deer because you’ve been doing this for a long time, but a lot of other people say too, “I just don’t see the same bucks that Harry has over.” The other thing is if you have the healthy deer herd, it attracts bucks from the stronger area. Why? Because the does are healthy. John, spin that up a little bit because a lot of people say, “Thomas’ place down the road, he’s always killing big bucks. I never see those bucks.” Those big bucks are on his property but they go to Johnny’s just because he’s got the healthy does during the rut, right?
Whether you’re talking to your deer herd, goat herd, cattle herd, from early on I’ve always said to people what works for one guy, doesn’t necessarily work for the next guy. When people would ask, “Why does he has bigger deer than I do?” or “Why does he have more deer on my property than him?” It starts with the soil. Healthy soil, healthy forages. They’re more attractive to deer. If your neighbor plants the same food plot blend they buy from me, why might be beat by him? Because he’s got everything balanced. Everything in life is about balance. If your soils bounce and you got the sweeter, more palatable, and healthier forages, where are the deer going to be? They’re going to be on his land or on yours?
We all need water. Does he have water? Do you not have water? It could be as simple as that. Also, when it comes to feeding, they’re going to be more apt to feed closer to water sources. It’s human nature. Another little tip, healthy deer, healthy does, healthy soil. For example, do you have feed there 365 days a year or are you just planning your food plots in September and then you basically got a microplot and you got some feed there? If you’re going to roll the dice and you want it to be in your favor to have deer on your property longer throughout the year than your neighbor, you need to think about having water, shelter, bedding, cover, and then also look at if your deer eat every day. Provide different forages that are going to maximize the chance that they’re going to come there and be there in the spring, they’re going to be there in the summer, they’re going to be there in the fall. A case in point, you’ll see the deer numbers exponentially increase once the shooting starts. Why is that? You’ve got water, you’ve got bedding. They didn’t have feed sources at different times a year out on your neighbors, but what do you have during their net bow season and gun season that the neighbor doesn’t have? Every little thing makes a difference.
You’re getting a lot of big buck nuggets to utilize and to implement. I’m sitting here thinking of the farm and I’m thinking we got one really good-sized waterhole in the trails leading out, but we could put out supplemental waterholes and I’m going to ask John his advice on that. How do we get supplemental waterholes? We’ve got one pond, it’s not a waterhole, it’s a pond on the property. We got springs here and springs there, but I’m thinking of a number of different wood lots that are on the farm that don’t have any water that I’ve ever seen. No springs. There could be some runoff but they’re dry throughout the summer. How do we capture it and put it in strategic water sources?
For example, I had a friend that had a bunch of old cattle tanks that he was getting rid of. They’re 150, 200-gallon tanks. I dug the ground down to try to get that tank as close to ground level as possible, bearing them close to ground level. It was a great little thing if you buy them new. I’m seeing them for about $85 to about $150. It’s a one-time investment and you never have to worry about the water draining out of those. At my organic education plot, Michael Barbaree actually let Mother Nature do the job by digging a little waterhole on the down slope side and he filled it in with sodium bentonite, which is a very common lining of the soil material; really inexpensive. It will help keep that water there. Whenever we’ve had these nice rains, as the water’s running down that side hill, it’ll fill back into those little man-made waterholes.
Some people think ponds in large scale, but case in point is when I buried my water tanks here about a month ago, set up the trail cameras, I had a doe and a faun within two hours coming into the tanks and starting to use them, which I was very happy with. You don’t need to think big but you might just need to create two, three, four little areas where you might bury a water tank or even dig an area just big enough to hold 200, 300,400 gallons of water.
How do I get that water out on my land? On our front, we got logging roads so I’m thinking, “I can get there,” but 100, 200 gallons is a lot of water.
What I’ve got in my case, I got a couple of old fashioned milk cans that we use all through farm that can hold about eight gallons of water, but for the average guy, there’s a lot of people that could go up to these farmers that are using these fifteen or 30-gallon plastic jugs that your generic roundups come in. What I do is I get a bunch of those, I fill them up at the house, and then I just put them in the back of my pickup truck, and then back up the pickup truck right to where the water hole is. In about fifteen minutes, it took me twice as long to fill the cans up as it was to drive out to the cattle tanks and empty them. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money and you want to be able to get water out there, look around, find these fifteen or 30-gallon plastic barrel with the lids on and have him on your truck or four-wheeler and back right up and empty them out. Eight jugs will probably fill up your cattle tank.
Mold, mycotoxins, aflatoxins, will affect that animals' immune system. Share on XIt takes a little work. The warm weather, heat stressors, especially if there’s been a lot of drought, and a lot of things in Wisconsin now got hammered with rain, they got more water. There’ll be water everywhere. Did you have the big floods down by you in Madison, John?
Yes. We’re already six inches above the yearly rainfall total. My education plot has been flooded twice and so water is a good thing you brought up here. I’d like to make one little point here for people to be aware of in these areas where we’ve had a lot of water. Water can be good, but it’s going to be a problem for quite a few people potentially here unless it starts drying out. I talked with Joe Kennicker, who was one of the smartest agronomist in the United States that I know. We’re going to be looking at white mold, we’re seeing some white mold challenges with the savings. We need to talk about potential for mycotoxins, mold, wild yeast, aflatoxins. Those of you out there that planted corn and soybeans for the deer and the deer are consuming these grains, we might have some sick deer.
A lot of people haven’t thought about it, but that’s one of the things. Mold, mycotoxins, aflatoxins, will affect that animals’ immune system. We could have a lot of sick animal if we do have corn and beans in these wet areas that if they stay wet, we end up with some stressed crops here as a result, and it could be an issue. What can you do about it? In areas where you cannot be using supplemental feeding, mineral, things like that, there’s not a lot you can do. In areas where you can, I got some products I put together that we’ve used in the dairy beef, goat, and sheep industries. I have an ultimate booster pack that has these different products in there with yeast and probiotics and toxin binders and immune system boosters were legal. What I’m saying, get out there and scout your fields here, these white areas. If you have forages and grains that are unhealthy and the deer are consuming them, pay attention to the deer. You might need to come up with some solutions for them where it’s legal to do it.
Let’s stay on the solutions now. I’m thinking of the farm. It all drains away. It’s all rolling hills, so the ridges and everything, all the crop land just drain away into the drainage. They’re going to be wet and moist, but after the rain stops, it just drains off so we don’t have that issue. If you got standing water to run your crops, should you take the crops out? What should you do?
What stage of maturity is your corn right now? What stage of maturity is your beans? For these guys that are in the farming areas, it might be worth making a phone call to the local, independent crop advisor or maybe the local farmer that maybe has more experience with this and look at it. Are you seeing any issues right now? Joe down there, he said there’s definitely a problem down in southern Wisconsin and in his area. A lot of the farmers that already have herds in these forages, they’re going to have to water them down in their diets. One comment recommendation made by some people on social media in the areas where it’s legal is to supplement feed corn. I’m not a huge corn fan and if you do use corn, I try to restrict the amount and blend it down with some other options, but if you are going to supplement feeds and corn, you might want to purchase your corn now and use old crop, as in 2015 crop corn, versus this new crop corn that has a higher chance of having some toxins and health issues there.
What about soybeans? Are they suspect to the same issues?
Yes, and we are seeing sudden death syndrome out there. We are seeing and I’m hearing reports of some white mold out there. There could be some issues. I guess the question is this could be very hard to say to people and the herd person just relying on those soybeans as fall and winter energy source for the deer to say, “Maybe we need to work them in the ground and not allow deer to have an access at it.” I guess that’s why every case is different. I would generally say to people to scout them out, ask somebody that’s an expert in your area, but if they give something that as hard as it might sound to do, you might need to consider it.
We’re coming up to the end of part two here. John, how do people get ahold of you? What’s the best way to get hold of you on Facebook and Twitter, any of your social media, and then of course, your website?
My website is www.GrandpaRayOutdoors.com. I’m always posting on Facebook different tips underneath the Grandpa Ray Outdoors on Facebook. I tweet different things on Twitter. It’s @obrionag. Lastly, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central Standard Time, I’m usually available at 608-235-0628. I spend a good amount of my day on the phone consulting with people, so if somebody calls and I don’t answer, leave a message, I’ll get back as soon as I can with people and try to answer whatever questions they might have.
Just to let you know, John does answer his phone and he’s helped thousands of people. If you’ve ever seen them at seminars or whitetail functions, he is an educator and that’s one thing that our relationship continues to grow. He sells the product, there’s no question about it and so do a lot of great people out there, but knowledge-wise, and sharing what works in the agricultural world because that’s really what we are with these food plots. We are farmers. The better you understand that, the better herds you have, and then all of a sudden people in your neck of the woods is going, “Why does Bob during hunting season, all the deer seem to go over to his place?” He’s done a lot of smart things. He’s created great cover, he’s got water, and he’s got forage all throughout the whole year. That’s a key. I want to close on that. Why is it important to have ground cover the whole year round?
Think like a conservationist. We want to build up soil organic matter. We want to hold soil. We want to smother weeds. Many of the progressive crop farmers will put cover crops out in the fall. Think of it as a little different. Plant forages that can give the deer feed in the spring. If you’re just focusing on planting brassicas in the fall, let’s plan our cover crops or soil building type mixes in the spring. There is 365 days a year, every year. Sometime during that year, let’s fixate some nitrogen. Let’s smother weeds. Let’s build up organic matter, and let’s provide feed the deer. That’s a goal that I try to get everybody to look at. It’s a little bit different way of looking at food plotting but you’re basically being a conservationist when you think like that.
On behalf of Whitetail Rendezvous listeners across North America, John, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you on the show. I look forward to doing remote with you this fall when I’m in Wisconsin. I’ll be heading down into Kentucky also. I just want to thank you for bringing good solid information and people, take heed. Again, reach out to John either on social media, his phone number which he graciously gave out, or his website. He’s available. He knows his stuff. John, I appreciate you so much.
Thanks so much, Bruce. Have a great hunting season moving forward here.
Links Mentioned:
- Grandpa Ray Outdoors
- Brad Jones
- Huntstand
- Hunt Data
- www.GrandpaRayOutdoors.com
- Grandpa Ray Outdoors – Facebook
- @obrionag – John O’Brion’s Twitter
- GrowingDeer.tv