Last fall while splitting firewood at around 3PM I had a coon come up from behind me chirping. I knew it was sick so backed off and hoped it would go on it's merry way and die of natural causes. But instead it came towards me and went under my ATV. So I backed off 20 yds. down the lane to see what it would do. When it came out from under the ATV it came at me at a dead run until I hit it with my splitting mauls. two months later a neighbor was bit by a rabid coon while pulling old tires out of a pile. That coon tested positive for rabbies.

Not to get this too far off topic but I have a question I have never got an answer too

IF deer gathering in an area together to feed on my corn may help promote a disease...what is the difference if they gather in my hemlocks in groups (think deer yards) RSB has posted photos or talked about groups of 20 gathered in a small area during winters... ??

I saw anywhere from 8-12 running together all of rifle season and after Xmas.....
13 in the field all feeding together on the way home from work today...


so how can the deer gathering at my feeder be in any more danger of getting CWD or any other disease there than they would be hanging together 24/7 in the pines down by the for a month during winter ??????

JUST COURIUOS ??

The concern there Doc would be congragating more deer in an area (feed site) than would normally be there without the food. ie. Deer are traveling out of their home range to get to the feed.

In most areas it probably would not be much of a problem where there is ample feed. (crops,browse,mast).

But I could see how feeding down in the big woods could bring deer from a long distance once they found the food.

I don't know,

I still think they get into groups in the winter to feed and survive even in the big woods...

Maybe you're right about the big woods drawing rather than this area where there is food...
there were 13 in the field about 400 yards away on the way home and NONE of those ever make it over to my feeders ..

I just don't figure I am harming or endangering the few deer I feed...

My 2 cents on feeding

Having a dozen deer feeding out of the same pile of corn day after day has a potential of spreading any disease that one of them may have. Answer= spread the feed out in multiple piles spaced a few yards apart and move the locations as winter continues.
The various states game biologists including the PGC give many negative reasons for not feeding and many are valid.
The bottom line with game agencies however is the fact that even with the negative aspects the real reason is that winter feeding does INCREASE the number of deer that survive the winter and does INCREASE the number of fawns that are born the following spring due to the does being in better condition and not absorbing the fetus due to malmutrition. That is a researched, documented fact. In theory that leads to more deer than the winter habitat can support.
IMHO the PGC would be better off putting out a pamphlet telling how to feed deer rather than the one that trys to discourage you not to feed them. People are going to feed them anyway so why not explain the correct way to do it.
The person who starts feeding in Dec, doesn't dump it all in one pile, and continues feeding until greenup is helping more than hurting the deer.
The person who goes out in Feburary with a load of high quality feed and dumps it in a pile might just as well shoot the deer as they come in to it.

   I put out several small piles of corn in the backyard of my upstate NY place in Spring and Summer just to see the deer. They dont need it then but thats when and why I do it. Guess I'm one of those guys Docs talking about.
    Even at that its not a regular thing cause Im only there a couple of days every couple of weeks -cept for the golf vacations and shark season. The deer however come each day looking around even when its not there. They have keyed into it as a food source and keep coming around till about the end of August when they leave that area wether Im feeding or not. ( My luck, they LEAVE my place each year just before bow season - just like clockwork)
     They go about a half mile away to a major food source that matures then and they stay on it into winter - corn in the yard or not they dont even come back for my apple trees till December. Seasons  over then in the Northern NY zone and shortly after that they go off to yard up with hundreds of other deer eating places into wastelands.
   Point is that I would think those Yards are a bigger  source of spreading disease than any light feeding would ever be.