My FIL always cuts a few cedars down when it's a tough winter. The deer seem to like them. I am cutting a new road on my property so I started cutting cedars first. They clean then up overnight, and I move the rest the next day and cut more.
Never heard that before, but we don't get snow like that here either. we have cedars down at camp. I may try that next year.
Never cut cedars since we never had any on the farm. I have them on my deer camp property which is 6.5 hours from home so have never drove up there to do it in the winter. I always did cut some down when we were there in Nov. so I could bring some hunks of cedar home to do projects with. On the farm we would ride the snowmobiles and lake packed trails from the woods to the corn fields & hay fields the deer would work over all winter and spring. In the woods one bad winter we cut down a mess of popple. the deer were eating the limbs down to a good sized thumb then start chewing to get the bark off and eat. When spring came and we went to clean up the popple for fire wood the stumps were waist high, that is how deep the snow had gotten. Al
The deer will browse the cedar pretty hard here in the winter. I was told that it has some chemical reaction in their stomachs that helps keeps them warm. Very common to find young trees browsed to the trunk on the bottom 4--6'. Higher if the snow is deep. There is a lot of oils in cedar bows. I used make some pocket cash as as a young teenager by cutting and selling pickup loads of white cedar bows it to a local place where they would extract the oils. I think they sold it to cleaning supply and beauty supply companies. Have you ever tasted cedar? Just bite down on the end of a small green leaf/bow. Horrible stuff.
Deer up where I am at yard up for the winter. They leave my place and head down to the deer yards. They will spend the winter in the yards feeding on the cedar and hardwood tops and buds. Most deer yards around here have cedar and a lot of soft woods for cover,and bedding and warmer temperatures maybe by a river or swamp. Snow usually isn't as deep for travel in the soft woods. As soon as snow melts you will find deer feeding in the fields and return to the yards until late March,then I will start to see the deer around my property
