I HAVE SEEN THEM EAT THEM BEFORE.1ST. TIME WAS ABOUT 5 YRS. AGO IN NOVEMBER.SMALL HERD OF DOES WORKING BY STAND PICKING ACORNS AND ONE CAME UP EATING ONE OF THOSE PODS.I ASKED SOMEONE AND FOUND OUT DEER WILL EAT THOSE TOO.

Love to find a Locust tree. Around here the deer seem to only concentrate on them in the late season when there is not much else for them to eat. In years with lots of acorns the deer may not (hardly) touch the locust pods till after the season closes. Some years they are the best late season places there is.
Mike

KS Trapper- yes I have seen does and fawns eating the hedge balls. Sorry Jon for taking the thread off locust a little bit.

I have one stand that overlooks a couple of trails.  Every year the same buck has come and eaten the locust beans.  He's the only deer I've seen eat them.

He should be about big enough now that I might have to see if he wants to go home with me.

Mike

Thanks for the info guys.  Got in a little mid-day scouting in an area that I have not hunted in a few years.  The place is full of Honey Locust trees.  I really did not find too much evidence of the deer eating them, but the tree rats were going crazy over them.  I'm going to keep tabs on them through winter and see what develops.

After reading KYTJ's "Freak Nasty" doe thread I was wondering about Black Locust and Honey Locust bean pods.... ? He suggested I start a thread when I ran across this one so back to the top for a good read.

TJ, as soon as I get a break in the torrential rain I am headed to, " The Graveyard ", Mason and I found last year. I will scout / hunt it and see with this year's total mast failure if they are eating the bean pods. Could be a winner in lean mast years and teach Mason a lifelong lesson on how to adapt and overcome in years with no mast. I will also try to confirm if they are black or honey locusts that are in this grove. It is an area about 100yds square full of locust trees. Will post updates later.....  

NoCams brings up a good point and I really am not 100% sure our trees are honey locust. They may or may not be. I am just calling them what my Dad always told me they were. They could be another species for all I know. In my area it is a hit or miss with them. Seems they don't eat them from every tree. Not sure why either. Not even sure all deer like them. Maybe it is just a few deer that like them or have figured out how to get to them.

Any biologist out there????

I watch deer eating them off a tree in the edge of my yard every year.They love them.

i have honey locust tree at the end of my driveway across the road and sometimes have deer feeding on them as i go to work. they stop and look up and my headlights catch there eyes. makes it hard to go to work!

I have watched several deer in late season walk by in Fulton county with the Honey Locust pods hanging from their mouth. It has never been bucks mostly does and yearlings.

Honey Locust trees are generally covered with very long "spikes" or thorns, if you will. You couldn't climb one if you wanted to as the tree is absolutely engulfed with the thorns. Everyone I have seen has the thorns.

Also, the pods of the Black Locust are thought to be toxic. Obviously, the pods of the Honey Locust are edible.

Honey Locust tree:

QuoteOriginally posted by ishoot4thrills:
Honey Locust trees are covered with very long "spikes" or thorns, if you will. You couldn't climb one if you wanted to as the tree is absolutely engulfed with the thorns. If it ain't got the thorns, then it's not a Honey Locust.

X2, Pretty easy to tell a Honey locust tree from the others.

Tracy

The deer really seem to hit them hard after some snow, however several years I was hunting on opening day (Sept 15) and had 5 different bucks come into a locust tree to eat the pods. I have hunted near this tree several times since and have never seen any deer eating the pods in Sept. I don't know why that tree was so good the one year.

My daughter is pre-med and she just told me from one of her botany classes that she thought, as ishoot4thrills said, " pods of Black Locust are though to be toxic. " I do know that locusts make fine fence posts and the Cherokee Indians around here made selfbows from Black Locust trees.

I have a couple treestands in Honey Locust trees. I just take the extension saw and cut the thorns off before climbing.  The bigger trees don't have them in clusters as bad as the above photos.

Now Columbo is thinking........ would the deer have eaten in this grove of Black Locust and poisoned themselves by mistake last year ? Was that the reason we found, "The Graveyard", full of dead deer last Jan ? We had a HUGE mast crop last year so there were plenty of acorns to eat ??? I thought all these dead deer were from what we commonly call Blue Tongue disease that is caused by a gnat. Now I am wondering.....

There is a honey locust without spikes.My neighbor has one in his yard.The pods keep falling in my yard each year.

QuoteOriginally posted by KentuckyTJ:
NoCams brings up a good point and I really am not 100% sure our trees are honey locust. They may or may not be. I am just calling them what my Dad always told me they were. They could be another species for all I know. In my area it is a hit or miss with them. Seems they don't eat them from every tree. Not sure why either. Not even sure all deer like them. Maybe it is just a few deer that like them or have figured out how to get to them.

Any biologist out there????

I've found I know absolutely nuthin about deer(from the deer themselves) They give me lessons all the time!  :D  

But honey locust are branching trees with 6-8" pods and 4-6" thorns in clumps on the bark of the trunk and on limbs, and black locust many times are straight with few limbs ,grow in groves and have shorter thorns and pods too.