The deer wiki

The cam

Deer Streams is a live whitetail deer feeding cam. A trough sits in a clearing. A camera sits off to the side and lets the herd eat. When the broadcast is on, the homepage shows the live picture. When it is not, a recent visit plays instead.

The deer are not kept. They come because the trough is there, and they leave when they are done. No one walks them in. Nothing on this page is a guide for feeding deer at home, and it is not a hunting page.

Watch it free on YouTube. The picture on deerstreams.com is the same cam.

The season

The live season runs five months, November 1 to March 31. Season 2 starts November 1, 2026. That window is late fall through winter, which is when a northern herd is most interested in a stocked trough.

Each season is its own stretch of days. The herd may include new faces, and maybe a familiar one. No deer is promised to return. Outside those months the 24/7 feed is dark. Past visits stay on the channel.

Early in the season the woods are still shedding leaves and the nights are getting long. By January the ground is hard and the trough matters more. March is the close: longer light, and antlers that may already be on the ground.

Whitetails

The deer on this cam are whitetails, named for the bright underside of the tail. When one is startled, the tail lifts and that white flag shows. It is a signal to the rest of the herd as much as it is a sight for the camera.

Whitetails live across a wide stretch of North America, including Canada. A whitetail is a ruminant: the meal goes down, the deer steps away, and the cud comes back up to be chewed again. That is why a deer can eat in a rush and then stand in the trees finishing the same meal.

Coat color shifts with the year. The fall coat is thicker and grayer-brown than the redder summer coat. By the time this cam opens, they are dressed for cold.

Bucks

Bucks are the males. In this season they are carrying hard antlers, or they are about to drop them. November overlaps the breeding season in northern country, so a buck on camera may be restless. He eats, he checks the clearing, he leaves, he comes back.

At the trough a buck will often claim the spot, then yield it. Size is not the whole story. An older, heavier buck does not always win the argument, and a younger one will still push in for oats. The cam does not name them and does not rank them.

Outside the breeding weeks, bucks are often alone or in a loose pair. Does are the ones who usually arrive as a group.

Does

Does are the females. They do not grow antlers in any ordinary year. A family group is often a doe, her fawns, and sometimes a yearling daughter that has not gone off on her own.

Does set a lot of the traffic at a feeder. They know the approach, they pause at the edge, and the younger deer take their cue. A doe with young will often eat and watch at the same time, ears turning, tail quiet, until something feels wrong.

By November a doe may already be bred, or she may be bred during the season. You will not see that as a label on the screen. What you see is who shows up hungry.

Fawns

A fawn is a deer in its first year. Spotted coats belong to late spring and summer, when the fawns are small and hiding. This cam opens in November. By then those spots have usually faded, and the young of the year look like smaller, sleeker copies of the does.

They stay close. They learn the trough by following an adult in, and they eat the same feed. Oats are the base for them too. Apples, carrots, squash and pumpkins are the extras, not a separate menu.

A fawn on this cam is not a newborn. If you are hoping for spots, that is a different month than the one this season covers.

Antlers

Antlers are bone. A buck grows a new set every year and drops it. Horns, like a sheep’s, are different. They stay and grow from the base. A whitetail does not have horns.

While antlers are growing, usually in spring and summer, they are covered in velvet, a soft skin that feeds the bone. The velvet dries and sheds in late summer. By the time this cam turns on, the antlers are hard and polished from rubbing on brush. That is the “hard horn” you see in November.

Through the winter the bond at the base weakens, and the antlers drop. One side can go before the other, so a buck may show up lopsided for a day or two. A dropped antler is not a wound. In spring the next set starts, and it is not a copy of the last one. Age, food, and the individual all change the shape. The cam is not a contest.

The trough

Oats are the base feed. A season uses about 14,000 pounds of them. Apples, carrots, squash and pumpkins get added on top, and once in a while a surprise “mystery item” shows up on camera. The extras are treats. The meal underneath is oats.

Away from the trough, a wild whitetail eats what the season offers. Green growth in spring and summer. Fruit, and mast such as acorns, where the woods have them in fall. Woody browse when winter locks the ground. Acorns are a wild food. This camera watches a trough, not the forest floor, so the herd is here for the oats.

There is no set dinner bell. Visits come day and night. Fawns eat from the same trough as the does.

At the feeder

A trough is a small stage, and the herd treats it that way. Someone is usually first. Others wait at the edge, or push in, or circle. Ears pin. A head lowers. The first deer slides off and another takes the oats. Then the clearing is empty again, sometimes for a long while.

They do not live at the feeder. They pass through. A visit can be a minute or most of an hour. Night visits are often the longest, because the clearing is quiet and the beam of the camera is the only light they have to ignore.

If something spooks them, they do not debate it. Tails come up, and the white shows, and the trough is abandoned. The camera stays where it is.

Senses

Smell is the sense they trust. A deer can know who passed through the clearing long before it sees them. Hearing is close behind. An odd click, a voice, a branch, and the head comes up.

Their eyes are built for dim light and for movement more than for fine color. That is why a night visit still works, and why a deer may stare toward the lens and then go back to the oats. They notice the camera. The feed is why they stay anyway.

The white tail is the long-distance signal. The rest of the body can disappear against brush. The flag does not.

Words

Buck

A male deer. In this season he is the one with antlers, until he drops them.

Doe

A female deer. Usually no antlers. Often the one who leads a family in.

Fawn

A deer in its first year. On this cam, past the spotted stage.

Velvet

The soft covering on a growing antler. Mostly gone before November.

Hard horn

The finished antler after the velvet is shed. Bone, not horn.

Flag

The white underside of the tail, lifted when a deer is alarmed.

Trough

The feeder. Oats first. Produce on top.

Mystery item

A surprise put out with the regular feed and shown on camera.

Season

November 1 to March 31. About five months. Then the live feed rests.

Watch the herd on the live cam, or sponsor the season. Feed support goes through Buy Me a Coffee.