This is a 'depends' kind of question. What is the purpose of your feeding the deer?

Here is a link that might be useful: General considerations

Well, I'll give you my opinion: feeding wild animals is not a good idea. Firstly, you will reduce their fear of humans making them easy targets for hunters. I'm sure other people will come on here with a multitude of other reasons why this isn't a good idea.

Check out Chronic Wasting Disease in deer. You may not have it in your area yet but by having deer massing in an area may make it easier to spread. The latest thought is CWD is helped spread by saliva. The reason you can never put any hoofed animal back on the same plot of land is because there seems to be something in the saliva that does not leach out of the ground. In feeding you can congregate large numbers of deer in a small area passing things arround.

Think about what would happen to the deer if you run out of feed or move away. Animals of all types bear young in proportion to the food available. If suddenly your food food source dries up what then. In areas where there are a lot of deer, the size of the deer shrink, perhaps because of the shortage of food or some other cause. I used to laugh when I hear of someone returning from a hunt with only 75 pounds of deer until I saw the white tails in Palo Dura? Canyon in the Texas panhandle. I am short but the deers backs only came to my waist, about 30-36 inches. The deer I was used to had at that time all the food they wanted and when the stood in a field of cows the backs were the same height.

Feeding wild animals, especially mammals, is never a good idea. If they associate people with food, they can lose their natural fear of people. That fear keeps them safe from their greatest predator.

Maifleur writes about influencing populations by artificial feeding and how that may adversely effect the population. I agree.

Wildlife, in general, and especially a species as numerous as White-tailed deer, do not need our help by feeding them. If you want to help wildlife, look to organizations (and politicians) that preserve habitat, because that is where the preservation of life is. Not feeding. Habitat.

I guess this is in the same general area as "feeding deer" so I'll tell you what we have done in the past. We had a moderate problem with deer eating our vegetable garden so I took a page out of an old farmer's book and planted part of the garden in red clover. The deer thought I had planted it just for them and feasted on it while mostly leaving my veggies alone. We did not see an increase in the deer population locally due to this and I can't see that it caused any harm. Since we were not putting out a specified feeder for them, they didn't become dependant on us for food. When we stopped this practice due to a significant decrease in the size of our garden, we still saw the same number of deer, they just were feeding on other things.

I do know hunters that have done similar programs to entice deer to their properties and that's another question entirely. I guess the answer there depends on whether you support hunting or think hunters should be banned.

I'm a firm believer in enjoying wildlife but keeping the "wild" in it, too. Making hand fed "pets" out of deer or any other animal is not to the animal's benefit and can create problems for animals and the people nearby.

I think planting specific varieties of plants for the deer to browse is good and promotes bio-diversity. It also keeps the deer wild and not looking to humans for a handout. I've personally experienced a young buck, accustomed to being hand-fed, who got antsy for an apple and nudged me a bit with his antlers. Those antlers hurt! Enjoy wildlife from a safe distance and please don't encourage them to come in close!

Here is a link that might be useful: Feeding Deer