# Do White-Tailed Deer Really Eat Meat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 11, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022 "2011-04-11T23:40:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022/41 "2013-07-10T22:58:07Z")
Thought of something else: Most mother mammals eat the placenta after giving birth, and a placenta is chock full of carnivorian goodness. The doe **annacyn** saw was just continuing what she had started when the fawn was born. Plus it’s free meat, calcium, and vitamins–just the thing to perk mom up after a long pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022/42 "2013-07-11T00:58:12Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > Years ago I had a pet rabbit and I would try to feed it stuff it normally would not eat. She did not like beef or chicken would but devour ham. And she liked the white part of hard boiled eggs. Her favorite junk food was Cheetos. My dad’s bunny goes insane over fruit loops and veggie straws and I don’t think either contains much in the way of actual fruits or veggies. ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022/43 "2013-07-11T15:16:18Z")
> [@TerpBE](#): > > When we dissected frogs in high school, ours had an unusually large stomach. The biology teacher was excited to cut it open and discover a mouse inside. Won’t frogs eat just about anything they can fit in their mouths? Relevant: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwrNy2lgITY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwrNy2lgITY) ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022/44 "2013-07-11T20:30:26Z")
Chimps will engage in cannibalism. I saw a nature documentary which featured a group of chimps attacking a rival troup. In the process, they killed a baby chimp (the documentary did not show the actual killing, altho I’m kinda curious as to how they did it). What they did show, however, was the victorious chimps eating meat from their victim :eek: ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022/45 "2013-07-11T20:34:01Z")
My ornithologist friend spends most of her time doing fieldwork, and a big part of that is locating (by ‘chipping’) and banding baby songbirds. Deer are notorious for eating them, both out of the nest and as fledglings. They’re a rather serious predator, to hear her tell it. Herbivores are adapted to surviving on low-nutrient vegetation, and therefore don’t have the physical characteristics to hunt and kill for their daily needs. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t take every opportunity they can to eat other animals, which are much higher in calories, vitamins, and minerals and much faster to digest (a deer spends a great deal of time fermenting the fiber in the grass, leaves, and bark it eats, in order to fulfill it’s needs for fat and protein - which it derives from various types of symbiotic bacteria in its digestive tract). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-white-tailed-deer-really-eat-meat/578022.md?page=2)