When do y'all like your feeders to go off?

Right before the deer show up.


So pretty much never for us. But they are set for 6 and 6

Right now, 7:15am and 5:45pm

Thanks! That's what I was thinking. Set my 2nd at 4:30pm
But after leaving, I was thinking it was too early.

Currently 715am 5pm

Gun season, 7 a.m. & 4:30 p.m.

7 and 5 right now

If it has a feed pen or it doesn't and I want to shoot hogs, 7:00, 8:45, 5:00, 6:45

If no pen and I don't want to shoot hogs I'll drop the afternoon feed all together or leave the 5:00pm if I want to shoot deer in the evening.

No feed pen and a late evening feed is a sure way to keep the pigs around. I only do this on feeders that have lights.

0730 and 1630 for the season

Pretty good answers. I'll add two things:

Always keep the times on 1/2 or 1/4 hour intervals, if you don't set it on the hour - it can get confusing if you have multiple feeders running

Take a picture of the timer every time after you have set it - helps a lot

If a lot of deer are working a particular feeder, I have that feeder set to go off about 15 to 20 minutes before shooting time in hopes they will be busy competing for the feed and let light sneak up on them. I have the morning feeding several seconds longer than normal when I do this. The afternoon time I have set for 3pm and the cycle time is quite short as I hope deer, hogs, squirrels, or birds or something picks it all up in order to not encourage night feeding. In the afternoon I am back on my stand by noon to no later than 1pm most of the time.

7:15 and 4:45

Just topped my feeder of this weekend and adjust the timer. Keep in mind that daylight savings is almost here. I google the sunrise time for opening weekend and work off that.

Right now I have it set to 6:45am 4:45pm. With DST already adjust (on hour back).

This time is good for most of the season. I'll adjust it to 7am probably around Christmas. However if you bow hunt in oct, I would not go off my times cause it would be too early for October.

Here is one tip for ya.
Make a contact card in your phone called Deer Feeders. This is where I save all my timer info and when I lasted filled it. Go ahead and upload the official sunrise/set times for nov 1 and Dec 1. Then just adjust your timer accordingly. I like to have mine go off 15 minute into legal shooting light usually.


Typical sunrise / sunset time for my area I hunt:
Oct 1st - 7:29am and 7:21pm
Oct 15th - 7:39am and 7:03pm
Oct 31 - 7:52am and 6:46pm
***First Sunday in November is DST***
Nov 15 -7:05am and 5:35p
Nov 30th - 7:18am and 5:30pm
Dec 1st - 7:19am and 5:30pm
Dec 15th - 7:29am and 5:32pm

Jan 1st - 7:36am and 5:41pm

I have mine set up for 615 and 315 (current time, so 515 and 215 after DST). I'll sit from 530am to 10 and go back from 230pm to 530. Set the feeders up yesterday.

AggieDub14 said:

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I have mine set up for 615 and 315 (current time, so 515 and 215 after DST). I'll sit from 530am to 10 and go back from 230pm to 530. Set the feeders up yesterday.

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Wow, you need to go back and adjust your times. Sunrise isn't even until 7:32am and sunset until 6:51pm. I'm assuming you just don't have any animals to eat the corn and nothing better to do, but if you have any deer or hogs, your corn will typically be gone before you can even see what's under the feeder in the morning. In the evening the corn will be down so long it may have time to start growing.

It's currently 6:42am and pitch black outside, fyi.

Yeah but after DST that's 542. My thought has always been that I want the corn out right before I show up so there isn't any feeder noise and the deer make it around shortly after I get into my spot. Sounds like everyone else here has a different thought though. I try to get out 30 mins before sunrise in the AM and about 3 hours before sunset in the PM.

AggieDub14 said:

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Yeah but after DST that's 542. My thought has always been that I want the corn out right before I show up so there isn't any feeder noise and the deer make it around shortly after I get into my spot. Sounds like everyone else here has a different thought though. I try to get out 30 mins before sunrise in the AM and about 3 hours before sunset in the PM.

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Which means your feeder is still going to be going off 45 minutes before any light at all comes up, if not more. Sunrise is at 7:33am right now, which means you can shoot a little after 7am. My feeder goes off at 7:15am because I'm not taking the chance of deer or hogs coming in at dark and cleaning out all my corn way before legal shooting light. Also, I'm not going to my stand and sitting there 2 hours before I can even shoot.

Same with the evening. Sunset is at 6:51pm so I give myself typically 2 hours of hunting light from when my feeder goes off. I usually get to my stand 45 mins to an hour before the feeder goes off.

Gotcha. I won't have a chance to adjust the timers until the day before opening day, but i will adjust them. You make a pretty good point. Thanks for the advice!

AggieDub14 said:

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You make a pretty good point. Thanks for the advice!

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This phrase has never been spoken to me before on TexAgs. I can tell you are a very smart person.

I have a cheapy with a photovoltaic sensor only and reacts to daylight only. Pro: no need to jack with it as daylight gets shorter/longer. Con: a bit inconsistent if cloudy etc. overall it works decent and keeps deer on my property. May let an arrow fly at one from the front porch at some point.

RIGHT NOW
7:30 and 5:30...
When the season hits, I'll adjust that to 7:15 and 7:40 (DST) and 4:45 and 5:10....

I change my feeding times every time I fill feeders which average once a month. I try to keep it at 20 minutes before sunrise (~ 10 minutes after first light) in the morning, and around 1.5 hours before sunset (~ 2 hours before last light) in the evenings.