Pamela D. Parson, age 9, of Indian polis, Indiana for her question:

Do the deer lick salt?

All animals need a tiny trace of salt in their diets, just as we do. This is because their bodies are filled with an assortment of moist juices. The body of an animal creates these juices from very special recipes. And the ingredients in each recipe must be exactly right. These ingredients are assorted chemicals. And one of these absolutely necessary chemicals is salt    the ordinary everyday salt we serve in the salt shaker. Maybe you thought that our salt is just to make our food taste better. But actually the body must have a little for its inside operations.

The body of a deer also needs a little salt. It is needed to keep the blood healthy, to make the juices for digesting food and dozens of other inside Jobs. Naturally deer do not use a salt shaker. But Mother Nature strews around a lot of rocks called salt licks. The deer find these salty rocks and lick them    and so do lots of other animals. If you put a pile of salt outdoors, the deer and other animals will lick that also.