Put off head of team feeding animals (5)
I believe the answer is:
deter
'put off' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'head of team feeding animals' is the wordplay.
'head of' suggests taking the first letters.
'feeding' is an insertion indicator.
'animals' becomes 'deer' (**).
The initial letter of 'team' is 't'.
't' inserted inside 'deer' is 'DETER'.
(Other definitions for deter that I've seen before include "Discourage through fear of consequences" , "Try to prevent" , "Frighten off; prevent" , "Check" , "stop" .)