Deer are jerks!

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ZenScience

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Feb 5, 2020
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The local deer sure love my veggies and flowers... All my methods have their pros and cons:
  • A fishing line fence along the woods helps but some just come down the driveway.
  • We set up hoops with bird netting for some of the raised beds, works well enough, but netting can be unwieldy sometimes and not practical for everywhere.
  • Hot sauce (specifically Da Bomb Beyond Insanity hot sauce) diluted and applied to select shrubs, but time consuming to reapply and harder to implement on a larger scale.
  • A motion activated sprinkler in the middle of the veggie garden works great but only covers so much area, so again, harder to scale up.
Any success stories out there? What works for those of you that deal with pesky deer?
 
Electric fences and cheap peanut butter... Until just a few years ago I sold at the farmers market... 200 peach trees, several acres of assorted veggies. The only thing I have found that works on a consistent basis is - Electric fences and cheap peanut butter.

Deer don't like electric fences, will simply hop over them, don't work by themselves. Deer love cheap peanut butter, can't help themselves. Every week or so during the growing season I take a plastic jar of peanut butter and a plastic knife and smear a little peanut butter on the wire every 12 to 15ft. Deer can't help but stop for a taste and lick the fence. They won't be back for a month or so.

Edit to add... coyotes are a big problem here in the south. They will ruin a patch of watermelons or cantaloupes. They love peanut butter too! ;)
 
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I’d usually have between 2 and 6 acres of peas and corn to sell. I’d plant between the rows in the orchard. In the years before learning about the electric fence and peanut butter trick I tried everything to stop deer. One year about where I’m standing to take the 3rd photo I set up a dome tent. I’d sleep in it randomly with a .22 rifle. I had a clean line of fire into heavy timber with no neighbors.

I didn’t sleep soundly in the tent and would wake up often during the night. Every time I woke up I’d shoot the rifle out the tent flap. It worked pretty well keeping deer away. They never knew when I was in the tent or when the rifle would go off.

I much prefer using peanutbutter and electric fences. I get to sleep in my own bed.

The lines you see in the 2nd photo are small cord. Crows hate fishing line or small cord and will stay away. I used it every year until my crop was about 10 days old and safe from crows. I’d then roll it back up on the spools and save it for the next year. Eventually I used neon green fishing line exclusively. It was easier to handle, roll out and roll up.

In years gone by I looked at the Perma Netting in the video... It comes down to cost per linear ft and if you have neighbors... an eye sore for them to complain about. I just checked the current prices of permanet, about $5.25 a linear ft. To fence 1 acre of land requires 1866.8 ft of fencing, that’s about $9800 for fencing only 4ft tall.

I’m sorry, not buying it. A deer will jump a 4ft tall fence with no effort at all. Also, you can buy 5000ft of regular electric fencing for about $30. A fence charger is about $100 and a couple of bucks for a jar of peanut butter.

The guy in the video claims this fence will keep chickens inside or outside. I’m not buying that either. Even a chicken with clipped wings can clear a 4ft fence.

Peas (1) sm.jpg
Peas (2) sm.jpg
Peas (3) sm.jpg
 
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Any success stories out there? What works for those of you that deal with pesky deer?

A truck. One deer took out the bumper, grill and hood to flipped into the ditch and that was the end of that one. The second one bounce off the new fender to run into the field never to be seen again. Expensive way to accidentally deal with deer but it worked. :Do_O:(
 
Electric fences and cheap peanut butter... Until just a few years ago I sold at the farmers market... 200 peach trees, several acres of assorted veggies. The only thing I have found that works on a consistent basis is - Electric fences and cheap peanut butter.

Deer don't like electric fences, will simply hop over them, don't work by themselves. Deer love cheap peanut butter, can't help themselves. Every week or so during the growing season I take a plastic jar of peanut butter and a plastic knife and smear a little peanut butter on the wire every 12 to 15ft. Deer can't help but stop for a taste and lick the fence. They won't be back for a month or so.

Edit to add... coyotes are a big problem here in the south. They will ruin a patch of watermelons or cantaloupes. They love peanut butter too! ;)

Haha! My husband and I had a good laugh about this idea. We'll just have to make sure our dogs stay away... Thanks so much!
 
I have had the best results with @Peanut s idea.
Hot wire , low for Coons, high for deer to taste peanut butter.

Works.

Jim
Great! Thanks for the confirmation. I haven't had much of a problem with coons (yet), but I'm hoping to build a chicken coop this summer, so I'm sure they'll be around...
 
My Step-Father-In-Law uses predator urine (in my area, Cougar). He takes old plastic film canisters, drills holes around the sides, drops cotton balls inside, then drenches the cotton with the urine.

He hangs them around his fence and on poles. Deer stay clear.
I've tried granulated fox urine before, and I felt like it didn't work for very long, but great idea to use the canisters! I bet that helps. Thank you!
 
I’d usually have between 2 and 6 acres of peas and corn to sell. I’d plant between the rows in the orchard. In the years before learning about the electric fence and peanut butter trick I tried everything to stop deer. One year about where I’m standing to take the 3rd photo I set up a dome tent. I’d sleep in it randomly with a .22 rifle. I had a clean line of fire into heavy timber with no neighbors.

I didn’t sleep soundly in the tent and would wake up often during the night. Every time I woke up I’d shoot the rifle out the tent flap. It worked pretty well keeping deer away. They never knew when I was in the tent or when the rifle would go off.

I much prefer using peanutbutter and electric fences. I get to sleep in my own bed.

The lines you see in the 2nd photo are small cord. Crows hate fishing line or small cord and will stay away. I used it every year until my crop was about 10 days old and safe from crows. I’d then roll it back up on the spools and save it for the next year. Eventually I used neon green fishing line exclusively. It was easier to handle, roll out and roll up.

In years gone by I looked at the Perma Netting in the video... It comes down to cost per linear ft and if you have neighbors... an eye sore for them to complain about. I just checked the current prices of permanet, about $5.25 a linear ft. To fence 1 acre of land requires 1866.8 ft of fencing, that’s about $9800 for fencing only 4ft tall.

I’m sorry, not buying it. A deer will jump a 4ft tall fence with no effort at all. Also, you can buy 5000ft of regular electric fencing for about $30. A fence charger is about $100 and a couple of bucks for a jar of peanut butter.

The guy in the video claims this fence will keep chickens inside or outside. I’m not buying that either. Even a chicken with clipped wings can clear a 4ft fence.

View attachment 34390 View attachment 34391 View attachment 34392
Good points, thanks for all the detailed info and photos!
 
A truck. One deer took out the bumper, grill and hood to flipped into the ditch and that was the end of that one. The second one bounce off the new fender to run into the field never to be seen again. Expensive way to accidentally deal with deer but it worked. :Do_O:(
Yikes! I never even see the deer, honestly, just the hoof prints, scat, and chewed up plants.
 
Any idea how long the scent lasts?

A few days, less if it rains... But it will attract flies immediately, you mentioned your yard... not a good thing in your yard.

A school implies a township or city limits, most have laws about discharging a firearm within said limits, not a good idea.

Your dogs... When young my big german sheppard decided to sniff and electric fence I'd just put up. He hasn't touched one since... Your pups will quickly learn to leave the wire with the peanutbutter alone.

You mentioned chickens... Every hen I've lost in the last 10 years has been to raccoons but for 2. A fox got one and I think an owl got the other, still not sure about the second one. Numbers - about 15 hens to raccoons.
 
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Further confirmation that the electric fence and peanut butter is going to be my best bet. Thanks for your help!

If you plan on growing sweet corn....plan on racoons.
That's why I put a hot wire about 4" off ground ,then about 6" up. Then 16 " then 20 " that worked well for coon and deer , peanut butter and for the deer.
Expect to find the occasional dead bird and snake on bottom wire.

Jim
 
I was going to say a dog. Having our dog on the place kept deer and raccoons at bay. When bear came through, we would bring the dog inside at night and the raccoons would destroy our tomatoes. Our dog is not bright enough not to chase bear, and he likes to chase and bark but doesn't attack. Bear attack.
 
I have a farm out in the middle of nowhere so I have a "lot" of issues with deer, elk, moose etc.

I have never found fences of any type to be effective, I have had 18 foot fences had deer simply pop right over them, then they bounce around the garden like a ping pong ball when I come and try to get them out destroying everything.

As for fencing wire and lol fishing line... I have 1/8 inch diameter electric fence around my place along with a three wire barbed wire fence and the moose and elk literally just walk through it and then drag my wire a quarter mile across my place.

The only thing that I have found particularly effective is a "yapper" dog that will bark loudly at "everything". I just run a 100 or 200 foot cable from point A to point B laying on the ground hooked to a stake pounded into the ground on either end and then I run a 10 - 20 or 30 foot cable off of that allowing the dog what "appears" to be a free run between garden areas. This allows the dog to bark loudly at any deer that get near the garden areas.

Another thing that I have experimented with which works to a degree is strange sounds piped through a large speaker by the garden. I just run one of my computers through the stereo system and then use extension cords for the speaker "wires" to run a speaker out by the gardens. I can then run periodic sounds like a lion roaring, or hyena laughing, wolves howling, or some video games have some great attack sounds from monsters which are terrifying to most wild animals ( even my dogs ) lol... The issue with the speaker system is that deer are smart and they will notice repeating patterns and the same thing happening over and over again and get wise to it.

My third and last option is I will get up at 3 AM and wait for sunrise a distance from the garden area and good sight of the garden areas and fire off a .270 round or two down there and scare them off. Just two or three times will largely keep specific deer from returning, though out here we have so many deer that other deer will move in a take advantage of the lack of competition. That and I generally sleep between midnight and 6 AM and this interferes with my sleep schedule so it is not very popular method with me anymore. Which led in to my speaker experiments...
 

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