The fishing line only works for small areas. At some point I had it up around my whole yard. It worked for about a month and then they figured out they could jump through it.
If you can’t do a fence the one other thing that should work is continual coverage with effective spray repellants, rotating between several different ones. But this is a huge overhead if you have a lot of stuff to cover as it needs to be re-applied after rains or significant growth. I will be doing many hours of this in the coming summer…
Ill try a 5 ft fence and put bamboo stakes inside so it is almost a double fence and will prevent deer from wanting to jump over. Has anyone tried putting their fence at 45° angle and has it worked?
There are several fencing options that work. There is an old electric fence design that was at a 45 degree angle but it was expensive to construct. The modern e-fence is a Gallagher-style 3D fence. It uses several psychological factors. While deer can easily jump this low fence, they don’t unless being chased. They have poor depth perception and while they can see there is some kind of inner fencing, they can’t judge the distance and are concerned about landing safely. The inner and outer fences are designed such that deer can’t crawl through it without getting zapped.
While deer can even jump an 8’ chain-link fence and will easily jump a 6’ one, they usually won’t jump a 5’ solid fence unless they are being chased. They can’t see through the fence and are reluctant to jump it because danger may be waiting on the other side.
Exclusion and dogs are really the only techniques that verge on protection. All of the repellent substances have varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the relative attractiveness and perceived risk of what is being protected compared to what is available outside the protection.
Our old place had a serious problem. We basically gave up planting fruit and veggies except for a long narrow fenced garden. The deer would not enter since it was only about 15’ wide.
Then we got a dog and that worked really well as long as the dog was out, which was most of the time.
Depends on the size and spacing. If you are talking about fencing directly around the perimeter of a small garden, sure. However, if the fence is set back far enough from the garden especially on the south side, it shouldn’t be that bad. The best answer really depends on your particular situation.
I have a small garden-type lot serving as rootstock nursery, w chicken wire to keep rabbits out, but the deer were more than happy to step over the wire 2 yrs back and trim my trees for me, including pulling a few less-common things like some mirabelles right off the rootstock they were first-year grafted to.
I was, unsurprisingly, pissed. I tried putting used cat litter out, mothballs…
the thing that kept deer out 2 winters in a row and the summer in between? I tied like 6 plastic shopping bags up at the corners and on a couple exposed branches of larger trees. Almost any wind sets them moving like windsocks, and they make a bit of noise. I doubt deer are afraid of plastic, but they are sketched out by random movement and sound, and as a result they don’t seem to hang out in the garden. I see tracks, sometimes 10-15 feet away, but from travelers–nobody really hangs out and more importantly nobody seems to eat my stuff anymore.
Not sure how well this transitions to larger trees, but I have every intention of trying and tying a few bags into my trees when I move apple grafts out into the yard.
It depends on how much space you have around it and how it is oriented. For example a fence on the north side could be close to the garden. In zone 5b (used NY for latitude), a 5’ solid fence would need to be about 10’ or so away from the garden. This would cover most of the growing season and most of the day with little if any shading. You would probably need less than 10’ on the east and west sides.
I’m not saying a solid fence is the right solution for your particular situation. I don’t know enough about it. I’m simply saying that generally if a deer can’t see over or through a fence they generally won’t jump it unless they are being chased and trying to escape. In that case, the known risk is generally more pressing than the unknown risk and they will jump anything the physically can. A Gallagher-style fence is not as nice looking but only requires about 3’ on all sides. It has no shading issues.
7.62x39 repels deer, rabbits, coyotes, dogs, squirrels, and any other critter you don’t want around.
For a quieter solution to deer, you need to fence and pee. Deer abhor human urine. Mono filament fishing line works but as Scott said, you have to be religious in moving it every 7-10 days. I have spent thousands on fence materials and countless hours installing them. We face roving squads of deer that my suburban neighbors find amusing to feed and salt. My next door neighbor thought it was amusing to put out a salt block for deer until I explained how much easier he made it for me to shoot them.
You are facing an issue that unthinking people have unleashed on you, that nuisance animals are some how “cute”. They, the unthinking, don’t loose $100’s of plants in one night, not to forget the time and anticipation, that others loose through “cute”.
The farther affected I am in my fruit obsession, the less kindly I look on these problems and the more I tend towards permanent fixes.
.22/ .22mag. 300 blackout with a suppressor does a mighty fine job and are very quiet…10-13 months for stamps though so get some fishing line for the wait…
While BSE in cattle, CWD in deer, and CJD in humans are all prion diseases, they are distinct diseases. There is currently no evidence that humans are at risk from eating venison from CWD infected deer. One study placed cattle in deer pens that had highly CWD affected deer and none got BSE or CWD.
Having said that, I would not eat venison from a deer that was known to be affected or even acting abnormally. It is also the best practice to avoid eating the spinal cord and brain of deer. This is out of an abundance of caution.
CWD moving into our area has not deterred me from eating venison in the least. There was one case study back in the 1990’s where 3 people that had CJD reported eating venison but even that study itself did not find any causal link. The three likely drank milk and ate eggs. With a disease as rare as CJD, it is very hard to isolate common factors between such a small group that are not also common in the huge group of folks that don’t have CJD.
It is almost impossible to destroy single proteins like prions in nature. Recent studies show them to be endemic to soils in some parts of the country. There is some evidence that plants can absorb them from the soil and become a transmission vector to deer and elk.
Most folks do not assess risk very well. People are going crazy over the ongoing spate of school shootings to the point of being willing to eliminate some of the checks and balances put in to place when our government was established. Yet the same parents will buy their kid a car and let them drive to school. The chances of a student being a victim of a school shooting are a tiny fraction of a teenager being killed in a car collision driving to school each day.
As risks go, one is far more likely to die driving to a hunting location than being shot in a hunting accident or contracting a prion disease from eating venison.
Nothing wrong with prudence or even an abundance of caution, but let’s keep proportional risk in perspective.
All your points are true, but let me add that deer that are infected with CWD will probably be symptom-free for the first two years.
I’ve hunted and eaten a lot of deer and elk over the years but I’m spooked. I’ve quit loading my rifle when we go hunting!
Only other comment I feel a need to make is your comparison of risk driving to going to school. I’ll suggest that the reason these can’t be stacked against each other is that we reasonably understand the risk in driving, and take reasonable steps against it: education, traffic laws, seat belts, and so on. But at school there should be no comparable reasonable risk. “Well, it’s off to school with you Honey. Do you have your homework, and lunch money? Don’t forget to wear your bullet-proof vest in case there’s a madman later today!”
