I found out at the grafting seminar last month that here in ky, you are allowed to take deer out if they are depriving you of your crops. Doesn’t matter if you are growing for profit or not. You do have to report it if you do take any out, they’ll probably come get it and offer it to a family who needs it. Or one might get lucky and get to keep it. I really don’t care if they take it, I just to be rid of the vermin.
I just came in from fixing my fishing line fence around the strawberry patch. So far I haven’t noticed any damage. Yet. The plants are really taking off with the warmer weather, putting on lots of blooms. If I can just make it work out for another couple months…
I bought a squirrelinator 4 years ago but I don’t like the dispatch process so I quit using it. The tube traps have provided the best results but they require a good deal of maintenance (bending the U, moving them to confuse the birds, oiling, baiting, etc.). Are you giving the squirrels you catch in your squirrelinator a bath?
I don’t like the bath thing, I did buy one tub but I have not used it yet. This year I ran an “early bird special” before I was so busy in the orchard, I drove all the catches outside the beltway to hopefully never return. Now that the early bird special is over I am shooting them with my pellet gun. I find this method not so hard at all; they run around like crazy for a bit and the first time they stop they are instantly dead.
The thing that impresses me the most is I have all my Kanias baited but so far only one squirrel caught. I have in the meantime caught many in the squirrelinators. They seem to be a less “scary” trap to the squirrels. The tubes were maybe a little bit better than the Kanias. I still have them in storage, not sure if I will use them this year given the good results with my squirrelinators.
My felosiphy for wildlife damage control is remove the animal causing the problem,then problem solved but must be done by your states conservation laws, rules and regulations.
A good dog may be the easiest and best deterrent for deer and other animals. I would recommend a terrier they are small to medium dog and aren’t affraid of anything and they make a great squirrel dog.
Also check with your country conservation officer and biologist or wildlife damage control officer.
Alos check with local nusiance wildlife control businesses.
But obey the laws and know your laws.
I don’t recommend urine repellent because deer smell coyote urine in the wild all the time.
I do like Scott’s pruneing ideas.
Moleguy
Scott,
This is probably my 4th or 5th consecutive year with success after devastation twice in one year. It has worked for me. See my reply to this post. My deer rant - #50 by Lucky_P , The deer still come through every morning and every night, but they avoid my orchard. They don’t jump over or crawl under, they go around. When it snows, I can see their tracks everywhere but inside the perimeter. Honestly though, this might be the only orchard pest I’m good at avoiding… In a month, or so, I will put the radio out on sports talk radio 24/7 for the raccoons once the peaches show up which worked last year. Groundhogs and squirrels are treated a little more unfriendly but effectively…
Chad
It does smell. I usually spray in the evening before dark, the smell is gone by morning. When the product is fresh, has a mint smell to it an not unbearable. If it’s a half full jug left in the hot summer garage for a month, smells like the worse fish bait on earth. That said, spraying the perimeter tape is a whole lot different and non-annoying in the fall and winter than if I put it in the big tank in August to do a cover spray. Still, the “overbearingness” is gone by morning.
Thanks Chad, I somehow missed your reply on that other thread. I can understand why it could work better, deer don’t like the repellant at all but its hard to make the “absolute border” with just trees sprayed so they find an entry spot, get in, and then start adapting to the stuff bit by bit. My impression is their repellant is similar to the other mint-type repellants? Deer Out or Deer Stop are also mint types. I expect there is nothing particularly unique about the repellant compared to the other brands. The main difference seems to be the strip which can absorb and hold a lot of the repellant through rain events. It also looks like they have a higher concentration recommended than the one recommended on these other product labels, since you only need to spray one ribbon you can lay it on thicker. This means it will last longer.
I may try putting up one of these barriers on my back orchard. For the front I would have to encircle the whole yard including non-orchard parts due to dispersed plantings but the back is just orchard. If it worked on the back it may be worth doing elsewhere eventually. The problem with the front is mowing around it, on the back it needs to be weed whacked anyway due to the steep hill and narrow rows so its hopefully not much annoyance.
Scott, I buy the stakes, clips and ribbons there, but continue to use their original “Deerstopper” concentrate repellent with success from https://www.animalstoppers.com/deer-stopper . This company purchased another company and relabeled the purchased product Deerstopper II, which I haven’t used nor the Plotsaver branded repellent. Is it all the same as other repellents? I don’t sell the snakeoil. I can only say that this has worked so far for me. I put it up around Halloween or Thanksgiving and take down for the first mow. I may spot spray out of a tank May-June, but get a reprieve from the deer somewhat until fall. I guess they have plenty of other things to eat elsewhere. I will tell you this, I had tried other big box repellents, coyote urine etc…maybe my success has been the precise height, tape color, dumb local deer, I don’t know, not going to question my methods at this time. All I know is how I felt when I saw the damage and how long it took those trees to recover or years lost from replacing. It is a cost of my orcharding and it gets shipped to my door UPS almost next day from NJ. Maybe just buy a small kit and give it a whirl next fall. I haven’t tried their other products so I can’t vouch for them.
This could bring up a question of whether or not my herds have been trained to avoid my plots long enough to allow me to take the fence down 5-6 months and the spot spraying a reminder. When snow is on the ground and they are hungry around here, there have been years that they will take on the pines and cedars that are unsprayed and clean them from ground to top of their browsing height. Blah, blah, blah, I am beginning to ramble… When that barrier is up, I have zero deer issues.
Chad
I have in fact been using their Deer Stop recently and not realizing until now it was the same company, it was the latest I added to my rotation this spring. It has been working well so far with foliage sprays. Its good to hear you are not using their “official brew” as my guess is they will charge a bit more for that. I am still going to rotate what I spray on the tape as deer seem to get more and more resistant to any given spray over time. They never bite when its completely fresh, but it seems like it lasts less and less long as the season progresses. This is true with all the repellants I tried.
I went ahead and purchased some of the black tape, I don’t need as many poles as their pole kit so I’ll get something from Home Depot for that. Hopefully soon I will get it up in my backyard orchard…
BTW it sounds like your deer pressures are quite different than mine, the winter for me is no big deal with a few buck rubs which will grow out. its the growing season that does me in. I may try to keep it up year-round so they never get in the habit of visiting. Deer are definitely creatures of habit.
re: coyotes, I see them and deer in the same areas, all the time. I think deer are wary around actual coyotes, but if they avoided coyote pee around here the only place you’d see deer is up on your rooftops. So I have my doubts on urine as a trick.
If you can stand the ugly, tie a few bags up like I mentioned before in a few trees, see if it helps.
I think the current food conditions and habits play a very big role in deer behavior.
Once deer are used to feeding in an area safely, it is quite hard to break that habit.
And the supply of food effects the chances the deer are willing to take and what they consider edible. When my golden was young he would chase deer off the property (trained to do so). A 4’ high fence around the orchard and garden was enough to keep the deer out. As he aged and developed arthritis the deer became bolder and ate the orchard and garden at will. Also I typically train squash plants at the outside of the garden, and route their vines outside the garden fence. Most years the deer ignore the squash, but in real serious droughts they will eat those fuzzy/prickly vines.
So I suspect, if one is early with the deterrents (coyote pee, lion poop, sprays) and can train the deer to avoid your property you will have some success. As long as there is adequate food for them elsewhere.
The poles are fiberglass poles similar to the ones they sold. I used two at the corners to get better tension. I used clips from Staples to hold the Plotsaver tape on.
I expect this will work pretty well for a month or more, the question is how its doing come July… I’ll be sure to update. I am still using only repellant and sprinklers in the front orchard, but if the back tape works I will probably also tape the front. It will be harder to mow the front with the tape but the idea of totally excluding deer is very appealing.
I have found that smearing soap bar remnants on my tree trunks will deter buck rubbing. Fence can be placed on the ground flat - this has saved my peach crop - the deer don’t like walking on it but it is a problem for mowing.
Now the bears are getting into the habit of climbing my mature apple trees. They are ruining the trees with their claws. The woodpeckers are almost as bad as they pockmark the heck out of the trunks.
I don’t know how deer behave in the burbs but it has been my experience that a group of deer is usually lead by the oldest doe and the members are daughters and granddaughters of said doe. Deer follow feeding patterns as the seasons change and are no doubt keying in on your orchard for spring through fall for forage. Bow hunting is very challenging in some ways but it’s kind of like grafting, if someone shows you how to do it you can be pretty successful. If you can identify the oldest doe in the bunch and remove her, it is my experience that the group may disband and change habits . Just a rambling thought.
Absolutely. I totally agree with your train of thought and the hierarchy will be thrown into a major change and that totally changes patterns and habits.
The only problem might be if the deer in the burbs are totally nocturnal. That would make them very difficult to hunt. If Scott’s orchard doesn’t get raided until midnight you would have to hunt them closer to the bedding area which would no doubt be on someone else’s property.
