I do not have insane deer pressure like some areas of the country, but I do have a healthy deer herd (mostly does raising their fawns) that move through my property. Take that for what it’s worth…
Some things I have learned regarding 3d fences on my property:
If possible, do not try to fence across high traffic areas/game trails. Leave them as a corridor so the deer can still move across the property freely…they will often take this path of least resistance and move through rather than constantly testing the fence…
Allow mother nature to help, set the fence and allow the natural undergrowth to grow up the inside fence and obstruct the deers view of its intended “landing zone”. If a deer can’t see where it’s going to land it is much less likely to take the leap of faith. I have plans of using intentional plantings inside the 2 fences of things like thorny blackberry (mine and @clarkinks selections would work great for this application I would think) to make an impenetrable living fence ( yes this may make electrifying it trickier if it gets thick, but I turned my electric off as the view obstruction was more effective).
make sure the deer can not crawl under…they can dip quite low, especially a yearling
-if you do run electric on the outside fence…it can help to train the deer to it with a scent attractant like peanut butter…a zap on the nose gets the point across pretty quick
-do not expect 100% effectiveness…it’s more of a really good deterrent vs. fort knox levels of defense
I should have read this yesterday. I walked passed a 7 ft HDPE deer fence with 4 inch mesh today. It had a single wire running about 6 inches above it. I didn’t notice if anything was on the bottom. It was several thousand feet. I would have taken a few pictures.
How large an area are you protecting? What do you have now? If nothing, you would not have any living trees with heavy deer pressure! It may not take as much as you think to keep them out.
Once you keep the deer out and start getting fruit, the raccoons move in. That ups the game.
we have had great success with hard wire fence for the lower part and E-fence above.
The wire fencing is to keep the E-fence above tall grass, it makes the raccoons have to climb the fence to only get hit in the face by a shock. I have 2 ft tall fence but with I had 3 ft tall. I put the first hot wire just 2 inches above the wire fence, think squirrels! . then 2 more spaced again just 2-3 a part. Then I space the hot wires about 5-6 a part up to 5 ft. The wire fence is the ground as well.
I made a 5 ft tall gate out of PVC pipe, again wire fence down low and hot wires above. . Make the gate wire fence hang low to drag on the ground. and wide enough to overlap the gate posts.
maybe heavy wood posts for corners so you can tension the lower weld wire fencing. But use T-posts every 20 ft
as said above, teach the critters by putting peanut butter on hot lines.
Probably around a quarter acre to start then eventually over 2 acres.
Nothing is there for protection but the trees growing are above deer browsing height. There is an established deer path through the knotweed forest… That’s another top priority.
I appreciate that input- I’m definitely thinking about treated posts about 4’ with the welded wire and an electrified line at the top.
That sounds like a good system. Could you share some photos?
So your main lines only have posts every 20’? That would significantly lower costs vs every 8’ as I initially expected.
I think I have about 6-7 acres fenced in for my orchard (the entire lot is 12 acres). I have added two additional hot lines to the electric fence for a total of 6 lines (4 hot lines and 2 grounding lines) and may add two more. My 8’ T-posts are 2’ in the ground, so 6’ height, and spaced both 15’ apart and 20’ apart (I realized I was going to have a lot of extra T-posts so I shortened the spacing). My biggest cost was 12’ pressure treated 6x6 posts (4’ in the ground), that was about $2,000 (higher prices at that time due to covid). I used those on 6 corners and 3 gates (12’ each on the gates). All said, I have about $5,000 in fencing my orchard, and I provided all the labor, hand dug most of the post holes and set all the T-posts with a hand held post-driver. I used 12.5 gauge high tensile wire. We milled 2x6’s for the cross bracing on the corners ourselves. The electric fence is solar, I have no power @ the orchard, that cost is included.
Wow Andy, thank you for sharing with detail. That is very helpful. That covid pricing hurt me too, building the deck at the peak was not the most economical but I didn’t know what to expect going forward at the time.
I live right off a river swamp that is full of deer… I found a product that has been the only thing that worked for me…its at deerout dot com and you spray the leaves with it…once new growth comes you spray again…it smells like peppermint and once the deer take a bite they wont come back…unless you just have acres and acres it is a great solution… I plant a huge garden with peas and stuff deer love and it has allowed me to keep planting a garden…My family gets to eat the peas instead of the deer… I have been using it for about 15 years and without it i would not make anything…I tried everything from hair to soap hanging on a string…the deer get used to all that and come back but with the deerout they do not… check it out…i buy a gallon of the concentrate every year and it lasts a good long time…
yes, use beefy corner posts to take the tension you need to pull the 2 ft tall wire fence, smaller corner posts with a diagonal brace. The T-posts are just to keep the metal fence from flopping over and string the hot wires. So 20 ft has worked fine. T-posts are perfect for plastic insulators
I started with 16 inch tall wire fence, 2 in x 4 in openings. squirrels entered at will. I then overplayed chicken wire to keep them out and raise the hot wires above tall grass. But I now have gravel around the perimeter and spray roundup. If you can find 1 inch square welded wire fence, it would be ideal. Chicken wire is destroyed if a weed Wacker hits it!.
The chicken wire is hard to see but it sits 2 in below the first hot wire
@swincher i have tried several through the years, had fuzzy for abot 12 years never flowered currently have anna and issai both 5 years never flowered, had quite a few misc that just up and died but never browsed. May prefer moderate browsing and some fruit some day
Unfortunately, the heavy plastic fencing also needs to be anchored somehow, which requires more work and some kind of deep staples if you don’t use a base of black plastic coated chicken wire at least 2’ high, which is another expense and needs to be buried a few inches into the soil. Here it is worth it to avoid having coons and other animals capable of it tearing openings into the bottom of the fence. Woodchucks will still occasionally dig under such a fence, but not often.
Deer fencing is extremely common in my region and at least half of my customers keep deer off their property with fencing. Sometimes they have a metal fence supported by split-rail (usually locust but some times cedar) maybe 3’ high with black poles extended to 7’ to support the black plastic and taught wire near the top to keep it from sagging.
