I have a dozen of those Scarecrows sitting in my shed now… for me they worked well for about a month and then the deer got used to them. I think it might work to protect a very small area like a garden, but for a larger area like an orchard its not going to work.
I also tried a whole ton of repellants. They are too hard to keep a coating up on with all the rain we get.
My guess is you lived in this area several years ago. Every year they get bolder. Last year for the first time a deer stood its ground and stomped its foot in an aggressive gesture when I approached it. It eventually chickened out, but a few years ago something like that would never have happened.
Our city is finally getting serious about deer control, there is a public meeting tonight about it.
We have had several decent-size white tail bucks passing regularly through our yard, and they bed down in the back yard of the unoccupied house next door.
Every time I see one in our yard I go out with a stout maple walking stick and throw it at them. Now when they see me coming they don’t wait for the stick -over the fence they go.
They love to browse new growth off of my apple, plum and pear, and then come back a few days later and repeat the process on the regrowth.
Love / hate with the deer. They clean up all my downed fruit like vacuum cleaners! Saves me hassle of picking up which I’m not good at. Love them for it!
But if you don’t armor proof trees until deer resistant, they will shred the trees. Hate them for it!
When my dad worked at the CIA complex in Langley,the deer seemed to think they owned the place. No predators, and cars had strict speed limits or they would literally destroyed by spikes coming out of the pavement. One day an employee jogged down a path with bucks on both sides and they literally beat him to death with their hooves.
But when I lived on 10 acres between hunters and a small highway, they mostly disappeared when people came into view. This was almost 20 years ago.
Seven years ago CWD was first discovered in my county. The state game and wildlife commission expanded and liberalized the deer seasons in this area. Now there is more deer than ever. Fawns everywhere. Game commission is starting to cut back on the seasons. Maybe because the more the deer are killed the more they breed.
One thing is for sure and that is the game commission will never make everyone happy. No easy answers.
I don’t even think I could put into words how angry I would be. That was very careless and irresponsible of the contractors to leave your garden gates unsecured.
What has worked best for us are our dogs. We couldn’t afford to fence our property so we got SpotOn collars for our dogs. They are expensive that they are still a lot cheaper than fencing.
You can choose different boundaries so at night we put a tight perimeter around our garden area and we call it night guard.
We have had no deer damage at all since then and believe me when I say that they wait just outside our garden area with their eyes glowing from our headlamps in the dark, waiting for us to go to sleep.
We are so relieved and grateful for the dogs.
If you had dogs in the garden area then the contractors likely
would’ve made sure the gates were shut.
Maybe people don’t think about your trees, but they sure don’t want be responsible for letting your dog out.
Is your fencing adequate to keep deer out if the gates are shut? If so, maybe one of those auto gate shutters would be helpful.
We can’t leave our dogs out there. Two are terriers and have to be supervised constantly. The third is ancient but forgets and does young dog stuff, then can’t walk and is incontinent.
I did fix up fence corners that were sagging. The doe didn’t notice these corners until after she got a taste of irrigated baby trees. She jumped back in twice after that but now she can’t. Instead she’s eating the flowers. I got a good look at her while she was hanging around the goats. She has three wounds on her left side.
