I used to have enough deer protection for 40+ trees when I started back in '08. But I sold it off or gave a lot of it away. I thought I was done planting trees around '11. But reality set in and I found out you are never done with a fruit orchard. I had to buy it all back over the last 4 years for replanting trees.
This year I thought I’d try something new. The price of welded wire fencing has skyrocketed over the years. Being sick of buying and rebuying the deer protection and trying to penny pinch; I bought lower T-posts and shorter 36" fence instead of the pricier 48" fence. I also got lazy with the weed whacking under the trees and decided to raise the deer fence 22" for mower clearance. This combo did not work out well. Deer started to eat the trees.
Here is a dwarf mulberry. It was growing great. Then deer started to eat it under the high fence height. Instead of redoing the fence to 48" and lowering it, I tried string and flagging tape. The deer just stick their head between the string and stripped it all down as far as they could reach under the fence.
Deer striped this fig tree down. Then the rabbits got to work on it.
Rabbits keep working on the figs. But it was more a nuisance than a disaster for some figs. You can get rabbit fencing that works pretty well. But I am not using it for the fig trees.
I tried in-ground, unprotected figs back around '08-'09. In the winter, the deer ate all the fig trees (actually bushes) to the ground.