I didn’t know which deer thread to reply to, but wanted to mention I saw some deer get through my deer fence a couple days ago.
Right now we don’t have the deer fence all the way around the property. We are still working on it. The deer fence we have up, has 4’ of woven wire at the bottom, then 5 more strands of barbed wire above that. The barbed wire is about 8.5" apart.
Here’s a pic I took of some of the deer fence early this summer at the upper end of the property.
Here’s an evening pic of some double gates we installed at the lower part of the orchard, where the parking is, in order to keep the deer out.
A couple days ago a doe and buck were in the orchard (presumably from one of the areas which doesn’t have the deer fence up yet). They panicked when they saw us and tried to find an area to get through the fence. The doe jumped through the barbed wire on her first attempt. The buck tried to get through the fence three or four times, but couldn’t dive through because of his antlers. He even got hung up in the fence for about 10 seconds at one point. Finally he too was able to dive through the barbed wire.
There was fur on the barbs where the deer dove through or tried to dive through.
I’m wondering if the deer will try to dive through the fence to get into the orchard, or was this a one time thing because they were panicked?
I can always add more strands of barbed wire for closer spacing of the wire if I need to, or add some wire stays to prevent the wires from flexing.
Here’s an internet picture of some wire stays I’m contemplating. My barbed wire is much closer together than this internet picture.
I’m not sure at this point if I will need to add something to the deer fence or not. Mainly just wanted to report that deer can get through the wire portion of the fence if motivated enough. I don’t know if food will be enough motivation or not?
I originally thought about putting up an electric wire fence and training the deer to it (much cheaper and much easier route) but elected to go with a mechanical barrier for various reasons.
I think I’m far enough along I’ll add more strands of barbed wire, or go a little higher with a strip of woven wire to make the mechanical barrier work. I think that would be easier in the long run than trying to install and maintain an electric fence at this point.
I know a lot of people have had good success with an electric fence to keep deer out but I had other wildlife I wanted to discourage, in addition to discouraging theft of produce from people.
You’ll notice in my first pic there are no houses around along that gravel road. Before the fence, people would just park on the road at night and help themselves to whatever was ripe close to the road. This is the first season I’ve not noticed any theft close to the road.
I have had to put fence around all my fruit trees to keep the deer out of them. Today, a buck got stuck in one of the fences. My neighbor came over, and I held a ladder in between the deer, and the tree. My neighbor used a saw and cut one of his antlers off. He was to tangled up in the fence to cut the fence away. We were also trying be careful not to get hurt.
The rutting season has begun, and he was trying to scrap my peach tree. The first picture of my orchard. The rest of the pictures are the deer pictures. He was a 9 point deer, now he is 4 or 5 point deer. I hope he stays away!
Here is where the deer comes in… Kill them… use front or hind quarter…
First chop the onion, put in skillet with some bacon fat/butter, and sautee until browned nicely. Near the end add your minced cloves of garlic and cook them a little too.
Put the deer front or hind quarter in a crock pot and pour the onion/garlic fat and all over it.
Salt and Pepper to your taste, drape the smoked bacon over it while it cooks and add BBQ sauce.
Let it cook 6-8 hours… or until the meat and bone easily separate… pull the meat, add more BBQ if desired. Enjoy. It freezes well, in wide mouth pint jars… for thaw, heat and eat later.
@tennessean… i killed two young does last fall and made bbq like that out of front qtrs. They were small enough that i was able to get 2 front qtrs in our larger crockpot for one cooking.
It turned out very good… and all in my family liked it (ladies included). I froze several pints… and it was all gone in less than 2 months.
This year I am going to make bbq of hind qtrs and probably backstrap too…
Below is a pic of one of the cookings… after pulling and adding bbq.
Deer will go under barbed wire. Or over. Even worse, they will get caught in it and die a slow death. Best fence is a high fence of woven or welded wire. It is expensive, so I just put up fencing around each tree. Tie it to a t post with baling string.
Deer season is opening soon… cleaned out the freezer yesterday and thawed out 5 pounds of deer meat… made a batch of BBQ today… crock pot bbq smell all day today. It’s what’s for dinner tonight.
In TN…
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It is unlawful to hunt or shoot within one hundred (100) yards of a visible dwelling without the permission of the owner. Tennessee Code Annotated, § 70-4-108.
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Could be different in your state… but in TN it sounds like if you lived near a subdivision and the folks that lived there… did not mind if you hunted, shoot… deer… you could… even within 100 yards of their home. Archery would be the way to go to keep from disturbing others.
I have to say that a big outdoor dog works wonders to keep the deer away. Of course you need a fence to keep the dog in, but a dog fence is a lot easier than a deer fence.
It really depends on how close the barbed wire strands are. In my original comment with the pictures, deer were getting in the property because the fence didn’t go all the way around the property.
Since we completed our fence, surrounding the property, we’ve had exactly one deer get inside (in four years). In that case, I can’t even say for sure if the deer got in through the fence. It may have gotten in through the gate which I leave open past dark.
What a story! You are very brave - a panicked animal is a scary animal.
Antlers and hooves . . . can do some damage.
Glad you were able to free him . . . 'guess he’s only scary on one side, now! LOL
We had constructed ‘cages’ for some of our trees - out of T-posts and bamboo, for height.
They were so difficult to deal with. Trying to mow effectively. Trees growing so that there was little room to work within the cages. Even just getting ‘in and out’ - a pain in the rear.
We took them down. They kept the raccoons and other pilferers out quite well. But it was soooo much trouble. We are going with traps . . . early . . . next spring. But that is endless, as well.
Deer haven’t been as much of a problem this year as in the past. Don’t know why?
But we will need to do something in the future - and I’m considering some combo of fence and electric.
I wish it was affordable to enclose several trees in an enclosure . . . and not one at a time. Costs too much - and I don’t have an in-house handyman!
Dadgum knee is painful. Think I twisted it somehow while running chainsaw. May not make the opener his year or at least not make it up a tree. While on the ground the deer are on the same eye level, so it is much tougher. Maybe I can scare them away from my apple trees.
Thinking about going to the doctor and ask him why knee has been hurting for the last 3 weeks. He will probably just laugh and say that I’m using it as an excuse for not getting a deer.
I wanted to update my deer getting stuck in the fence story. I dug the peach tree up the other day. I cut the section of the antler, and the tree out, and hung it from a tree, as a message to the deer. I looked at the film from the cameras yesterday, and I found he is back. I guess, he didn’t learn his lesson. I thought, I would share some pictures.
