Highly illegal to feed deer in California chapter 14 i think sec 251.
1 Like
I absolutely agree and wish my customers with large orchards would do so. Iām sick of having to manage so many baffles. On terrible squirrel years I have to repaint them with oil and grease because after multiple attempts the mixture wears off and can eventually beat the system without multiple apps. .
https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407
Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame?
The investigators did not prove it was deer to human but it is very very suspicious and enough that it was published in Neurology**
Does putting up bars of Irish Spring soap really deter deer from doing damage to your fruit trees? Anyone with actual experience with this?
I had an orchard grower tell me he saw it work first hand 15 years ago. Just an FYI. Thatās why I am asking. See if anyone else has had experience with using this soap.
My coworkers hunting group pretty regularly just uses knives. I think in a tangled in a fence situation I would put it out of its misery and report a nuisance deer as a farmer to the game commission. I believe they let you keep the meat, they take the antlers. Good trade.
Iām pretty sure no animal is going to choose to starve to death over being annoyed or mildly inconvenienced. To the extent any deterrent actually works your plants will just be getting mauled somewhat less often. Iāve grown most of the ādeer resistantā plants on the Internet list articles and figs, pawpaws, ribes, alliums, and poultry seasoning herbs are the only thing theyāve not destroyed on me (yet). But I believe in the deer. They hate it when humans feel joy. That Lemon Thyme will die at their forked hooves one day.
1 Like
They havenāt touched my rhubarb, and pretty much all herbs seem safe. Also the Monkey Puzzle trees seem unmolested so far since I removed the cages this year.
All temperate fruits seem fair game.
FWIWā¦deer chow my neighborās rhubarb to the ground most every fall. Probably not a big deal at that time of year though
2 Likes
My wife tried it couple years ago to deter deer from tulips. Tulips were gone regardless, and Iām still finding chunks of soap in the mulch.
2 Likes
The white tailed deer in Minnesota break my 20 lb monofilament line to get to the bird feeder.
Robert,
As a kid, only bucks were allowed to be harvested (I still remember when the first WTD were reintroduced to our area), but eventually we got to the point that the population could support - and actually needed - having some females harvested.
I no longer have any desire for a ābig trophy rackā, and only want to harvest doesā¦ and the younger the better. I do not notice any āgameyā flavorā¦ but some years back, I was away at a meeting and the kid who we allow to hunt here had bagged a buck, but all he wanted was the rack, and he left the meat with my wife, who put it in a fridge in the unheated tackroom of the barn, for me to process when I got home. I could smell that ābuckā smell before I even got into the tackroom.
With boar hogs, we encounter āboar taintā, an undesirable odor/flavor in the meat due to skatole, an aromatic organic compound found in the tissues of intact male pigsā¦ every once in a while, Iāll get a tube of pork sausage that has that characteristic smell/taste, and know that there was an intact or cryptorchid boar in the mix when they ground those cull animals to make āwhole-hog pork sausageā.
IDK if skatole/indole, or other aromatic compounds are involved in āgameyā flavor some folks ascribe to venison, but I suspect that itās more likely to be encountered in venison from rutting bucks than from does or prepubescent āyearlingā bucks.
Another thing to considerā¦ deer are principally browsers, eating leaves, buds, twigs, acorns. There will be aromatic organic compounds in those forages that accumulate in fatty tissues, which may contribute undesirable flavors. Whenever I am breaking down and processing a deer carcass, I make every effort to remove and discard as much fatty tissue as I can. I am not a huge fan of ground venison, but on the few instances where we have gone to the trouble of grinding some, Iāve removed all deer fat and either get beef tallow or cheap bulk bacon to grind in with the venison, or blend in a fatty 70:30 ground beef with the ground venison.
3 Likes
That gland your referring to a good butcher knows where to find them and cuts them out. The younger does are always going to be better than a big buck taste wise. Iām not a big deer meat fan, but if we ever have a famine Iāll be well fed. They all come to my property. Turkey and wild goat too.
Today in sunny conditions to get away from me, I saw a young whitetail deer jump between a one foot gap in monofilament fishing lines about 3 ft or 4 ft off the ground. It happened so fast I wasnāt looking at exactly which line it jumped. It jumped to skip over where I had the line at a 6-in spacing down at 2, 2.5, 3 ft.
So far Iāve disproven all of the stories on the internet about monofilament line being able to stop deer (they break it), or deer only looking for the highest wire (I had wires up to 5 ft), or a one foot spacing being sufficient to stop deer.
Every fall the beekeepers who have hives here remove them. They also remove the solar electric fence charger. Every fall deer run through and break 3 electric fence wires made of stainless steel.
I donāt envision monofilament doing much to stop a deer
Iāve in the past used and suggested use of āfishing lineā to help with deer pressure. I never had any allusions to it being a barrier which could physically stop a determined deer though. They are way too strong for thatā¦
IME it can be helpful if itās both invisible and unexpected. Itās been a few years but I have had at least some success with it. I installed a single strand at around waist height. I did so in an area of open grass without any weeds or trees at a similar height, only grass and weeds much shorter in height. So that if a grazing deer walked into it and felt pressure, where visually there should be nothing to cause that pressureā¦
My wife watched a large buck grazing on the grass walk into this line. Back up, move to the right a few feet and graze until he ran into it again. Rinse/repeat 3 or 4 times until he had made it past the corner post and a 90-degree turn . He then fed on along the bottom edge of my orchard area, never actually entering it. Thanks to that single strand of very thin and low-strength āfishing lineā.
Which ultimately got broken and had to be replaced multiple times though, by deer running right through it. So very much not a 100% success, but witnessed that and a few other times as being quite effective. Slow grazing versus running providing the unfortunate contrast.
Iāve also tried putting it around trees where it was very close to the leaves/limbs of. It did not help even a little bit there. Deer would press against it and still nibble leaves/limbs a lot. My guess is simply that they had an expectation of pressing against something so the fishing line wasnāt really out of the ordinary.
In the years since Iāve moved to an actual barrier, t-posts and 4ā āfield fenceā. Which is absolutely not tall enough to prevent deer from easily jumping over. Iāve purchased enough supplies to extend it on up much taller but simply havenāt gotten that done yetā¦ Time/commitments/energyā¦ Sighā¦
At least one doe has essentially taken up residence right beside of and inside my orchard. Apple trees are by far her favorite with some nibbling of blackberries and raspberries as well. So much so on the apples that Iāve half jokingly said I was just gonna chainsaw them all down and find another hobby. Very discouraging to discover multiple primary laterals and on 3 or 4 the central leader snapped in half.
After that moment of despair I researched and found lots of positive comments on solar/ultrasonic āanimal repellersā. So I ordered 6 of them and ~4 days ago placed them throughout the tree rows. āKnock on Woodā but so far game cams have not shown a single deer nibbling. Which was a daily occurrence for the preceding weeks. Fingers crossed!
I wonder, would a dead sheep lying around keep deer away, for a while at least? I mean, itād be a lot of trouble and quite a sacrifice to deposit one in the right placeā¦ but oh, only kidding, the neighbor made the sacrifice already.
Last week while we were planting 8 apple trees on our new, uninhabited, property, there was a terrible, terrible smell, and we kept wondering what it could be. As my husband was finishing the last hole in the row. I saw something that looked like a pile of trash about 20-30 ft away, and realised it was a dead sheep. Iād guess the coyotes got it, we didnāt want to get any closer to the smell. And probably thereād be coyotes come check it out a time or two, keeping the dangerous smell around.
It wonāt last of course, and would be too expensive to renew, but it reminded me that 30 years ago we got bags of dog hair from a dog groomer and spread it around to stop the deer eating our sweet potato plants. That was where we live now, with our deer deterrent dogs, but then it was unhabited. Did a good job of keeping deer away. Mind you, this is out in the sticks, where deer have plenty of native food to choose from, not in town where deer may be living on whatever the humans plant. Enough snow to bury the grass (a rarity here) would have rabbits and deer both deciding apple bark is handy food.
Had the radio on while cooking breakfast yesterday. The Saturday morning āyard boyā out of Cincinatti was on, and discussing a new deer ārepellentā made from woolā¦ pelletized wool - Iām presuming āuncleaned/unwashedā wool
, with its full complement of lanolin and whatever other stinky stuff that the range maggots/pasture lice exude from their skins. He claimed that reports were that it is working well (so far), but made the case that in addition to spreading the wool pellets around the plants you want to protect, you also need to distribute them about the periphery of the garden/orchard, so that they offend the deer well before they get in close proximity to the plants youāre trying to protect.
1 Like
Oh wow, thatās certainly a timely bit of news! We could take the hayfork and spread that nasty wool aroundā¦ oh, then our two little lawnmower goats wonāt want to eat their hay. Will have to use a garden fork to move wool to the 4 corners of the new orchard.
Incidentally, if any of you all decide you NEED a couple lawnmower goats, go thru the trouble of getting fainting goats. They donāt jump on things! They donāt jump fences either, though they will push on them til they can eventually step over them. Whatever you do, DONāT get Nigerian dwarfs!!! We have one now, and have had them before, bought as replacement for the fainting wether that died, and she never met a fence she didnāt want to get over. Also remember goats hate grass and get wormy if actually forced into lawnmowing, unless you have plenty of room to move them around. We got ours for the honeysuckle, which they love so much itās about all gone. They also turn bamboo leaves and brush into compost, which our awful clay needed desperately. If you have bad soil and plenty of brush nearby, 2 fainting goats are a good investment. A good pen, dog collars and strong soft ropes no more than 12 long. They destroy clips and other hardware like you would not believe! And yeah, they can damage roses and fruit trees really quick too.
2 Likes
Yes, maāam. That is one of the basic tenets of goatkeepingā¦ They are not small cows, and were never intended to live and GRAZE in the warm, humid Southeast (or anywhere, really). They are browsers. Everything is hunky-dory as long as they are walking along nibbling leaves, buds, tender twigs, etc., well above the ground, but whenever browse is exhausted and they are reduced to having to grazeā¦ parasite problems are not far away. Closer to the ground means closer to the poop, and the nematode parasite larvae that hatch out and swim up the moisture film on the grass to be consumed by grazers.
While Iāve almost never seen parasites kill a cow (other than liver flukes, which are not present in any locality where I have ever lived), Iād hazard a guess that over 95% of the deaths that I have seen in small ruminants, and goats, in particular, were due to parasitism - usually due to Haemonchus contortus, the barberpole worm. Affected animals may appear happy and healthy one day, and be found down or dead the next. If youād happened to check mucous membrane color the day before(or several days before), youād have known that they were dangerously anemicā¦ but until they hit that critical low point, they may not show outward signs until they are dead, or on deathās doorstep.
Goats will indeed delight in decimating your most treasured fruit trees/bushes and ornamentals. I had a small flock of goats, while I was in veterinary school. When I was preparing to leave for my preceptorship, my Dad told me, āSon, I love you, but when you leave, the goats leave, too.ā He was tired of them forever being in his flower beds, walking on top of the cars, etc.
My friend, the great Dr. David Pugh, who authored the seminal text, āSheep and Goat Medicineā, used to crack me up at presentations on small ruminant diseases & parasitism, when heād lapse into his Biblical(really) rant about sheep and goats, paraphrasing Matthew 25:31-46, about Judgement Day:
āHe will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then he will say to those on his right(sheep), āCome, you who are blessed by my Father; Then he will say to those on his left (goats), āDepart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.ā
I donāt think Dr. Pugh really thought that goats were angels of The Devil, but some daysā¦
4 Likes