Yea. Put up the fence FIRST.
I just finished my final fence last weekend. With the raise in price of fixed knot fencing, I would highly not recommend going my route, unless its a small enclosure. I was buying rolls at $500 for 330ā, that went to well over $700 per roll and growing. It cost me well over 15 grand to fence the entire 4 acres with 8ā fixed knot galvanized fencing. Unfortunately in my area, there is no such thing as growing crops without fences. Deer pressure is insanely high.
If I put fence on the outside, and trellis/fence 5 feet away inside, then in areas another trellis 5 feet inside that, am I deterring deer somewhat with the spacing? Iād rather use the trellising as part of my fencing if possible. The deer could see through the property line fence, parts of it are only welded wire right now. Then during the growing season, trellis would be covered with leaves.
I am running into a problem where the county wants a plan and permit and paid for anything higher than 6 foot. Iād rather put a solid fence where I need to and layered wire fence elsewhere. Better than paying county, even though neighbors are not going to like solid fence next to their house. I saw my locals are pregnant againā¦
Thatād be interesting to see!
I am only allowed a 4ā fence by the road, and since Iām a corner lot 2/4 sides are 4ā fence. Iām seriously considering putting a string of electric fence on top until someone complains about it, making it removable somehow. Thereās surely a way to do that. until then, it will be liquid fence which I am sure the neighbors will not like.
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It takes more room but you can put several rows to deny the deer a place to land. I have heard that two 4ā fences 4ā apart will work but I donāt know anyone that has done it before. It works better if the deer canāt see though them (or at least the 2nd one) since deer wonāt jump if they canāt see where they are landing.
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If I had more than 1/8th acre to work with more fencing would be an option. If I put in two rows there wouldnāt be room in my yard for plants 
For a normal orchard setup I have read that method can be effective.
Thatās kind of what I want to try. Close fence they wonāt jump because they canāt tell depth, and use it as part of my landscape. I just donāt want them to eat things where I canāt electrify the fence. You could put a hot wire above a welded wire fence, it may deter them, but in a suburb, may cause problems if you donāt put one several feet inside your property line. Right on the line is too close for unintended contact.
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What do people do between these double fences? Push mow? Let it go wild?
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I push mow everything, so yes.
Just wanted to show my solution when I do not want/canāt afford to fence the whole property. Cost effective for semi-standard on 20x20 spacing. 6ā metal T post (these were 8ā in the photos but have found donāt need full length as the hardware cloth supports itself) with 3ā wide galvanized 1/2" hardware cloth cut in 5ā lengths then rolled and attached to the T post. Let the tree grow and only start laterals once they are above 5 feet.
@hungryfrozencanuck4b Iāve been doing something similar with all my bushes the last couple weeks. For a small stand of apples and a row of medlar, i just used a bunch of those square tomato cages end to end instead of individually like a fence. but for most of the rest, I did a roll of either hardware cloth or chicken wire affixed to a less sturdy stake. Those are most of whathte rabbits, and probably the groundhog have been expressing their inquisitive natures around.
Good comments on practical ways to address deer issue without building prison fences around your property and installing guard towers.
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āRemember, Deer arenāt Squirrelsā
Today I asked my son to helped me wrap some deer netting around a new tree I bought but have not had a change to plant yet or setup deer protection. He noted that netting could be pulled apart pretty easily. I told him the comment I quoted above.
It is an important thing to remember. Deer protection is not the same thing as squirrel protection. A squirrel will spend 500 calories of effort and seemingly risk broken bones for a 2 calorie peanut. A deer is much more pragmatic. You just have to do enough to convince them that jumping the fence is not worth the reward - or that there is another nearby easier alternative.
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Deer are desperate enough to pick on one of my small yellow pears. Fast fruit set on this one it just took 2 years. Itās a less than ideal location. Nothing else could stay alive there. This deer ate half the tree. As big a compliment as that is to only eat one pear out of my entire orchard itās pretty hard on this little tree. Normally deer bite off branches clean at an angle so to be honest this looks more like a very hungry cow. Deer are normally picky eating off juicy buds so leaving those pears behind is unusual as well. There are deer that dine and dash quickly and that are sloppy but this is very unusual.
Trying to figure out a buck can be challenging. The other night one grunted in the woods about 10 feet behind me after he snuck up on me in the dark. Apparently he was equally shocked a human was out as he took off. Normally their nose works better than that. He rubbed down one of my trees last year so Iām not real happy with him. Bucks get very aggressive and brave aka stupid in the rut as is expected but most are very docile this time of year. The rub is old as you can see and not unusual for a herbivore with horns.
He rubbed that grafted tree in the middle and left every callery alone. Wonder why he didnāt rub those? Iām laughing a bit as I think how thorny those are sometimes. These are not thorny callery in this part of the orchard. Normally the deer cut a wide path around my trees but there is an alfalfa field of my neighbors they love on the edge of my orchard. Thatās why they came here as itās a sizeable risk for them with no reward without that alfalfa. They have to cover open ground to get there. They stay in my tree lines as much as they can.
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Grrr, stupid deer. We discovered 2 destroyed pear and a badly damaged peach tree today. We see plenty of does around and only rarely a buck. Obviously theyāre around though and obviously theyāre rubbing āvelvetā off their antlers. Of all the trees I donāt care (so much) about, they pick theseā¦
What is most disheartening about this is that the two pears I grafted from scions we gathered a few years ago. From a barely alive tree on my wifeās 5th generation family farm. All her parents knew was āKeiferā and no idea how old it is. Good tasting pears and a piece of family heritage she wanted to live on. Fingers crossed I can graft another from it next yearā¦
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I have a high fenced garden about 25 x 60 with fall vegetables, strawberries and seedling apples inside.
There are 2 doors and I left one open for one night after being careful the entire year.
They walked in the door and browsed the entire thing and out again. No fear of being trapped in there. No fear of walking under a gazebo to get to the door.
Iāve been a vegetarian for 22 years but I have no problems with deer hunting, though these deer know theyāre safer in the city.
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Unless those were grafted really high, they should be able to grow back from a bud above the graft union.
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Iāve had a bearing age fruit tree nursery on property in NYS where my deer often appear in small herds for 30 years- right now, my orchard almost seems like a stockyard with all the deer poo and I see 5 or 6 at a time at dusk. It is a deer oasis and I can say that your assessment of repellents is excessively pessimistic, or I would have been out of business years ago.
What I havenāt found is a repellent that lasts more than 2 or 3 weeks, but I am now using a combination of Plantskyd and rotten eggs I mix myself that repels the hungriest deer for a time after application. I got lazy as my trees were nearing defoliation, stopped spraying and the deer have done quite a bit of damage in the last couple of weeks, my herds are extremely hungry, even by the usual standards of deer trying to fatten up before winter- there is no mast in our woods. As soon as the scent has worn off they attack and they even snapped some small peach trees to reach a few remaining leaves at the tips.
My fault- my last spray was well over a month ago. Even the snapped trees will survive, though, and I suspect many of the deer will not make it through winter.
One method I used to use that could last a season was mixing dried blood with water and hanging in containers tied to plants- with holes above the liquid that donāt allow much rain. The mixture smells like rotting corpses after a couple of weeks and if the deer brows on plans with these containers on the branches, even just one, they are likely to tip it and get the putrid stuff on them. However, I never even had browsing when protecting plants this way, but it is just a bit too disgusting and time consuming for me.
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