Deer and your garden

[bigtiller]

I plant only tomatoes and peppers.
Each individual plant is surrounded by a 16" diameter chicken wire cage.
Each chicken wire cage is surrounded by a 24" diameter tomato cage.

The 16x24 chicken wire cage keeps out rabbits and birds.
The 24x48" tomato cage is made of 5x5 concrete wire mesh and keeps out the coons, dogs and deer.

Last year, one of my tomato cages was missing and I found it about 100' away in the far side of my mature, dense conifer windbreak. I'm guessing a deer walked into it, got spooked and somehow got a hoof into it because when I found it, it was bent up pretty bad.

But the plant survived, so 2 cages per plant works for me while the plants are young.

 

[DGZRT]

This is what my daughter likes to do to keep the population down

 

[Eagle1]

My only garden thieves are my domestic geese but the dogs are supposed to protect them...

 

[Thomas]

Deer don't bother our garden all that much but those Fing turkeys do lot of damage starching digging to root system...5' chicken around garden area help lot.

 

[JJT]

My garden is only 12' wide, but 400'+ long, 3 strands of electric fence on 4' posts keep the deer out.

 

[Jstpssng]

Where people receive real snow, fences require quite a bit more $$ and effort.

Electric isn't as bad. You can take it down in the fall, unless you have a really big garden.

 

[JasperFrank]

The only thing that kept them away, was having a mid-sized dog.

 

[ArlyA]

Electric isn't as bad. You can take it down in the fall, unless you have a really big garden.

We did ecctric for a while and it worked, but not for rabbits. Getting vegetables from a CSA was waaaaasy easier and not very costly. We could build a fence every year with the $$ we saved.

 

[Bearsixty7]

We watch Living traditions Homestead and they did this a while back and claim it works.

Not a SINGLE DEER Has Crossed this Fence to Eat Our Garden and Orchard!​

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

7 foot chicken wire and stapled to ground to keep groundhogs out around a 12" raised metal bed.
I find anything less than 6 feet or electric the deer laugh at.

I had a bigger garden and just gave up. Either wrap it completely or go small and high like I did

Deer around here will even eat forsythia and holly, so not much they won't go after.
Groundhogs will eat Marigold flowers, I found that out the hard way.

Deer can jump a 12' fence easily. Seen it many times.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Electric isn't as bad. You can take it down in the fall, unless you have a really big garden.

We had electric around a 40 acre garden and a butane gun blasting away at night. Plus we had a two story barn with windows and army cots up stairs. Spotlight shined real good out them windows.

 

[RidgeTopWVA]

Two years ago the garden was decimated by deer, for the most part they had left it alone for 20+ years.

Last year I installed an electric fence, with a solar charger. Worked great, best garden in history. It goes back up next week.

We have a dog, they ignore him. He's too old to give chase.

I done the same thing except my fencer is a Parmak 50 mile fencer with one wire around the garden about the height of the bottom of your pocket, the first night a deer walked into it and broke the wire and pulled it off of the insulator , from then on no more problems. They learn real quick.

 

[workinonit]

47" field fence plus 4' of barbed wire on top. We also have to do something to keep the coons out. They will absolutely clean out a corn crop in one night. I trap them.

 

[TN8Man]

6' cattle fence with chicken wire L-shape along the bottom and ground with gravel covering up the chicken wire on the ground. Then mesh netting all around the outside to keep out the racoons.

 

[kenmbz]

Deer can jump a 12' fence easily. Seen it many times.

In this case the width is only 4 feet, so they see it as two fences and won't try it.
I said I had to go small with my garden, it's tiny.

 

[ruffdog]

Drink lots of coffee and piss high on surrounding tree trunks. Deer are afraid of big predators that are buzzed on caffeine. Don't know if it works but I don't have much problem with deer around the garden.

 

[RidgeTopWVA]

Run an electric fence wire about 16" high off of the ground and the racoons will touch the wire and it stops them , if you have a few of the small metal pie pans hang them on the wire , animals are curious and they will touch the pans and they won't be back , even a small amount of bait hanging off of the wire the coons touch it and they get zapped. I have used electic for predator control for years and it works if done right.
I have never had to deal with the turkeys but I can stop racoons opossums and deer using electric...I can stop the problems at the chicken house with electric wire and fix it so you can leave the door open on the chicken house all night.
I have had racoons pull 1/4" hardware cloth wire apart and I put electric on the bottom of the cages and it stops them. I am using a 50 mile electric fencer on about 50 feet of wire that is just because I already had the electric fencer from when I had cattle.