Robert, I see from your reply and (DU-UH) the website in your bio that you are a commercial deer producer. No offense intended with my previous ligt remarks. Everyone around here cold claim ti be a deer rancher as we have plenty whether we like it or not.
Hope this isn't boring everyone else BUT I'm curious, do you practice selective breeding, artificial insemination, implantation, or any other high tech animal husbandry strategies like the high dollar cattle folks do? I should imagine there would be demand for smaller deer with larger racks and more docile "personalities".
As the resident deer expert and a way to sort of tie this to the general thread topic (fencing), what is our advice regarding keeping deer from damaging newly planted fruit trees and flowers. I built a rectangular fence around 10 new fruit trees, 3 strands of electric but will add extensions to the "T" posts to go up to about 8 ft with 3 more strands. Is this whistling in the dark? If there is rye grass outside the fence just like inside the fence how high would they jump to get to the plantings. Similarly, how would you protect roses and other flowers in general.
I suppose there are deer contraceptives that could be an alternative to having to butcher/destroy animals due to crowding in your operation. How many acres per head of venison or is our fertility such that you figure head /acre?
Patrick (patrickg not patrick_g that was a subtrafuge to get by a temp identity crisis with me, TBN, and Microsoft.)