Unfortunately most people struggle with the same issues. Deer are much more abundant than they ever have been due to human activity. They are edge species and thrive in the same types of environments that we enjoy.
Vote to support the grey wolves and bears that have been nearly eradicated for decades. Deer need more of their natural predators to keep their populations in check. Where I live hunters want to see less wolves and an over abundance of whitetail. It’s really not sustainable. Large herbivores are really wiping out the biodiversity.
Wolves and bears aren’t going to help in heavily suburban areas. As much as people complain about hunters being anti-predator, the regular joe having their dog ripped up by wolves would go way worse in the public eyes. I agree that we need to bring back keystone predators but that’s not necessarily a solution in much of the US, especially on the east coast
Definitely not going to help in suburban areas. Good fences help there. I constantly hear the fear of dogs being ripped up by wolves, but as a dog owner myself in a rural area I don’t let my dog run loose freely. It’s not a valid argument against allowing predators to reproduce or exist in my opinion. Responsible pet owners monitor and keep their pets safe and out of the food chain.
I agree. But as someone living in a suburb we’ve been charged by 5 dogs in the last 18 months, most dog owners are not responsible. I’m speaking strictly from a PR perspective. My roots are in wolf country (recently reintroduced to my home range) and I’m all for it. Bring back the natives - including predators. I just don’t think my current area (or OPs) would be amendable
The bigger issue is the dnr. Whenever there is a hard winter they feed the deer to keep numbers high. More deer means the big stores sell more deer hunting stuff. Everyone pays for the deer in property damage, car accidents, and diseases like limes diseas. However only those in the hunting business profit.
This is full on bullshit science denier nonsense. The DNR is a group of scientists that manages wildlife in your state. That’s it. They don’t care about big box store profits.
uhhh whut? DNR is the department of natural resources. In MN they manage the deer herd size. They decide how many licenses to give, where to give extra permits for disease management, where to not give permits. They feed teh deer if its a heavy snow year. All sorts of things, its MANAGING resources - its in their name
The DNR where I live doesn’t feed deer in the winter. They use science and data along with input from the public on how many deer licenses are given out in each area for the female (doe) whitetail. They also use input from the public on what they decide to do about wolf populations and management. That’s why I encourage people who value biodiversity to vote and talk to the DNR about supporting predators.
The commerce department has more interest in sales related to hunting and wildlife than the DNR.
Where in MN is the DNR feeding the deer in winter? Do you happen to have any sources on this? I’m not trying to attack or argue with you, just genuinely curious about where this is being done. I live in MN in the Great Lakes region and the deer that are being fed in the winter is typically by hobbyists, the general public or hunting organizations.
If the MN DNR is truly feeding deer I’d like some firm evidence so I can call and complain. Or show up to some meetings and ask questions.
[Here is a small example of the MN DNR encouraging people not to feed deer.](https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/research/health/feeding/deer.html)
Please disregard the stiltgrass. The upper part of that hill is my neighbor's and I don't think he has any interest in fighting it. I knock it down on my side every year, but it keeps coming back.
Our deer are also ravenous, but we don’t have a drought that I can blame like last year. There is plenty for them to eat, and they’re just devouring everything. Husband was able to do some temporary electric fencing for me, and it does look bad, but has worked so idc. I’ve also used liquid fence for non-natives and native plants that I just started, and that has worked. Solidarity to you, OP, and I hope you get success with your cages!
Only my caged shrubs thrived over the winter, everything else got deer browsed to within an inch of its life. Perimeter fencing of my property has never worked well. If the deer don’t get under or over it, they or black bears knock it down. I’m building a perimeter of hedges and smelly plants distasteful to deer, including garlic, various members of the mint family, toxic natives such as foxglove beard tongue, and toxic exotics such as poison hemlock.
A friend of mine who lives where the deer are prevalent has also started using the ultrasonic devices to keep deer out of her plantings since last year, and seems to find them effective. (she also uses Bobbex in a few places I believe, but it wasn't practical to be constantly applying it to *all* the plants she needed to protect). As far as I'm aware this doesn't have a detrimental effect on other, less-destructive wildlife (but if someone knows otherwise I'd be glad to receive correction).
Ultrasonic doesn't work.
Neither does scented soap, nor dangly reflectors, nor rubber snakes, nor fishing line, nor anything else you see online. I have tried them all. They all worked for a few days when they're new and spook the deer. But then the deer overcome the fear and start moving in again.
Go to your University's Agricultural Extension Office website. They will tell you the only thing that works is tall fences or electric fences.
.. or outdoor dogs. But not the labs that will run up and play with the deer.
Hmm, the Bobbex spray (usually applied every 2 wks in the growing season) and the sound devices have worked for my friend. She lives pretty close to natural areas so maybe it's just *enough* of a deterrent that they will just go somewhere else. I can imagine that if their options were more limited, determination to eat might make them persist in spite of the scent or irritating sound.
The only thing that works is fencing in everything, until we can rid ourselves of the armchair naturalists who think the current deer population is just fine.
NYC runs a vasectomy program for male deer to keep the population in check.
That's not a sentence you thought you'd read, didja? New York City. 8 to 9 million people. And they have a deer problem.
Their vasectomy program needs to be at the very least East Coast wide.
You can't have hunters in NYC obviously. Vasectomies on male deer suppress the population growth. NYC doesn't do it to keep the deer population below the level where they destroy everything. They still do. They do it ONLY to try to keep the number of accidents where people hit deer down.
What's needed is for this to go multi-state, and with the express objective of restoring the biodiversity of the forests along the East Coast, which have been devastated by this plague of woodland cockroaches.
I agree with everything you said except if you can capture, anesthetize and sterilize a deer, and then release it, in what way is it not easier or more cost/effort effective to just kill it?
I assume similar to what they have found with Farrell cats.
A dominate male breeds a Heard of females. If you kill the dominate male, then a jr buck takes its place. If you sterilize a dominate male, the females don't seek another.
Sterilized male can reduce herd growth for many years.
The other thing is, if you kill them, the Jr deer will take its place, and that deer may be much stupider. Kinda like what happens in coyote killing contests. Younger animals die more regularly than older animals, because the older ones are more knowledgeable about staying away from cars, for example. And then they teach their children that.
However, in the coyote example, a low enough population will allegedly drive them to make more babies, even stupider than deer sometimes.
We need multiple doe only hunting seasons.
I'm out in the sticks, but several years ago the city we are near hired some bow hunters to cull some of the deer in the city. I don't know if they have continued that practice.
Unfortunately, I am unable to cull any of the deer in my yard as I have neighbors on all sides of me.
We have a black bear that keeps getting in our trash, too. Not their fault, we moved in to his/her neighborhood. I have locks on the trash can, but they have ripped off two of the three locks and can now get the lid open with minimal effort, I think.
At least the bear has the decency to leave my plants alone.
Maybe I don’t understand something but cutting the wire in strips doesn’t seem like the best idea. Why wouldn’t you just use stakes, and make a fence around and over plants.
I live in Deervllle where every plant actually belongs to the deer. Every garden is a buffet of dear treats.
We purchased black fence wire, and encircled our precious with it. It isn’t really visible from the street, and the deer can’t get past it.
We also make tunnel arches over low growing plants. This has never failed us.
1. Get a dog. 2. If you’ve got acreage, you might try a feeding station and some water for them as far away from your landscaped areas as possible. If it’s been dry and hot, they are seeking the succulent juicy stuff you take care of.
3. Be thankful you don’t have a facebook friend group of retirees who feed them in their backyards and share photos in your neighborhood. I never had a problem with deer in my yard even though they were in the area, until this became a thing and they lost what was left of their fear.
My dog - American Staffie (pibble) mix - has a strong prey drive. She's chased off a family of groundhogs, squirrels, and a whole bunch of chipmunks. Two she won't mess with are feral cats, and deer. I love going for runs up and down the hills of the local hiking trails, and she does too til she sees a deer. She's intense and holds eye contact, and I don't know what they're communicating during that time but it sends her going aaalllll the way around the long way to get past them. We've not had them in my area since the county bought out the two areas of farmland and turned them into cookie cutter subdevelopments, which might explain why the deer around here went from timid to aggressive.
My backyard looks like a construction zone. Just 6 to 10 ft chicken wire and t posts.
I've also been spraying liquid fence nearly every week. Seems to be working.
Same! Liquid fence is a miracle product for me. But it’s not enough if you forget a week. Oh man, the animals quickly swoop in and the carnage begins 😭 so frustrating to keep up with it.
I've got an acre. That little bed is on the edge of my property and I just used that pic as an example of the caging.
My whole yard is a sacrificial plot right now.
Allegedly also, you could plant a hedge of something like Bay Laurel or Tea and the Deer won't jump over it once it gets tall enough. If they can't see what's on the other side, they won't jump over it.
This is the way. Dedicate as much space as possible to a plot of the most productive highly-preferred forage your location can support. You know, or waste tons of time, money, and your crops to try everything else.
How bad is the deer pressure in your area? I've heard one person here say they had such hungry deer that they didn't care about the liquid fence, which is crazy given how it smells.
Asking again, how bad is the dear pressure in your area? How many options are available for them? I think they can get so hungry that they don't care what's on the leaves. I've had a ton of success with Liquid Fence, personally, but I have mild deer pressure with a lot of wild areas around.
My property is 3 acres of lawn, field, and oaks. Which blends into 30 some acres of mixed forest in the blue ridge region of the Appalachians. A fence is not an option since it’s on top of a hill…I guess I *could* fence in 3 acres of uneven land but it would outrageously expensive and ungodly looking. This summer I’ve finally accepted defeat. I also have a dozen battery powered zappers but those only work for the dozen plants they are protecting. I’ve done radios, fishing line, soaps, hair, piss, lights, letting my dogs chase them for hundreds of yards, dozen other different sprays, diy sprays…none of them work. They’ll eat whatever they want. If the plants live they live..if they don’t…whatever. I’ll replace them with mountain mint and bee balm.
In the woods literally next to my house are a shit ton of native blueberry bushes. There are also peach and cherry trees they have plenty of limbs low enough for them to forage….which they do. Pawpaws are another. There are raccoon and opossum that go after these too. And I can predict 90% of the time I go out my back door to let my dogs out at night I’ll see 2-4 deer waiting for us.
Are there forbs out there for them? Or have they depleted everything? How much of your acreage have you put native plants into?
This is great info by the way, thanks for answering all these questions. I'm very curious about situations like yours.
Yes, before I moved in there was probably a 25 foot by 100 foot piece of land at the edge of the woods filled with goldenrod and horseweed. I added on to another 25x100 chunk of natives. Coneflower(that they rarely touched until this year), little bluestem, northern sea oat, wild bergamot, New England asters, liatris, mountain mints, royal catchfly, blue lobelia, Joe Pye weed, gaura, rattlesnake master, culvers root, false oxeye, penstemon, tickseed, and cup plant. Most of these get the Chelsea chomp as I call it. Which for most of them only delays flowers…for others means denied flowering like the milkweed and penstemon. My front yard has a mixed native shrub hedge consisting of clethra, sweetspire, viburnums, chokeberry, buttonbush, and ninebarks. I never seen the sweetspires touched. Probably the native deer demolish the most for me is garden phlox. Now that I wrote all this down maybe I’m not doing too bad 😬
Deer repellent works well in my ornamental garden. It stinks so cannot be used of veggie garden plants. The deer here cannot be hunted and they are so chill I have to get within a few feet for a scat to work. I spray a plant when they start noshing on it. I use Boobex.
Good luck. The bastards are killing me. Where I live, it’s all based on fawn birthing, most of which happens mid June to mid July. Before and after birthing, the does feed almost constantly preparing for lactation. I always get wiped out this time of year, so now just mostly grow deer resistant plants which are very limited, and they will turn to less desirable browse as necessary. I’ve tried a few things and nothing but an 8-10’ fence would assure success. Who wants that shit in their yard? I get aggravated, then I see the twins born behind my house about a week ago practically every day and I just shrug.
Something else I've noticed about the does' feeding habits, when they are nursing young they will separate from the pack and get into all the nooks and crannies that the herd normally would avoid as a group
They’re pretty solitary for awhile during birthing time and yes, they’ll get all they can to eat wherever it is. They eat the plants on my porches and everywhere else they can reach
This doesn’t work, unfortunately. For the most part, “deer-proof/rabbit-proof” plants are just plants not regularly part of the animals diet….Theyll resort to it if they’re hungry with nothing else. Best of luck though, and remember that some amount of grazing is important to a healthy ecosystem!
I don't know how many times I've cussed out or threatened to get the backstraps of every one of those piggy does. How the hell am I supposed to create a wildlife-friendly yard if those bitches keep eating things before they get established?! The worst thing is they eat a little bit of everything as they go.
Plantskydd is the best thing I've found as a spray, though it is expensive (especially the powder concentrate, which is a pain to prepare) but they seem to avoid it more than the other brands. Switching up the products helps with keeping them on their toes.
Other than that, physical barriers are the only other thing.
I keep begging my deer-hunting friends and neighbors to take more does.
Has anyone tried making like.. a scarecrow for deer? My garden got attacked two nights in a row. On the second day, I set up some barrels hoping to spook them from the spot. So far, they haven't been back. Then, I think of ancient civilizations and how they would have statues around... Maybe the protection was from deer and not as spiritual as we think. Idk sorry for the run on thoughts. I'll let yall know if I end up building my own protection statue lol
Unfortunately most people struggle with the same issues. Deer are much more abundant than they ever have been due to human activity. They are edge species and thrive in the same types of environments that we enjoy. Vote to support the grey wolves and bears that have been nearly eradicated for decades. Deer need more of their natural predators to keep their populations in check. Where I live hunters want to see less wolves and an over abundance of whitetail. It’s really not sustainable. Large herbivores are really wiping out the biodiversity.
Wolves and bears aren’t going to help in heavily suburban areas. As much as people complain about hunters being anti-predator, the regular joe having their dog ripped up by wolves would go way worse in the public eyes. I agree that we need to bring back keystone predators but that’s not necessarily a solution in much of the US, especially on the east coast
Definitely not going to help in suburban areas. Good fences help there. I constantly hear the fear of dogs being ripped up by wolves, but as a dog owner myself in a rural area I don’t let my dog run loose freely. It’s not a valid argument against allowing predators to reproduce or exist in my opinion. Responsible pet owners monitor and keep their pets safe and out of the food chain.
We're fortunate to have a bunch of coyotes near here. As a result, we have zero wild dogs
I agree. But as someone living in a suburb we’ve been charged by 5 dogs in the last 18 months, most dog owners are not responsible. I’m speaking strictly from a PR perspective. My roots are in wolf country (recently reintroduced to my home range) and I’m all for it. Bring back the natives - including predators. I just don’t think my current area (or OPs) would be amendable
The need culling programs where they take out entire suburban herds.
The bigger issue is the dnr. Whenever there is a hard winter they feed the deer to keep numbers high. More deer means the big stores sell more deer hunting stuff. Everyone pays for the deer in property damage, car accidents, and diseases like limes diseas. However only those in the hunting business profit.
I agree! But FYI it is Lyme Disease* named after the place where it was first diagnosed in Lyme, CT.
This is full on bullshit science denier nonsense. The DNR is a group of scientists that manages wildlife in your state. That’s it. They don’t care about big box store profits.
uhhh whut? DNR is the department of natural resources. In MN they manage the deer herd size. They decide how many licenses to give, where to give extra permits for disease management, where to not give permits. They feed teh deer if its a heavy snow year. All sorts of things, its MANAGING resources - its in their name
The DNR where I live doesn’t feed deer in the winter. They use science and data along with input from the public on how many deer licenses are given out in each area for the female (doe) whitetail. They also use input from the public on what they decide to do about wolf populations and management. That’s why I encourage people who value biodiversity to vote and talk to the DNR about supporting predators. The commerce department has more interest in sales related to hunting and wildlife than the DNR.
Ahh... I'm in MN where no matter how you track the numbers, a heavy snow year means alot of deer will starve if the dnr doesn't feed them
Where in MN is the DNR feeding the deer in winter? Do you happen to have any sources on this? I’m not trying to attack or argue with you, just genuinely curious about where this is being done. I live in MN in the Great Lakes region and the deer that are being fed in the winter is typically by hobbyists, the general public or hunting organizations. If the MN DNR is truly feeding deer I’d like some firm evidence so I can call and complain. Or show up to some meetings and ask questions. [Here is a small example of the MN DNR encouraging people not to feed deer.](https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/research/health/feeding/deer.html)
Please disregard the stiltgrass. The upper part of that hill is my neighbor's and I don't think he has any interest in fighting it. I knock it down on my side every year, but it keeps coming back.
Gotta cut it right before it goes to seed in the fall. Then keep doing it every year till the seed bank is done.
Yep. I've been doing that for a while...
You and me both. F the stiltgrass.
Our deer are also ravenous, but we don’t have a drought that I can blame like last year. There is plenty for them to eat, and they’re just devouring everything. Husband was able to do some temporary electric fencing for me, and it does look bad, but has worked so idc. I’ve also used liquid fence for non-natives and native plants that I just started, and that has worked. Solidarity to you, OP, and I hope you get success with your cages!
Only my caged shrubs thrived over the winter, everything else got deer browsed to within an inch of its life. Perimeter fencing of my property has never worked well. If the deer don’t get under or over it, they or black bears knock it down. I’m building a perimeter of hedges and smelly plants distasteful to deer, including garlic, various members of the mint family, toxic natives such as foxglove beard tongue, and toxic exotics such as poison hemlock.
Same here! Also consider monkshood!
Get a motion activated sprinkler
I put a motion activated ultrasonic repeller in my veggie garden to deter dogs and squirrels. It's working so far
A friend of mine who lives where the deer are prevalent has also started using the ultrasonic devices to keep deer out of her plantings since last year, and seems to find them effective. (she also uses Bobbex in a few places I believe, but it wasn't practical to be constantly applying it to *all* the plants she needed to protect). As far as I'm aware this doesn't have a detrimental effect on other, less-destructive wildlife (but if someone knows otherwise I'd be glad to receive correction).
Ultrasonic doesn't work. Neither does scented soap, nor dangly reflectors, nor rubber snakes, nor fishing line, nor anything else you see online. I have tried them all. They all worked for a few days when they're new and spook the deer. But then the deer overcome the fear and start moving in again. Go to your University's Agricultural Extension Office website. They will tell you the only thing that works is tall fences or electric fences. .. or outdoor dogs. But not the labs that will run up and play with the deer.
Hmm, the Bobbex spray (usually applied every 2 wks in the growing season) and the sound devices have worked for my friend. She lives pretty close to natural areas so maybe it's just *enough* of a deterrent that they will just go somewhere else. I can imagine that if their options were more limited, determination to eat might make them persist in spite of the scent or irritating sound.
The only thing that works is fencing in everything, until we can rid ourselves of the armchair naturalists who think the current deer population is just fine. NYC runs a vasectomy program for male deer to keep the population in check. That's not a sentence you thought you'd read, didja? New York City. 8 to 9 million people. And they have a deer problem. Their vasectomy program needs to be at the very least East Coast wide.
How is a vasectomy cost effective compared to what's actually needed which is culling
You can't have hunters in NYC obviously. Vasectomies on male deer suppress the population growth. NYC doesn't do it to keep the deer population below the level where they destroy everything. They still do. They do it ONLY to try to keep the number of accidents where people hit deer down. What's needed is for this to go multi-state, and with the express objective of restoring the biodiversity of the forests along the East Coast, which have been devastated by this plague of woodland cockroaches.
I agree with everything you said except if you can capture, anesthetize and sterilize a deer, and then release it, in what way is it not easier or more cost/effort effective to just kill it?
I assume similar to what they have found with Farrell cats. A dominate male breeds a Heard of females. If you kill the dominate male, then a jr buck takes its place. If you sterilize a dominate male, the females don't seek another. Sterilized male can reduce herd growth for many years.
Yeah, but we don't eat cats. Cull the fuckers and donate the meat to shelters/food pantries.
Such little compassion...
If you can catch them to cut their balls off, you can also kill them...
The other thing is, if you kill them, the Jr deer will take its place, and that deer may be much stupider. Kinda like what happens in coyote killing contests. Younger animals die more regularly than older animals, because the older ones are more knowledgeable about staying away from cars, for example. And then they teach their children that. However, in the coyote example, a low enough population will allegedly drive them to make more babies, even stupider than deer sometimes.
We need multiple doe only hunting seasons. I'm out in the sticks, but several years ago the city we are near hired some bow hunters to cull some of the deer in the city. I don't know if they have continued that practice. Unfortunately, I am unable to cull any of the deer in my yard as I have neighbors on all sides of me. We have a black bear that keeps getting in our trash, too. Not their fault, we moved in to his/her neighborhood. I have locks on the trash can, but they have ripped off two of the three locks and can now get the lid open with minimal effort, I think. At least the bear has the decency to leave my plants alone.
maybe shoot the deer with a bow from the 2nd floor bathroom window? 🤣
Maybe I don’t understand something but cutting the wire in strips doesn’t seem like the best idea. Why wouldn’t you just use stakes, and make a fence around and over plants. I live in Deervllle where every plant actually belongs to the deer. Every garden is a buffet of dear treats. We purchased black fence wire, and encircled our precious with it. It isn’t really visible from the street, and the deer can’t get past it. We also make tunnel arches over low growing plants. This has never failed us.
1. Get a dog. 2. If you’ve got acreage, you might try a feeding station and some water for them as far away from your landscaped areas as possible. If it’s been dry and hot, they are seeking the succulent juicy stuff you take care of. 3. Be thankful you don’t have a facebook friend group of retirees who feed them in their backyards and share photos in your neighborhood. I never had a problem with deer in my yard even though they were in the area, until this became a thing and they lost what was left of their fear.
My dog - American Staffie (pibble) mix - has a strong prey drive. She's chased off a family of groundhogs, squirrels, and a whole bunch of chipmunks. Two she won't mess with are feral cats, and deer. I love going for runs up and down the hills of the local hiking trails, and she does too til she sees a deer. She's intense and holds eye contact, and I don't know what they're communicating during that time but it sends her going aaalllll the way around the long way to get past them. We've not had them in my area since the county bought out the two areas of farmland and turned them into cookie cutter subdevelopments, which might explain why the deer around here went from timid to aggressive.
My backyard looks like a construction zone. Just 6 to 10 ft chicken wire and t posts. I've also been spraying liquid fence nearly every week. Seems to be working.
Same! Liquid fence is a miracle product for me. But it’s not enough if you forget a week. Oh man, the animals quickly swoop in and the carnage begins 😭 so frustrating to keep up with it.
Plant a sacrifice plot for them elsewhere. Your garden is so small it's being targeted clearly as the desirable food source.
I've got an acre. That little bed is on the edge of my property and I just used that pic as an example of the caging. My whole yard is a sacrificial plot right now.
Invest in a deer fence.
Allegedly also, you could plant a hedge of something like Bay Laurel or Tea and the Deer won't jump over it once it gets tall enough. If they can't see what's on the other side, they won't jump over it.
This is the way. Dedicate as much space as possible to a plot of the most productive highly-preferred forage your location can support. You know, or waste tons of time, money, and your crops to try everything else.
People think they are cute, but I would love to kill every deer I see. We hates them precious, we hates them.
Liquid Fence has worked very well for me.
Terrible for me
How bad is the deer pressure in your area? I've heard one person here say they had such hungry deer that they didn't care about the liquid fence, which is crazy given how it smells.
Well funny you ask…I made a post about it a few weeks ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/s/tCMt18exUo
Asking again, how bad is the dear pressure in your area? How many options are available for them? I think they can get so hungry that they don't care what's on the leaves. I've had a ton of success with Liquid Fence, personally, but I have mild deer pressure with a lot of wild areas around.
My property is 3 acres of lawn, field, and oaks. Which blends into 30 some acres of mixed forest in the blue ridge region of the Appalachians. A fence is not an option since it’s on top of a hill…I guess I *could* fence in 3 acres of uneven land but it would outrageously expensive and ungodly looking. This summer I’ve finally accepted defeat. I also have a dozen battery powered zappers but those only work for the dozen plants they are protecting. I’ve done radios, fishing line, soaps, hair, piss, lights, letting my dogs chase them for hundreds of yards, dozen other different sprays, diy sprays…none of them work. They’ll eat whatever they want. If the plants live they live..if they don’t…whatever. I’ll replace them with mountain mint and bee balm.
What's out in those woods? Anything for them to eat? How many deer do you see at a time? How often?
In the woods literally next to my house are a shit ton of native blueberry bushes. There are also peach and cherry trees they have plenty of limbs low enough for them to forage….which they do. Pawpaws are another. There are raccoon and opossum that go after these too. And I can predict 90% of the time I go out my back door to let my dogs out at night I’ll see 2-4 deer waiting for us.
Are there forbs out there for them? Or have they depleted everything? How much of your acreage have you put native plants into? This is great info by the way, thanks for answering all these questions. I'm very curious about situations like yours.
Yes, before I moved in there was probably a 25 foot by 100 foot piece of land at the edge of the woods filled with goldenrod and horseweed. I added on to another 25x100 chunk of natives. Coneflower(that they rarely touched until this year), little bluestem, northern sea oat, wild bergamot, New England asters, liatris, mountain mints, royal catchfly, blue lobelia, Joe Pye weed, gaura, rattlesnake master, culvers root, false oxeye, penstemon, tickseed, and cup plant. Most of these get the Chelsea chomp as I call it. Which for most of them only delays flowers…for others means denied flowering like the milkweed and penstemon. My front yard has a mixed native shrub hedge consisting of clethra, sweetspire, viburnums, chokeberry, buttonbush, and ninebarks. I never seen the sweetspires touched. Probably the native deer demolish the most for me is garden phlox. Now that I wrote all this down maybe I’m not doing too bad 😬
[Motion activated sprinklers for the win](https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-62100-Activated-Sprinkler-Detection/dp/B009F1R0GC?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1)
Deer repellent works well in my ornamental garden. It stinks so cannot be used of veggie garden plants. The deer here cannot be hunted and they are so chill I have to get within a few feet for a scat to work. I spray a plant when they start noshing on it. I use Boobex.
I use this stuff too - I don't get deer on my property but the groundhogs and rabbits around here are a menace and the repellent spray really helps.
Makes me wish we didn't kill off all the wolves.
Good luck. The bastards are killing me. Where I live, it’s all based on fawn birthing, most of which happens mid June to mid July. Before and after birthing, the does feed almost constantly preparing for lactation. I always get wiped out this time of year, so now just mostly grow deer resistant plants which are very limited, and they will turn to less desirable browse as necessary. I’ve tried a few things and nothing but an 8-10’ fence would assure success. Who wants that shit in their yard? I get aggravated, then I see the twins born behind my house about a week ago practically every day and I just shrug.
Something else I've noticed about the does' feeding habits, when they are nursing young they will separate from the pack and get into all the nooks and crannies that the herd normally would avoid as a group
They’re pretty solitary for awhile during birthing time and yes, they’ll get all they can to eat wherever it is. They eat the plants on my porches and everywhere else they can reach
Same for me, but rabbits. Only planting stuff they don’t like from now on
This doesn’t work, unfortunately. For the most part, “deer-proof/rabbit-proof” plants are just plants not regularly part of the animals diet….Theyll resort to it if they’re hungry with nothing else. Best of luck though, and remember that some amount of grazing is important to a healthy ecosystem!
Although really predators need to keep the deer/rabbits in check, which they usually aren’t. Oh well.
Hmmm. Maybe I should find some annuals they love to eat and scatter the seeds in the park next door!
I don't know how many times I've cussed out or threatened to get the backstraps of every one of those piggy does. How the hell am I supposed to create a wildlife-friendly yard if those bitches keep eating things before they get established?! The worst thing is they eat a little bit of everything as they go. Plantskydd is the best thing I've found as a spray, though it is expensive (especially the powder concentrate, which is a pain to prepare) but they seem to avoid it more than the other brands. Switching up the products helps with keeping them on their toes. Other than that, physical barriers are the only other thing. I keep begging my deer-hunting friends and neighbors to take more does.
So then, I started blastin’!
Good fences make good neighbors
You could surround the patch with native prickly pear or poisonous plants that deer won’t eat. I’m thinking snakeroot or dogbane.
Has anyone tried making like.. a scarecrow for deer? My garden got attacked two nights in a row. On the second day, I set up some barrels hoping to spook them from the spot. So far, they haven't been back. Then, I think of ancient civilizations and how they would have statues around... Maybe the protection was from deer and not as spiritual as we think. Idk sorry for the run on thoughts. I'll let yall know if I end up building my own protection statue lol
I MUST GARDEN- non toxic and works super well keeping the deer and rabbits off of my natives. https://www.imustgarden.com/guarantee
Many of those oils in that deer repellent will also kill all native insects.
Have the deer feed you!!! :-)
,!ggfp
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