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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] deer success story
  • Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 07:30:28 -0500

We actually have a major success story with keeping out deer.

First, our condition. We live on the edge of a large wooded area owned by several very rich people. We are talking 10's of thousands of wooded acres. Land where the deer aren't hunted. On the other side are the approaching suburbs. Right now they are building MacEstates on our DC side, putting up huge brick things on 10 acre lots. Ideal habitat for deer.

We have a history of major deer damage. Two years ago I estimated we lost over $7000 worth of vegetables to the Bambi gang.

We have tried everything. smelly soap, rotten eggs, speakers going on and off, tall fences (under duress with a running start deer can jump a twelve foot one) electric fences, baited electric fences. We have shot them, shot at them, sprayed crops with the stinkiest fish emulsion, covered crops with row covers.

None of that worked for more than a week until the deer figured it out and went on eating our vegetables.

(which crops do deer most like to eat?)

So last year we decided to take a new tack. First we decided to put up an anti deer fence as recommended in the Premier catalog. You know, a 3-D fence. We had tried this in the past but not seriously. The deer would find a corner where the fence wasn't as 3-D as in other places and go through or over, or often under.

Last year we put up a pretty serious 3-D fence around everything. We then bought a serious charger for the fence, one that really let you know if you touched it. And, of course we baited it, this time instead of peanut butter, we baited it with apple scent.

But, I don't think the fence by itself would have worked. What I think really, really did the trick was the dog.

We got a grown, experienced Great Pyrenees.

We actually got the dog as a rescue. Half way across the state our dog had eaten the neighbors dog when the neighbors dog cut across its property. The local judge was threatening to have the Great Pyrenees put down if it wasn't shipped out of the county.

This dog is a godsend. I couldn't pay humans to do what he does. He is always on duty. He can smell a wild animal from a great distance and, unlike other livestock breeds, he doesn't wait for the wild animal to attack his charges, he goes after it.

There was a time where I saw a dozen deer around the farm every day of every year. Now, I don't see deer within half a mile.

Last year we had absolutely no deer damage.

Not only that, our GP took out the ground hogs. During the winter he dragged a couple deer out of the woods that he had obviously caught sleeping, and he ate them in the field in front of our house.

Draw backs:

A GP needs a good fence or at least plenty of land to roam on. He is not a breed that wants to stay put. he wants to push his perimeter and will go through, under or over most farm fences. We are fortunate that we have plenty of land or land around us that he is not going to get in trouble on.

And if you are looking for a doorbell dog, one that barks when strangers approach. He isn't the breed. He does not consider people to be the enemy and doesn't bark. Unlike the Komondorak we have had in the past we have no fear that he might bite one of our customers that shows up at the farm. The problem is that with people he runs out to be petted.





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