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["Tim Inman" <Tim@historicinteriors.com>]

I have extreme deer pressure, too.  I just keep trying different things.  It seems to me that they all work - for awhile.

 

As for dogs, my mother suggested I try a pack of Jack Russell terriers.  I'm sure they'd work, but I'd go nuts in the process.  They are aggressive little comedians, but they bark and are very 'assertive' - not mean, assertive!  My official farm collie passed away this past fall.  He had made a contract with the deer.  He chased them a little to make a good show, and they obligingly ran off into the fields a few hundred yards so it would look good.  Then, when the 'show' was over the collie went back to sleep and the deer went on with their snooping.  (My deer are not hungry, they're nosy!)

 

On repellents, I hang dried blood sacks in the trees along with the Zest soap.  I put commercial deer repellants around.  They don't like cloves, so I rain clove powder around.  I play the radio for them until I find they've acquired a taste for the station I'm playing.  I keep a herd of barn cats on the prowl, too.  I may start putting a dozen eggs at each tree to rot.  Havent done that yet.

 

As for fences, here's my story on that:  The Arbor Day Farms (Historic Arbor Day) in Nebraska City, NE, keeps an historic preservation orchard.  They graciously allow folks to go in and take scion cuttings.  To get to the old trees, one must pass through a maze of steel gates and chain link fence.  Then you go along past a high voltage electric fencer which makes the whole fence hum - and which literally made the hair on my arms stand up.  That fencer charges a high chain link fence (8ft or more) which has barbed wire on the top and razor wire on top of that.  It is a highly secure area.

 

So my friend and I were following the orchard map collecting rare and exotic apple scions a few years ago.  We were focused on our task, but we both happened to look down at the same moment.  There, to our surprise and amazement, right in the middle of the historic apple orchard preserve, surrounded by all this security, were piles and piles of deer droppings.  They had discovered that this was indeed a safe and secure place to spend their idle time.  It had delicious sweet apple wood to munch on, too.  Somehow, they had figured out a way to get in - and out.

 

The orchard manager told me they had just kind of given up.....

 

Good luck!  Keep fightin' 'em.

 

Tim Inman

Randolph, IA

 

Message: 3
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:37:48 -0600
From: "Jim Fruth" <jfruth@tds.net>
Subject: [NAFEX] Fences for deer proofing
To: "NAFEX" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
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reply-type=original

    Since I can't legally build an eight foot fence, I'm seriously
considering installing a 'weed burner' electric fence on the inside of my
woven wire fence.  When the deer jump the 30" fence, they land (on the
inside) about 3' from the fence.  It is my thinking that if they get a good
jolt inside the fence, it'll send the message that pain is to be had inside
the fence.
    Has anyone tried this?

Jim Fruth
Brambleberry Farm
Pequot Lakes, MN  56472
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