permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Kevin,

I tried the system you describe. Three feet apart is too little; deer can
jump a 3-foot span (at least the mule deer in the US west can). I also tried
4-foot spans, but one buck learned that if he went to the corner he could
jump into the space between, and then do a second diagonal jump into the
garden. The other deer learned quickly to copy him. An 8-foot fence is the
only thing that worked. I tried all the other solutions too: hanging bars of
soap, fishing line, etc. With 3 strands of electric fence, they learn that
if they are mid-air when they go through them they are not grounded and thus
don't get shocked. Had pretty good luck with 5 feet of chicken wire lying on
the ground all the way around the garden plus a 4-foot fence, but grass
grows up through the chicken wire and then the deer walk on it. Do the big
fence and stop worrying.

Toby

On 4/16/06 6:33 AM, "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net> wrote:

> kevin s wrote:
> 
>> apologies if this had been a previous thread, but i am wondering
>> about opinions on deer fencing.
>> 
>> we are thinking about electric, and using a system where you put two
>> parallel fence lines in, about 3ft apart.  the outside fence line has
>> two strands, and so does the inner fence, but they are at different
>> heights, the highest being the inner line, but that only goes to 48in.
>> 
>> the idea is that the deer won't jump the distance, and you just need
>> to keep them from crawling thru the outer fence
>> 
>> besides the expense, the main downside of this system is the
>> maintence to keep the weeds out of the wires
>> 
>> i wish i knew of an alternative, and unfortunately just allowing the
>> deer to have their share won't work in our deer saturated region
>