The continuing war against the deer
We take our war against the deer very
seriously, with multiple lines of defense, obsessive
data-gathering, and a complete
willingness to shoot on sight. And we seem to be winning. As you can
see from my spreadsheet above, there hadn't been a deer in the
garden for 12 months before the most recent raid, and before that
was an eight month gap. I'm hopeful our most recent work
will keep the deer out for at least another year, maybe longer.
So what have we done
to improve the situation this time around? Mark mentioned clearing
tall weeds that shelter deer along the fencelines, putting
two of our mechanical deer deterrents back into action, adding
height to a troubled fence spot, and gating
in a gap we often walk through. We also put the wireless
deer fence
beside the most-nibbled spot and baited it with peanut
butter. I'm not sold on this little gadget actually doing
anything, but this is the kind of situation where it might come in
handy --- when a single deer is targeting one high-value spot.
We didn't stop
there. We built a trellis barrier around the dwarf apples,
which seem to be one of the deer's favorite foods. Mark
hunted down the trail
camera and
installed it to start collecting more data, and I put more trellis
material over the strawberry and sweet potato beds that are
closest to the incursion spot.
But those are really just stop-gap measures. Our
long-term goal is to moat the entire homestead,
since moats seem to be close to 100% effective at deterring deer,
even if the fences that make them up are only four or five feet
tall.
Actually, we've
already got most of the homestead moated if you count the
precipice at the edge of our plateau as a moat. (I
do.) I'd been considering leaving a deer path to let
wildlife walk between the pastures-to-be around the starplate
coop and our
blueberry patch so I'd still be able to shoot deer out the
living-room window, but now I'm thinking we'll hook those pastures
directly into our existing perimeter fence to moat that area
too. I'm not quite sure what we use we could put to a moat
above the well since we want to keep manure out of that area to
protect our drinking-water quality, but I'm sure we'll think of
something.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Have you looked into/experimented with Bone Sauce?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xVKVc4NYQ
I've yet to make a batch myself, I'm waiting on some deer bones from my uncle's hunt this year. (I think you can use any bones... but I figure deer would be an even better deterrent).
I'm very curious about your statement: Our long-term goal is to moat the entire homestead, since moats seem to be close to 100% effective at deterring deer, even if the fences that make them up are only four or five feet tall.
Never in my lifetime have I heard of using a moat to deter deer. So I must be missing something here. Firstly you do know that deer can swim right? Secondly are you putting alligators in the moat to deter the deer from swimming across the moat?
The only 100% effective way I know is to put up at 10 foot fence surrounding the orchard/farm/homestead. After you have the fence installed you can focus more time on your homestead and forget about all the wasted time worrying about deer.
Good Luck and hope you have success!
Ryan --- I've read about Bone Sauce in Sepp Holzer's book, but have major doubts it would be any more effective than the scent and taste based deterrents we've tried, all of which have failed under our heavy rain and deer pressure. I'll be curious to hear if yours does better.
Bsmith --- If you follow the link in the post, you'll see that I'm using "moat" in the permaculture sense to mean double fences with the area in between used as a pasture. They're not water moats.
Karyn --- Lucy keeps out all the small critters that plague our neighbors (raccoons, etc.), but deer don't seem to push her buttons in the same way. She'll chase one now and then, but not enough to make a difference. Our neighbors who use dogs as deterrents have found that their dogs, too, get used to deer after a year or so. One neighbor just keeps getting additional dogs every couple of years, but that's quite a menagerie!
I recently read (in passing) a comment from someone who suggested the use of thorny blackberry hedges as a barrier to deer.
It was from Rick Austin, author of "Secret Garden of Survival". (Looks like a book with some rather over-the-top survivalist language, and maybe some genuinely permaculture good suggestions - my next online purchase.)
Dirk --- Deer are mostly night critters (and are very visual), so that makes sense. However, their eye sight is so good from those huge eyes of theirs that they don't seem to bash into barriers. With electric fence (where the wires are so small and far apart), people do sometimes add a visual cue, but they don't seem to need it with our chicken wire.
Faith --- A blackberry hedge might work if it was at least four or five feet deep and managed so the plants were mashed all together, the way blackberries grow in the wild. Of course, managed that way, you'd only be able to harvest a very small percentage of the berries yourself.