Do you have a dog you can leave out over night? We have two farmcollies. They ran deer off consistently enough to persuade them to move on to easier meals. The dogs don't touch the deer. Once they were away from the garden the chase was over.

Robin thanks for your suggestion. We do have two dogs
neither of whom like to be left out all nite.
They are both snuggled up in bed with me at nite. Sounds like
we could use a collie. I know my dogs would run off the
deer if they were near the house. Unfortunately the garden
is a good ways from the house. We have been going out
at night before bed on a four-wheeler to check if the deer
is there and bring the dogs, but the nite is long and
eventually we need to sleep. Every year this
farming profession has obstacles to overcome.
If its not the weather, its critters.

A fellow market gardener is trying a device which comes on at night and periodically emits the sound of a cougar. Supposedly it makes an audible 'hiss'. He is also planning to spread some blood which is supposed to deter them by their sense of smell. This is just brand new, so I don't have a recommendation yet, but it seems logical.

The next problem is how to deal with the massive influx of cougars it attracts to the neighborhood........LOL!

I knew of a survey of cougars in one area where they counted them by getting a genetic sample. How? Well, like a housecat, if is senses a spot is marked by another cat, it will rub its chin on it and try to mark over it some. So they had rub spots set up that had nails sticking out of them. A little fur would be left on the nails and they could then do a DNA analysis to see who had been there. They were baited with cougar urine, and that worked for a while until they found something better. One of the researchers accidentally spilled his coke on it, and they got a big jump in the number of cats that rubbed there.

Yes, Coka-Cola! It's better than cougar urine!

But I digress.

Gillie, what kind of fence do you use? Last year we used 8' tall used sheep fence (2 four foot tall fences stacked on 6 1/2 foot tall posts). This year we have a bigger market garden and we're using Premier's 3-D electric deer fence. So far, so good.

Dan

i am also using the 3d fence and so far its been working.
i have about 2 acres fenced in.

I hate to be an adverstisement for products - but I have two acres in the midst of the woods with about a billion deer. I use a product called liquid fence once a week and it works - does not really seem to affect rabbits though - but I swear - no deer.

Here is a link that might be useful: liquid fence site

I have New Zealand electric fencing (8 feet tall, wires one foot apart, at an outward angle, with a heckuva jolt on it) around one garden and deer netting around the other. The electric fence has been working perfectly for the six years it's been up. The deer netting is 7 feet tall and fastened to the ground so nothing can slither under it, but it has only been in place since spring of this year, so I can't vouch for it yet. So far, so good. My sister has similar netting around her garden. She has a problem with rabbits getting in, but I don't know if her fence is fastened to the ground.

We are keeping out an unbelievable deer population, plus the occasional elk, moose, bears, cattle, and rabbits.

Jeanne

I'll put in another vote for electric fencing and a dog. We have both -- fence wires are at 5", 10", 20", 30", & 40" to keep out little critters as well as bear and the herd of deer that used to eat everything we planted; and a young Great Pyrenees we just acquired this spring who spends his nights on patrol. At the advice of the folks who sold us our fencing , we baited it with tinfoil and peanut butter, and within a few days at least half of the pieces had been torn down. Someone thought the peanut butter was worth the jolt -- probably a bear -- but we have not lost any of our crops this year.

Cindy

I'll chime in on the Liquid Fence. It has worked like a charm on deer but I've had the same results as misterg regarding rabbits.

An update on the cougar-emulating sound device.
It didn't work, especially during daylight, and even with the suggested application of slaughterhouse blood and offal, to simulate a 'kill' believe it or not!

The deer didn't believe it, but the farmers believe they are installing a proper fence, pronto.

My deer proof fence is 2"x4" welded wiremesh 4 ft. high, 6 ft T-posts every 10 ft, and every other T-post has a 3ft section of 1&1/2" PVC pipe slipped over it. These extensions support up to 3 elecric wires for a final fence height of 7 ft. I held off installing the 3rd wire and so far have no problem, so my fence is a little over six ft tall.

Good luck fighting the deer, "if you plant it, they will come", so better invest in a good fence to protect your investment in plantings. It also keeps out wandering dogs, cattle, sheep and goats.

Ever imagine what an escaped herd of 20 head of cattle can do to an otherwise immaculate but unfenced 1 acre market garden?
Believe me, you don't want to know!

We kept a herd of the neighbor's escaped Angus cattle out with the New Zealand deer fence. It was early fall, when their pasture was poor to non-existent, but there was this yummy-smelling market garden so close by .... I didn't see it, but my sister did. She was laughing when she told me about it. This fence is slanted outwards, so the cattle would get their heads and horns caught in it before they really saw it. One at a time, they would approach it, then suddenly rear and buck and bellow and run. The others would stand there, and pretty soon another would try it, with the same results. Did I mention this fence has a BIG jolt on it?

Every wire of the bottom few wires is hot, so if the animal has even one foot on the ground, they get the jolt. The upper wires are every other, since the animal would have to be airborne to get through them, so a ground wire is needed to complete the circuit. The bottom wire is pretty low down, so not even rabbits get through. Only underground critters come in.

I tried the deer netting as a less-expensive alternative to electric fencing, but it isn't cheap either. I'm not sure we saved anything on that. I forgot to mention that my sister has had her deer netting up for two years now with no deer getting through.

It seems like a lot of effort and expense, but it pays for itself. Imagine losing most of your garden to the varmints over, say, a week. In the fall when their food runs out, they get hungrier and bolder.

A neighbor has a four-foot hog-wire fence with three strands of electric above it, 8 feet tall total. It has kept out deer and bears that she is aware of, but all the same animals live in her neighborhood, so I bet it has kept moose and elk out too.

Oh, and I've had the experience of my dog suddenly deciding one day that he wasn't going to chase deer any more. I came out the front door one day to find a doe and fawn munching away happily on my roses .... with Barkley lying on his bed right next to the door, not 20 feet from them, watching them happily and quietly. I could not talk him out of this decision. He never chased or barked at a deer again. A year later, I finally gave up and asked my husband to put an electric fence around what was left of my house garden.

A fence will work, but only if it's high enough, strong enough, wide enough, and maybe electric enough. Deer can jump high or wide, but not both. People report success with four-foot fences, but only if there are two of them, four feet apart. For the true Gestapo-look security, you run a guard dog between the fences.

Jeanne

I grow two acres of cowpeas every year, and the deer will wipe them out every time. I now use Garlic Barrier and it keeps them away. It also seems to help on the curculio problem we have down here. Also, late spring, I cornered 5 head in an area they couldn't get out of quickly and shot 'em 15 times with a .22...........I ain't seen 'em since! Only 1 deer in the last three months...

I find the idea of wounding five deer in that way repulsive.

I am a deer hunter, by the way, but what you did was unethical. Quite likely the deer didn't come back because they died a slow death somewhere from being shot in the belly.
Most states will issue a "nuisance deer permit", which allows control and is a more humane measure. The meat could be donated to a food bank.
I will admit to having poached one nuisance deer out of season, as a last resort. None of the meat was wasted. It was continually inside a six foot electric fence. The next year I built a proper fence and have had no further problems. Don't expect garlic to do the job of keeping deer out of 2 acres of cowpeas.

I have roses and have used Liquid Fence on my roses, it seems to work exactly like they say. I noticed the last rose bush near an open field was always nibbled on and wasn't growing like the rest. Now it has not been touched for a few months since I applied it.

thread resurrection. this was my second year with the 3d fence (premier) and it still works very well.liquid fence looks like it could get expensive after a couple of years.

After the second full year with the plastic deer mesh fence, nothing has gotten in.

Jeanne