The Deer Dilemna

[RudolfTheRed]

the deer dilemma seems to be taking care of its self around here lately. in the past 2 weeks i have seen 5 dead deer on the roads. we're seeing to much growth around here that is why.
soon enough i will have to retreat further into the woods!

 

[SwampSavant]

That is a interesting idea silverback but have you considered the possible drawbacks of spraying poison on something you plan of ingesting?

A good trick is to tie up trip lines with soda cans. Put BB's or rocks inside the cans and when the deer trips them the noise will scare them so bad they usually stay away. If that does not work try a slap stick trap. It is the same as a spring loaded spike trap except it's only a stick. Take a slim flexible branch and make a trip wire where you know the deers will walk. When they trigger it the stick slaps them in the leg "try not to load to much pressure in the stick, we are just trying to scare the poor thing not hurt it" and bye bye deer.

 

[fishheadbob]

" Rats on stilts ". Irish spring was previously mentioned as being fairly effective. If you're ever in the big city find a hotel supply store in the yellow pages, try to buy a carton of the hotel sized bars.
Most effective commercial repellants contain dried blood, putrified eggs, nicotine, and naptha (mothballs). Some also have hot peppers in them. I'd consider spraying a repellant early on, the problem comes as you get closer to harvest time and don't want any of that crap on your girls.
When these little deeries get the munchies nothing is 100% foolproof.
Be sure to get a hunting license in the fall, target the ladies, the breeders, but this can take a long time to get population down. Numbers of hunters are way down, natural predators have been gone for 100 years, and there's more whitetails than there have ever been. I'm happy, there's 2 dead does about a half mile apart on the road today. Somebody needs a lot of bodywork.
SB When milkweed is around you might want to mix up some of that in one of your potions. Only thing that eats it are monarch butterflies.

 

[LolaGal]

We have cougars, wolves, coyotes & lots and lots of DEER here. I doubt the coyote piss would effect deer at all, since they do not prey on deer. I'm betting on the cougar piss scaring the hell out of them....now if only one would pee in a jar for me...Haha.

Putting bloodmeal, dried blood etc. will attract coyotes etc., to your grow and they will dig up the dirt thinking there is a dead body or bones buried. This winds up with your plants dug up!

On my way to the phone to call the zoo for cougar piss....later

 

[Molson]

Deer repellent study

Includes assessment of coyote urine, dial soap, netting, and commercial deer repellents....

 

[Guyute54]

Liquid fence has worked well for me through out the years. That Bear spray stuff don't sound like a good idea to me I would rather have a deer eat one of my plants than a bear eating my ass.

 

[wantaknow]

go to the zoo and get ya some tiger or cougar skat ,it will work ,there are several booby traps that are set up by trip wire ,that hold a 12 ga shot gun shell you can empty the shot out of it ,try google

 

[Guest]

very good information Molson. Welcome. I agree with their conclusion that one can benefit from paying attention to the animal. During years of plentiful rainfall, I can tell that the deer never leave a very small area. They stand up, start eating, eat in a circle most of the day and then lay back down.

I swear ive had deer eat a plant within 30 minutes of being drenched with Deer Away.


I would advise caution with chiken wire or netting. Years ago, i made that mistake and when i arrived at the site, my plants, the deer and a barb-wire fence were all tangled up together in my painstakingly installed deer fence of chiken wire. The deer was panicked and wild eyed with it's leg hung in the chicken wire and the chicken wire hung in the fence. My dog was raisin hell and the whole event
ranks at the top of my list of horror grow stories.

Hey fisheadbob. Milkweed is on the list. The only reason im not using it is that i would have needed to collect the pods last summer to make the extract and i didn't.


Swamp, Ive put a piece of scotch tape on a fan leaf when a plant is 2' tall, and then looked for that piece of tape and leaf when the plant is 7' tall. Its not there, the leaf isnt there, hell the branch isn't even their anymore. since I will stop spraying in late june, I feel any poison shoud have disapated by oct 15

Hey Rudolf, you cant run over enough of the bastards. Your just increasing the coyote and buzzard populations. There isnt a car around here with straight fenders.

wantaknow becareful with firearms in the patch. If caught, most cops would love to shoot a drug crazed, drug gang member with known ties to the terrrorist caught red handed in the patch. You'de have more holes than a watering can.

 

[querkle]

put up a fence

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

I would advise caution with chiken wire or netting. Years ago, i made that mistake and when i arrived at the site, my plants, the deer and a barb-wire fence were all tangled up together in my painstakingly installed deer fence of chiken wire. The deer was panicked and wild eyed with it's leg hung in the chicken wire and the chicken wire hung in the fence. My dog was raisin hell and the whole event
ranks at the top of my list of horror grow stories.

Good day silverback

last night before going to bed I read this thread, and then had a dream about the horror story you told us with the deer, would you care to tell us how it all ended please? also had a dream right after that one about that crazy liger THC123 posted in the first page, that thing is enormous!

thanks,

peace and good health

 

[Molson]

Silverback, could you elaborate a little more on your experience using chicken wire? Cuz that's exactly what I was going to use this year.

I'm only doing AFs so I figure I'll only need a 1-2ft high 'fence', which in theory should work great because it's small, discreet, and should theoretically physically keep the deer off. And if a deer can easily destroy a full sized plant, it should have no problem with with AFs.

Maybe a combination of repellents (physical barrier + coyote piss) is the best solution?

 

[Guest]

Hey Molson

The deer somehow got one of his hooves tangeled in the chicken wire which i assume spooked the animal, causing it to fight and flail about. I m sure that dragging the fence behind him caused him to panic and take off only to become entangeled in the first barbed wire fence it came too and tried to jump.

Im guessing the deer had been trapped and tangeled in the fence about 4 days before i found him. He needed water badly and was wild eyed and frothy. It was dangerous as hell and took hours to cut him free. Never again for me.

 

[Fingaz2]

`Hey up Silver.... I'm not really into magic or the occult, but theres an interesting piece about Rudolph Steiner clearing a plague of rabbits from an estate in Austria, I think he got some fresh rabbit testicles, some spleen & skin, burnt them & made a distillation of the stuff, this he then diluted a la homeopathetically,(a thousand times) before spaying. Apparantly the rabbits fled in their droves. Hmmm. Its well documented. Google steiner, rabbit plague. Rabbits are similar to deer, they are just smaller.
"Just dont knock anything till you tried it!"

 

[LolaGal]

Dang, Zoo won't mail me any big cat poo....they're worried about health hazards.....how provincial....lol

 

[North]

Ok, i cant take it anymore, I HAVE to reply,

As a life long deer hunter/ outdoors man/ nature nut, I can say without exception that if a deer is really hungry and its eying your plants, theres nothng short of a 8foot high fence that will stop them.

that said, LOTS of thing can help discourage them, scents,sound or barriers.

everyone has different scenarios that they grow in and some approaches might not work for any or all,but I feel the best routes are as follows,

1- fence, chickenwire, fishing line- most likely to be effective,but also the most work and most obvious/risky.

2- scents, soap,mothballs,hair, predator urine/dung- pretty effective,but they lose potency and degrade after varying times, critters get accustomed to things after a bit if it doesnt threaten them regularly.lookk for trapping suply places for wolf and cat urines, but remember you'll need to make scent bombs or spray often.

3-sound- someone suggested this upthread and its something I hadnt even thought of deer can be pretty spooky about unnatural sounds.
I dont think I'd use a windchime, just cause of the human factor of plants being detected that way, but I like the idea of small bells or a can with BBs in it hooked up to say a fishing line tripwire, mavbe hook that to a fish line fence around your plants.

4-commercial repellants- i've used these with good and bad success, and given the studies, like the one posted upthread, I think theyre a crap shoot, and its back to "how hungry are they?".

90% of the damage deer will do will be 1 of 2 times, early spring when plants are young and tender, or during dry periods and the surrounding vegitation is dried out and you got nice lush green salad out there for them.

my usual M.O. is to construct discreet bariers around seedlings made fron surrounding sticks and thorny stuff, scatter chips of soap(irish spring) around at EACH visit,if it dries out and I need to water, I'l often use a commercial spray on the plant as long as I know i have veg. time and it will wash off before harvest and mold time. i piss around plants when i can also, but dont save urine to carry out there.i'll also leave cig butts around , deer have cigs.



North

 

[BROKENFINGERS]

Hey everyone I dont know if it was mentioned
but I read an article in hightimes a few years ago
about making a mixture of hotpeppers and water
and spraying it on the leaves. I haven't used it
myself but it seems like it would work I just wouldn"t
use during the end of the season. If anyone has Tryed
it give a heads up on your experience.

 

[LolaGal]

Hmmm, not so sure any deterrent will work here...Yesterday I had a deer lying outside my front door in broad daylight, TV on window open..... I hollered at it, and it just looked at me in a bored fashion....

I put out salt licks for em, AWAY from grow areas, to help em along....lol

 

[little j]

just to add. deer are my problem also. ive tried everything. human piss does not work. curiosity factor. this goes for strange scents also. at night, in my area, deer will investigate strange scents. by day they will not check it but we have few natural, really threatening predators here. fishing line was a try last year and i had a deer check out the patch got tangled up and ripped the shit out of the whole thing as it was trying to get out. minimal damage so that is something but damage just the same. maybe it would take a taste test and leave. minor damage. maybe it freaked out and tore the place to pieces. more damage. its a crap shoot but no fishing line for me this year. deer are unavoidable, kinda. my real problem is digging animals. wild pigs. the only thing for them is a barrier of chicken wire strung tight to the brush. and its not fool proof. i still had a problem.
the thing that worked best was a natural barrier of briars. i planted in the middle of a patch of thorns next to a deer trail and the plant stayed almost untouched all year. (i had a fan leaf or 2 get taste tested) but no biggy. i also go in with some perfume. if it helps for a day or 2 to keep animals freaked out so be it. i dont spray next to the plant but on some trees 20-30 yards away. again, working the curiosity factor here. you have to play their game in my area. thanks. little j

 

[killa-bud]

any one mention rosemary?

i've read in a gardening book that deer hate the stuff....idk how effective it is....or how you'ed apply it

maybe boil it in some water and spray it around your plants?

 

[LolaGal]

Heck, if rosemary works, I'll plant it all around the plots...