Deer problems yet this year?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just joined this morning, after seeing an old thread concerning deer in your yard and the destruction they do.

I live on 1/2 acre in town. We also live about 6 blocks from an Abbey that comprises a couple hundred acres plus a winery and vineyard. The monks never allowed anyone to come onto the property to deal with the wildlife, and now we have deer that have never been anywhere outside of humanity. Because of this we have an established herd of normally around 12 head, and sometimes it will swell to 25 or even more. And that’s just in my block alone. They are very territorial - which I didn’t know until this past year.

Most of the deer are so domesticated now, they can be trained much like a dog. You swat a rolled up newspaper against your leg and yell no no, and they move off. But we DO have a few that are just simply aggressive. And I do realize that it is fall, and NOT a good time to get around the bucks at all.

But in the past 24 hours I have been chased by a buck, and just this morning almost ran down in my own back yard when 3 does and their offspring came tearing through at top speed.

We have tried human hair, putrid smells, various animal urines, bear droppings from the zoo, plastic bags, motion sensor lights, extremely bright maglites directly into their eyes, throwing rocks at them, stomping, yelling - you name it, we’ve tried it.

Since we cannot obviously discharge a gun inside of city limits, we had to resort to “other” methods. We got an air soft rifle and we keep it loaded at all times. Those things HURT, they absolutely terrify the deer, and it works without actually harming them.

If all else fails - resort to this. Maybe it will work for you, too. Thanks.

2

Bow + Arrow + Darkness = Venison

3

Since I don’t see a question here, and the OP is discussing methods of deterring deer, this seems to better suited for IMHO than GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

Thanks for the advice. We have deer that will casually wander into the yard and only reluctantly leave when someone tries to shoo them off; we haven’t had problems with being run down by them yet, though. My husband did reclaim his childhood air rifle over the summer, in case things got worse.

For now, we have an electric fence around the garden, and content ourselves with the harvest of apples and pears that are too high for them to reach.

5

That’s what we had to do this year. Except we didn’t end up getting any pears because they ate them all. And the sad thing is, it’s not all of the deer who are destructive. Most of them actually leave everything alone. We just have a couple of them that have been giving us real problems.

I was talking to my next door neighbor today and was told that these same two bucks are actually EATING the siding on one corner of their house!

No bows, arrows, etc. I don’t want to actually kill them, just get these two to calm down a little. Besides, we don’t eat venison - the entire family hates wild game.

6

Yeah, there is one doe in the neighborhood who likes our fruit trees and is good at standing on her hind legs to get to them… and this year she had twin fawns. Doh!

We had to pull up three cedar shrubs because the deer keep them gnawed down to the trunks all the time.

7

This is either the ideal solution or not an option, but the best thing to keep deer out of your yard is a big dog. Works day and night.

8

It is current aproaching that time of year known a ‘the rut’, or deer mating season. The bucks will be getting more aggressive and the does more skittish over the next few weeks. The timing varies depending upon where you live.

Although I have not tried the product, Liquid Fence has been recomended to me as a repellant that actually works.

9

I thought they ran quite a distance after being shot with an arrow, much further than hit by a rifle.

10

Or jail, a hefty fine, and a criminal record.

11

Not always. :frowning: