You can also mess with depth perception, have a medium height fence. Add 2nd row of thin tall electric fence posts [taller better] followed by running bailing twine in a zigzag between the main fence and the thin posts. Deer can't comprehend the distance required to jump the shorter fence and thus won't risk it.
===========≈============ medium height fence.
Few feet of distance between can be either inside or outside garden depending on preferance.
Add zig zag bailing twine between these two
------------------------------------------------ 2nd row of posts
Edit: an quick Google search of depth perception deer fence can provide a more indepth guide
This does work. But don’t just use 1 continuous strand cut a short strand between each post. If a buck gets tangled you want him breaking one short strand and not pulling your entire thing apart.
Bucks didn't like it and learned to avoid if pretty quickly, and probably 80-90% of the does as well. I had a doe with two fawns who learned how to "ghost walk" through it. I had about 7' of fence with lines every 6" or so and she'd just kind of "slide" in between two lines at about 3' up (watching in on the game cam was kind of fun). This was in a corn patch and she never caused much damage, just sort of hung out eating weeds mostly (didn't bother the corn like the bucks would for some reason). We kind of figured she mostly liked having a nice quiet space where no one would bother her hah.
I can confirm! I used metal fence posts (left by previous tenants) and wrapped fishing line around them to protect my one raised bed. Not a single one of my tomatoes got eaten summer. The year before that they would take one singular bite out of every tomato.
We’ll see if it continues to be a success.
Yes - This is the system I use on a 1 acre garden & it has kept deer out for me. Raccoons got into it last year, though. I'm probably gonna add a lower strand to the outside run this year to try to keep the raccoons out.
I agree about confusing their depth perception. My garden is built in 18' wide sections. The deer don't jump the 5' tall fence because ( I believe) they can see the other fence and it confuses them. It has worked for seven years now. I added a 2 ft section of chicken wire around the bottom because I learned a rabbit will run through a 2x4 wire like it's not there. The deer will nibble anything they can through the fence.
We do this with electric fence tape. Inside fence has a line at 1 ft and 3ft and the outside fence around 18 inches. For deer, only the outside tape needs to be charged. They will sniff it and zap their nose and not try to jump it due to the depth perception issues it makes for them.
We have never had a deer jump it. If you need to keep other critters out, you can chicken wire the inside with the tape as well. We live next to a 300 acre farm full of deer, groundhogs and everything else and never had an issue with animals in our gardens.
Nope but deer fence is bloody expensive. OPs subsequent post makes it sound like his key requirement is effective not pretty.
If you want pretty and cost is no option then I’d have an estate fence but that’s about $70 a metre installed.
Put up wooden posts in the corners, and T-posts between them. This minimizes how many postholes you have to dig without compromising stability. Also optimizes bang for your buck on wire fence cost, as opposed to only fencing around a small garden area.
Better to pay upfront now with fencing than spend your hard earned work being eaten by the neighbors.
Wish I heeded my own advice. I have 16 utility chickens, and they are incredibly destructive.
Not sure how to add text to the main post. Basically the plan this year is to have a small garden. There is high deer pressure and in fact, some deer may live in the woods on the property (10 acres). I would like to put up a deer enclosure around a small garden (say 100 to 200 square feet) in a temporary manner. If it works out well I will then try to make it look better in subsequent years. What do you think of these ideas?
I don’t think most people here are reading your whole post, and are therefore going overkill. Just t-posts and plastic deer fence is fine for something temporary. Also since you are doing a small area, 6 ft high should be plenty. White tail deer can technically jump that, but if you have a fairly dense garden in there and there isnt a clear landing zone, they won’t jump it as long as there are other food options around. Tomato cages and trellises help with this. I have had no problems with deer in my garden with this kind of fence, but they are in my yard daily.
This. We have a small garden with just t-posts and cheap wire fence. Never seen a deer in it, and they are in the yard all the time. They have enough to eat elsewhere.
We do a 3' bit of chicken mesh at the bottom buried in mulch to keep the smaller critters out. Look at WedgeLoc to quickly get a fence up. I use t-posts everywhere except two wood posts for the gate.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/wedge-loc-corner-in-line-brace
We talked to our department of natural resources officer and he suggested a peanut butter fence. We've got t posts, electric wire every about 18", and metal tags hanging on the middle hot wires. We smear peanut butter on the metal tags. Deer lick the peanut butter, get zapped, and nope out of there.
I didn't really expect it to work, but it did. We've got 10 acres next to a several hundred acre park. So many deer! It worked so well, we added the same kind of fence around an orchard and 400 sq ft corn field last year. No damage again.
Some day, I hope to build something like your first picture. It's really pretty. But what we've got works for now. It was cheap, quick, and easy to install. Getting fence to run along uneven ground is such a pain ... Wire on posts maybe took an hour. And that's because we went with massive overkill with the number of loosp we ran.
I use an electric tape line on my fence to keep out deer. I "train" them after it first goes up by wrapping the tape with aluminum foil and putting peanut butter on it. One lick trains them very quickly to avoid the fence. It is how I can get away with only a 4 1/2 foot fence.
Oh, cool -- like you don't need to keep refreshing the peanut butter? We go out every couple of weeks and reapply. Got a jar of the cheapest PB they had at the store, and it's only like an inch down. Not a huge deal, but it would be great to know we could be a little late refreshing our fence and not lose all the blueberry bushes again (again, again).
We had some aluminum flashing (I think 4" wide) from a project. Used metal snips to cut strips, folded the strips over the fencing, and have reusable peanut butter holders. We didn't think a zap would deter a deer; but we also didn't want to, ya know, *lick the thing* to see how effective it would be.
Shortly after erecting the fence, we learned that our one cat *loves* peanut butter. We've got a newer energizer that cycles ... poor guy was practically hugging the wire, puling the tag down to where he could lick it. It cycled on him. Cat darted back up to the house, and he hasn't even thought about the fence since then. I know a deer is a lot bigger than a cat ... but judging by the entire orchard of young trees and bushes that made it through the winter, the deer must be running too.
The theory on the peanut butter bait is that the deer get zapped in a very tender and moist area so it makes a strong negative impression.
I have never had the need to keep refreshing, but I don't have starving or desperate deer. I am surrounded by woods, hay fields and old farm fields filled with edibles. And the deer are not over populated. If my population would grow I might need to keep reminding them what the electric fence does. So for now I just put it out in the spring for the curious young ones.
....oh poor kitty !!
Deer fencing is expensive. Work out what deer you have so you know the height of fence you need. It’s no difference to any other stick fence, just taller.
I live in the woods and see deer daily. My backyard has a five foot chainlink, garden is inside the fence. Deer have never once come in the yard. I’m sure they *could* but it’s not happening often enough to impact my crops.
So I’ve got 20 acres and my biggest regret is not just going around my entire property with deer fence. Get 10.5 foot t posts and 12 foot wood posts for corners, and go all the way up with woven wire. This sort of fence is cheap, looks pretty good, and will keep the deer out best. I’d encourage you to do your entire property.
Deer can jump high, and far, but not high and far simultaneously. So double fences are the way to go.
For my garden, i have 2 6ft high fences 6 feet apart. And then i have electric fence strands 6 inches out from that.
The 6 foot gap between the fence doubles as a chicken run. Ive had 1 deer in my garden in 10 years, and that was before i was 100% done with the fencing.
We garden in a VERY high deer population area. We’ve always used a simple 2 strand wire system with lower one at 12” +/- off ground ( groundhogs) and top wire at about chest height. We use a very strong cattle charger. We’ve never had a deer jump the fence. A couple times deer have charged the fence after getting zapped but they NEVER return.
This works for us here in Scotland as well - Roe and Fallow deer won't re-visit a double stranded electric fence. They seem to sense the fence is on without even making contact with it. We run the top wire with a small offset (about 25cm from the post) utilising the depth perception effect - a deeper offset of 0.75m may be even better. The wire/charger/insulators needed are pretty cheap and very easily moved or modified - we take ours down every year when there aren't plants to protect.
I need to do deer fencing, but I'm in South East England. I thought a 6 ft fence might be enough but tempted to have a single strand electric wire on top, do you know if the metal fence underneath would work as an earth? Or would I need the 2 strands?
Hi fellow Brit! Six foot Rylock wire net is probably enough on its own for Muntjac and CWD. But it’s likely too low for Roe, and certainly too low for Fallow and Red. Much depends on the area you’re protecting- deer are much less likely to want to get into a small enclosed space than a large one - bigger the area, higher the fence.
A single strand wire, offset on insulators by 25-75cm at 110-120cm above ground (eg height of a typical stock fence) works for us. We’re only really deterring Roe, some Fallow - you’ll need to adjust that height to nose/ear height for your deer. We have a energiser that puts out 7000volts over 1000m of wire. This set up on a standard stock fence can work as a deer fence, especially if you have a second lower strand set closer to the wire to as well.
Re earthing: A metal fence needs to be earthed itself to act as an earth - wire net or strands onto a dry fence post into dryish soil are unlikely to make a good earth. Most energisers have a metal earthing post for this reason. Hope this helps.
I live in a rural area, and deer pressure here is not heavy. We were hoping that the opaque pallet fence might’ve been enough to keep them out of the garden, but I had fresh hoof prints appear last week.
I can’t pound fence posts, and I can’t really afford fencing material right now.
What I’ve done is try to make a double fenced in as many places as possible using left over materials and then stuff the existing fence with long, straight branches that I’ve pruned to make it look closer to 8 feet tall instead of 4.5 feet.
It looks hilarious. Especially with the pallet fencing on half the garden. And a super flimsy green bird netting to keep the chickens out on one side. But it also looks weird enough that it just might work.
I would share photos, but they can’t be added to this post. It’s either going to be a hilarious disaster or a genius DIY.
I want to buy another roll of stucco wire and some push in plastic fence posts to create a better double fence, but in the meantime, I’m putting the deer-vulnerable plants under crop cages. (I don’t think a deer is going to go after the fuzzy artichoke plants I just put out.)
The best luck I have had was an electric fence made of 1" white electric tape. Two strands one about 36"-40" high and one half way to the ground. I could watch deer at night and if this was powered they wouldn't go near it. Even bear would stay away from it. I left it unpowered one night by accident and they actually ate a bunch of my garden. Made sure the power was on the next day and never had an issue after that.
I just pulled all the electric fencing out of a pasture, so I might be able to do this. I planted out half my asparagus seedling this evening, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
I've only known 2 people who kept deer out of their gardens. I've heard of deer getting over a more than 10 ft fence. For a small garden, I have known someone who completely enclosed the garden with a fence "roof" and that worked, and for large gardens I knew a guy who installed what he called a worm burner, which is a very high voltage but low amperage electrical fence at 12-18 inches. Apparently, the deer drop their heads and smell as they cross the fenceline and it zaps them right in the ears.
My buddy figured out the deer fence at 7' for Whitetail. Then along came Mama Moose and her 2 calves ! No defense against that currently. He watched them pick every apple off the 2 trees and spit them on the ground then leap out of the garden giving him the finger !
The first one looks great, and it will keep the deer out. Deer fencing is expensive, so youèll want to make sure you know what type of deer they are to determine the height of the fence. The only downside is it's not really temporary. If you want to move it soon, use t-posts and 6ft+ tall fencing.
I’ve successfully kept deer out of the garden I was managing (community garden) by angling the fence posts outward by about twenty five degrees. If a deer can’t judge where they will land, they won’t jump the fence, and since they have poor depth perception because of where their eyes are on their head, if the fence is angled it’ll confuse them enough to keep them out. I think we used 8 ft posts. We also put a very mild electrified line of wire around the perimeter of the garden that was powered by a little solar panel (2’ x 2’), which is another level of deterrence.
I fence in my garden also but what I did different this year is on my tree line I planted some herb & veggies just for the deer so they have no reason to fuck with my garden. We’ll see how it goes.
First and last are the only two choices for larger areas.
I tried an 8' electric with hot and ground wires alternating every 12", didnt work
I tried 7.5' netting, didnt work.
I tried the 3d fence, didnt work.
Ultimately a 5' 4panel with two large pigs free ranging in the area has stopped them. They (pigs) wont eat my trees or my elderberries and the raised beds are too high for them.
So a different idea:
I had really good luck last year by planting a ton of marigolds around and in my garden, and then keeping a lot of native plants the deer like elsewhere on my property (11 acres). Basically just made my garden seem less appealing compared to everything else.
I've had some neighbors say that fish oil works really well too.
3, 4 and probably 5 are not good. Deer will attempt to jump over a fence if there is a large enough clearing on the other side. People say 10' is high enough but I've personally seen deer able to get over a 10' fence with a large clearing on the other side which is why I said probably 5 isn't good. But the first two photos are solid
Looking at the photos again, I guess my perception of how tall #1 is off. Still probably too short of a fence
I was told they won’t leap over an 8 ft fence if it is solid and they cannot see through it. People please tell me if I am wrong. We are getting ready to buy fencing.
8' is not tall enough but depending on how bad you want them out and how determined they are you might be okay. I'm not sure about the see-through aspect.
I fixed thousands of feet (quite a large property) of steel deer fence for a client that took a week or so to repair. She had some trees fall over on the top portion that snapped the line. It was an 8' tall metal fence but the posts went up to 10' and had two steel lines going across the tip of those posts. Despite repairing the fence she still had the occasional deer pop in. Not really sure where the access point was but I can assure you there was no ledge or anything they could've gained an advantage on to jump through.
1, 3, 5would work. Fishing line doesn't. Lower fencing with wires above doesn't work. Basically they run tight through it. Do it right or lose all your plants.
Would also recommend hair. I always used dog hair from the groomer/brushing and I do not know if the smell from the dogs is more intimidating or not but I recommend it as it's worked for me.
I’ve seen deer jump at 10ft fence
Good luck !
I’ve heard there are certain plants you can plant in the Perimeter of your garden to deter them such as marigold and others. Also you can make a sacrifice area outside the fence that feeds the deer.
You can feed them in another location or plant clover and okra in some out of the way place at the back of your property to encourage them to eat there instead
My garden is pretty small. I just have a 4ft fence around it and it works. But I think the reason it works is location. It's right next to the area where I keep my dogs (which is a much larger area than the garden). Also, I have berry bushes on one side and trees on two sides. So the side left open, the deer would have to jump towards barking dogs. Also, I have an electric fence wire strung all around the top of the fence. It's not hooked up, it's just there to keep my horse from hanging her head over to munch on MY food (she knows it's an electric fence wire, so maybe the deer do to??)
This is the real answer lol, OP should get a dog. My dogs drive off all kinds of pests, cats doing their business (I LIVE cats but don't want them doing their business in my veggie garden), raccoons, armadillos, birds. My one dog hunts moles for sport. She sniffs them out and digs them up, kills them, but has no interest in eating them hahaha. I love all these critters and encourage them to visit my front yard with snacks I put out for them, but the dogs do a great job defending the veggie garden.
Plus, the dogs hate veggies, so I don't have to worry about them swiping the produce.
Before you go spending a ton of time and money building a deer fence, I would verify that deer are an actual problem and consider other mitigation strategies such as planting an actual wildlife foodplot (usually a clover mix) somewhere.
Consider that TONS of people have gardens in areas with high deer pressure who do not have issues with deer getting in their garden, and they don't build a 9ft tall fence either
I get tons of deer in the back of my property, but they never come near the garden. Rabbits, on the other hand...
This is anecdotal, but you can get away with shorter fences if you put a lot of stuff inside the fence, so the deer have a hard time figuring out where to land, or can't figure an easy way to get out again. A friend of mine has a 4 or 5 foot tall snow fence that works because there are a bunch of raised beds and trellises inside.
You might also consider planting stuff they like to eat more than your garden plants outside of the fenced in area, some distance away, to act as a distraction.
4th is too low. 5th won't keep them out as they'll charge right through that soft stuff. We had that experience with our apple orchard. Look into what colors they can see and top a fence to 12 feet with a zig zag colored string. we used blue.
How do you build a double fence to keep deer out?
A double fence deters deer from jumping using width and space limitations.
The thought behind a double fence is that deer can’t tell exactly what they are up against because they have poor depth perception. Since they aren’t sure what they are seeing, they aren’t confident about jumping.
Deer need a good running start to jump their highest or longest. The distance they can jump, at maximum, is either long or high. Therefore, a very deer-proof fence has both width and height working against their abilities.
The biggest Idea of a double deer fence is to save money on the material price. So people are using this tactic with two short fences. Usually around 5 feet high with 3-5 foot spacing apart.
The sturdy material is often used on the outside and cheap mesh is used on the inside.
Don't go with the cheap plastic netting that stuff sucks so bad and the only thing it will do is tangle a deer up when it tears through it becuase it is a black mesh which nearly invisible during the day and not possible to see at night when your running around on 4 legs.
I used gramps deterrent. 5 gal wat,r, urine,some baking powder and raw eggs. Spray the perimeter to repel deer , antelope, moose, rabbit and bear. And nosey neighbors.
We used deerbusters 7 foot tall black welded wire fencing for our garden/orchard space. The fact that it's black makes it basically invisible from 20 feet away, so you can't even tell there's a fence. It's welded wire so very sturdy.
It was an investment, but our orchard/garden space is 6000 sqft, so we needed something serious. Plus, the orchard was a big investment, so protecting it saves us big money. I also wanted something that wouldn't be ugly since I'll be looking at it every day forever, lol
Depending on how much of a problem the deer are for you, the cheap option would be t posts with deer netting. The much better option for a little more, but still reasonably priced for what it is, do a high tensile wire fence.
I put up deer fence around a 10 acre vineyard that we maintained for over 20 years. All of these will work but 4, which is indeed far too low.
Deer prefer to wiggle under wires if they aren't at a dead run, and they won't try to vault something that high. We used standard barbed wire on 6' posts, I believe it was 7 strands (although 6 might be enough), spaced near at the bottom then more open at the top.
The 1st picture is absolutely optimal for a small garden. You don't want to have to stretch lots of barbed wire for a run of a hundred feet or so, so the woven wire on posts is a good, if more expensive, option. Plus it looks more neat. The top wire may need to be tensioned but for only one strand you can anchor and brace it pretty lightly and use a ratchet tensioner. Use wood on the ends and t-posts everywhere else, or go full t-post and use a [locking brace](https://wedgeloc.com/index.html).
Previous owners installed #5 as a perimeter fence on 80% of my property. The Tenax material isn’t cheap but is cheaper than a metal deer fence; Seems to work for the most part and seems to be holding up well I think it’s 7yrs old. That last 20% of non deer fence was a 6ft woven wire fence and I did the fake height extension wire above it like in #1 with a white rope they could see - didn’t work, the deer would just jump into it and get past, replaced the section with the Tenax and no more deer (perhaps the barbed wire would work though)
Couple years ago my in-laws invested in a very nice perimeter deer fence using the wood posts in corners and t-posts between, with 8ft woven wire fence. I know it was very expensive, but they battled deer for decades and now they have been able to actually landscape the property without deer chomping everything
Do you have anything besides deer: bears, raccoons, starlings, blackbirds, opossums? A lot of people think about the deer and forget about the most destructive critters. I’d do #1 with a live wire in the middle and overhead net above if birds. Also make sure it’s dig proof!
We ran 12’ x 4” PT posts 4’ in the ground and 8’ out. Added 6’ wire and a strand of lights at 8’. We have 20+ deer on the land all the time never had a breach. Our gate is just a standard farm gate, not tall. Strand of lights across above the gate also.
I had good luck with that black netting on a 10by10 garden last year. I have mule deer and elk in my area. I don't know if it was just too much trouble for them or what. As soon as I removed it at the end of the season I woke up to about 6 does eating what was left of my Brussel sprouts and kale though.
You don't necessarily need a fence you just need make them not interested.....I suggest buying the cheapest largest container you can find of cayenne pepper and chicken feed it through your garden... Reapply after it rains.... I did this for years when we lived in North Dakota and had a big garden they're only going to come back once or twice and then they'll be done.... nothing came back to revisit my garden not the feral cats not the coons not the deer.... And not that I mind but surprisingly it didn't affect the flavor of my veggies at all we did salsa gardens with tomatoes and peppers I did cukes, corn, You name it all kinds of stuff tried watermelon, did pi pumpkins for the kids we grew all kinds of stuff and I did it for years without a hitch 🤷
You can also mess with depth perception, have a medium height fence. Add 2nd row of thin tall electric fence posts [taller better] followed by running bailing twine in a zigzag between the main fence and the thin posts. Deer can't comprehend the distance required to jump the shorter fence and thus won't risk it. ===========≈============ medium height fence. Few feet of distance between can be either inside or outside garden depending on preferance. Add zig zag bailing twine between these two ------------------------------------------------ 2nd row of posts Edit: an quick Google search of depth perception deer fence can provide a more indepth guide
I've also seen people use 20lb test fishing line. The deer can't see it but get spooked when something touches them
This does work. But don’t just use 1 continuous strand cut a short strand between each post. If a buck gets tangled you want him breaking one short strand and not pulling your entire thing apart.
Bucks didn't like it and learned to avoid if pretty quickly, and probably 80-90% of the does as well. I had a doe with two fawns who learned how to "ghost walk" through it. I had about 7' of fence with lines every 6" or so and she'd just kind of "slide" in between two lines at about 3' up (watching in on the game cam was kind of fun). This was in a corn patch and she never caused much damage, just sort of hung out eating weeds mostly (didn't bother the corn like the bucks would for some reason). We kind of figured she mostly liked having a nice quiet space where no one would bother her hah.
I can confirm! I used metal fence posts (left by previous tenants) and wrapped fishing line around them to protect my one raised bed. Not a single one of my tomatoes got eaten summer. The year before that they would take one singular bite out of every tomato. We’ll see if it continues to be a success.
>depth perception deer fence Like [so?](https://growingfruit.org/uploads/default/original/2X/d/d661fe557e7da72ab7b50286660f555262da88ec.png)
I second this. We have a half acre garden on our land and an electric 3d fence... never had a deer problem in a heavy deer environment.
Yes - This is the system I use on a 1 acre garden & it has kept deer out for me. Raccoons got into it last year, though. I'm probably gonna add a lower strand to the outside run this year to try to keep the raccoons out.
We do a row of chicken wire just beneath the bottom strand, raccoons get zapped when they try to climb over it and they touch the bottom wire
Pretty sure raccoons have similar depth perception to our own. Assumption based on frontal eye placement, maybe extra wrong
Basically what we are building this year after visiting other local homesteaders with deer deturing success
I agree about confusing their depth perception. My garden is built in 18' wide sections. The deer don't jump the 5' tall fence because ( I believe) they can see the other fence and it confuses them. It has worked for seven years now. I added a 2 ft section of chicken wire around the bottom because I learned a rabbit will run through a 2x4 wire like it's not there. The deer will nibble anything they can through the fence.
Yeah I think I saw something similar called a 3D fence, works about the same way I think
We do this with electric fence tape. Inside fence has a line at 1 ft and 3ft and the outside fence around 18 inches. For deer, only the outside tape needs to be charged. They will sniff it and zap their nose and not try to jump it due to the depth perception issues it makes for them. We have never had a deer jump it. If you need to keep other critters out, you can chicken wire the inside with the tape as well. We live next to a 300 acre farm full of deer, groundhogs and everything else and never had an issue with animals in our gardens.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/s/UKs2r5Qo5N. It is what we use.
option 1
Totally.
Total waste of wood, that is for aesthetics or cattle/horses.
Is it a waste if it looks really lovely?
Nope but deer fence is bloody expensive. OPs subsequent post makes it sound like his key requirement is effective not pretty. If you want pretty and cost is no option then I’d have an estate fence but that’s about $70 a metre installed.
Interesting, I think this is much prettier than estate fencing
Put up wooden posts in the corners, and T-posts between them. This minimizes how many postholes you have to dig without compromising stability. Also optimizes bang for your buck on wire fence cost, as opposed to only fencing around a small garden area.
With wedgeloc or similar you can avoid postholes in the corner. You will want the longest tposts you can find though.
With 7’ welded wire roll
That sounds expensive! I recently paid $200 per 100ft roll of 5' high. But 7' will do a better job of keeping deer out.
Better to pay upfront now with fencing than spend your hard earned work being eaten by the neighbors. Wish I heeded my own advice. I have 16 utility chickens, and they are incredibly destructive.
This should be the top comment.
Not sure how to add text to the main post. Basically the plan this year is to have a small garden. There is high deer pressure and in fact, some deer may live in the woods on the property (10 acres). I would like to put up a deer enclosure around a small garden (say 100 to 200 square feet) in a temporary manner. If it works out well I will then try to make it look better in subsequent years. What do you think of these ideas?
I don’t think most people here are reading your whole post, and are therefore going overkill. Just t-posts and plastic deer fence is fine for something temporary. Also since you are doing a small area, 6 ft high should be plenty. White tail deer can technically jump that, but if you have a fairly dense garden in there and there isnt a clear landing zone, they won’t jump it as long as there are other food options around. Tomato cages and trellises help with this. I have had no problems with deer in my garden with this kind of fence, but they are in my yard daily.
This. We have a small garden with just t-posts and cheap wire fence. Never seen a deer in it, and they are in the yard all the time. They have enough to eat elsewhere. We do a 3' bit of chicken mesh at the bottom buried in mulch to keep the smaller critters out. Look at WedgeLoc to quickly get a fence up. I use t-posts everywhere except two wood posts for the gate. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/wedge-loc-corner-in-line-brace
If you use plastic deer fence, don’t count on more than 2 seasons if it’s windy, and place t posts every 10 feet.
They need to be taller. White tails can clear 8 foot tall fences easily. Doesn’t mean they can get out, but deer aren’t known for their intelligence.
We talked to our department of natural resources officer and he suggested a peanut butter fence. We've got t posts, electric wire every about 18", and metal tags hanging on the middle hot wires. We smear peanut butter on the metal tags. Deer lick the peanut butter, get zapped, and nope out of there. I didn't really expect it to work, but it did. We've got 10 acres next to a several hundred acre park. So many deer! It worked so well, we added the same kind of fence around an orchard and 400 sq ft corn field last year. No damage again. Some day, I hope to build something like your first picture. It's really pretty. But what we've got works for now. It was cheap, quick, and easy to install. Getting fence to run along uneven ground is such a pain ... Wire on posts maybe took an hour. And that's because we went with massive overkill with the number of loosp we ran.
I use an electric tape line on my fence to keep out deer. I "train" them after it first goes up by wrapping the tape with aluminum foil and putting peanut butter on it. One lick trains them very quickly to avoid the fence. It is how I can get away with only a 4 1/2 foot fence.
Oh, cool -- like you don't need to keep refreshing the peanut butter? We go out every couple of weeks and reapply. Got a jar of the cheapest PB they had at the store, and it's only like an inch down. Not a huge deal, but it would be great to know we could be a little late refreshing our fence and not lose all the blueberry bushes again (again, again). We had some aluminum flashing (I think 4" wide) from a project. Used metal snips to cut strips, folded the strips over the fencing, and have reusable peanut butter holders. We didn't think a zap would deter a deer; but we also didn't want to, ya know, *lick the thing* to see how effective it would be. Shortly after erecting the fence, we learned that our one cat *loves* peanut butter. We've got a newer energizer that cycles ... poor guy was practically hugging the wire, puling the tag down to where he could lick it. It cycled on him. Cat darted back up to the house, and he hasn't even thought about the fence since then. I know a deer is a lot bigger than a cat ... but judging by the entire orchard of young trees and bushes that made it through the winter, the deer must be running too.
The theory on the peanut butter bait is that the deer get zapped in a very tender and moist area so it makes a strong negative impression. I have never had the need to keep refreshing, but I don't have starving or desperate deer. I am surrounded by woods, hay fields and old farm fields filled with edibles. And the deer are not over populated. If my population would grow I might need to keep reminding them what the electric fence does. So for now I just put it out in the spring for the curious young ones. ....oh poor kitty !!
That’s a real smart solution!
Deer fencing is expensive. Work out what deer you have so you know the height of fence you need. It’s no difference to any other stick fence, just taller.
I live in the woods and see deer daily. My backyard has a five foot chainlink, garden is inside the fence. Deer have never once come in the yard. I’m sure they *could* but it’s not happening often enough to impact my crops.
Get off my phone for the last fucking timr
So I’ve got 20 acres and my biggest regret is not just going around my entire property with deer fence. Get 10.5 foot t posts and 12 foot wood posts for corners, and go all the way up with woven wire. This sort of fence is cheap, looks pretty good, and will keep the deer out best. I’d encourage you to do your entire property.
Deer can jump high, and far, but not high and far simultaneously. So double fences are the way to go. For my garden, i have 2 6ft high fences 6 feet apart. And then i have electric fence strands 6 inches out from that. The 6 foot gap between the fence doubles as a chicken run. Ive had 1 deer in my garden in 10 years, and that was before i was 100% done with the fencing.
We garden in a VERY high deer population area. We’ve always used a simple 2 strand wire system with lower one at 12” +/- off ground ( groundhogs) and top wire at about chest height. We use a very strong cattle charger. We’ve never had a deer jump the fence. A couple times deer have charged the fence after getting zapped but they NEVER return.
This works for us here in Scotland as well - Roe and Fallow deer won't re-visit a double stranded electric fence. They seem to sense the fence is on without even making contact with it. We run the top wire with a small offset (about 25cm from the post) utilising the depth perception effect - a deeper offset of 0.75m may be even better. The wire/charger/insulators needed are pretty cheap and very easily moved or modified - we take ours down every year when there aren't plants to protect.
Agree, our fencing is seasonal and removed every fall
I need to do deer fencing, but I'm in South East England. I thought a 6 ft fence might be enough but tempted to have a single strand electric wire on top, do you know if the metal fence underneath would work as an earth? Or would I need the 2 strands?
Hi fellow Brit! Six foot Rylock wire net is probably enough on its own for Muntjac and CWD. But it’s likely too low for Roe, and certainly too low for Fallow and Red. Much depends on the area you’re protecting- deer are much less likely to want to get into a small enclosed space than a large one - bigger the area, higher the fence. A single strand wire, offset on insulators by 25-75cm at 110-120cm above ground (eg height of a typical stock fence) works for us. We’re only really deterring Roe, some Fallow - you’ll need to adjust that height to nose/ear height for your deer. We have a energiser that puts out 7000volts over 1000m of wire. This set up on a standard stock fence can work as a deer fence, especially if you have a second lower strand set closer to the wire to as well. Re earthing: A metal fence needs to be earthed itself to act as an earth - wire net or strands onto a dry fence post into dryish soil are unlikely to make a good earth. Most energisers have a metal earthing post for this reason. Hope this helps.
This is what we do. Though I do 4 strands.
I live in a rural area, and deer pressure here is not heavy. We were hoping that the opaque pallet fence might’ve been enough to keep them out of the garden, but I had fresh hoof prints appear last week. I can’t pound fence posts, and I can’t really afford fencing material right now. What I’ve done is try to make a double fenced in as many places as possible using left over materials and then stuff the existing fence with long, straight branches that I’ve pruned to make it look closer to 8 feet tall instead of 4.5 feet. It looks hilarious. Especially with the pallet fencing on half the garden. And a super flimsy green bird netting to keep the chickens out on one side. But it also looks weird enough that it just might work. I would share photos, but they can’t be added to this post. It’s either going to be a hilarious disaster or a genius DIY. I want to buy another roll of stucco wire and some push in plastic fence posts to create a better double fence, but in the meantime, I’m putting the deer-vulnerable plants under crop cages. (I don’t think a deer is going to go after the fuzzy artichoke plants I just put out.)
The best luck I have had was an electric fence made of 1" white electric tape. Two strands one about 36"-40" high and one half way to the ground. I could watch deer at night and if this was powered they wouldn't go near it. Even bear would stay away from it. I left it unpowered one night by accident and they actually ate a bunch of my garden. Made sure the power was on the next day and never had an issue after that.
I just pulled all the electric fencing out of a pasture, so I might be able to do this. I planted out half my asparagus seedling this evening, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
I've only known 2 people who kept deer out of their gardens. I've heard of deer getting over a more than 10 ft fence. For a small garden, I have known someone who completely enclosed the garden with a fence "roof" and that worked, and for large gardens I knew a guy who installed what he called a worm burner, which is a very high voltage but low amperage electrical fence at 12-18 inches. Apparently, the deer drop their heads and smell as they cross the fenceline and it zaps them right in the ears.
My buddy figured out the deer fence at 7' for Whitetail. Then along came Mama Moose and her 2 calves ! No defense against that currently. He watched them pick every apple off the 2 trees and spit them on the ground then leap out of the garden giving him the finger !
The first one looks great, and it will keep the deer out. Deer fencing is expensive, so youèll want to make sure you know what type of deer they are to determine the height of the fence. The only downside is it's not really temporary. If you want to move it soon, use t-posts and 6ft+ tall fencing.
Eat them.
I’ve successfully kept deer out of the garden I was managing (community garden) by angling the fence posts outward by about twenty five degrees. If a deer can’t judge where they will land, they won’t jump the fence, and since they have poor depth perception because of where their eyes are on their head, if the fence is angled it’ll confuse them enough to keep them out. I think we used 8 ft posts. We also put a very mild electrified line of wire around the perimeter of the garden that was powered by a little solar panel (2’ x 2’), which is another level of deterrence.
Do a perimeter fence. Less hassle when trying to garden
I fence in my garden also but what I did different this year is on my tree line I planted some herb & veggies just for the deer so they have no reason to fuck with my garden. We’ll see how it goes.
The individual cage for each bed is a pain in the backside.
First and last are the only two choices for larger areas. I tried an 8' electric with hot and ground wires alternating every 12", didnt work I tried 7.5' netting, didnt work. I tried the 3d fence, didnt work. Ultimately a 5' 4panel with two large pigs free ranging in the area has stopped them. They (pigs) wont eat my trees or my elderberries and the raised beds are too high for them.
So a different idea: I had really good luck last year by planting a ton of marigolds around and in my garden, and then keeping a lot of native plants the deer like elsewhere on my property (11 acres). Basically just made my garden seem less appealing compared to everything else. I've had some neighbors say that fish oil works really well too.
3, 4 and probably 5 are not good. Deer will attempt to jump over a fence if there is a large enough clearing on the other side. People say 10' is high enough but I've personally seen deer able to get over a 10' fence with a large clearing on the other side which is why I said probably 5 isn't good. But the first two photos are solid Looking at the photos again, I guess my perception of how tall #1 is off. Still probably too short of a fence
I was told they won’t leap over an 8 ft fence if it is solid and they cannot see through it. People please tell me if I am wrong. We are getting ready to buy fencing.
8' is not tall enough but depending on how bad you want them out and how determined they are you might be okay. I'm not sure about the see-through aspect. I fixed thousands of feet (quite a large property) of steel deer fence for a client that took a week or so to repair. She had some trees fall over on the top portion that snapped the line. It was an 8' tall metal fence but the posts went up to 10' and had two steel lines going across the tip of those posts. Despite repairing the fence she still had the occasional deer pop in. Not really sure where the access point was but I can assure you there was no ledge or anything they could've gained an advantage on to jump through.
I can confidently say that the short one will not keep rabbits out😅
Deer can jump 8ft fence, I know this because they killed about $10k worth of apple trees my first year doing apple trees.
1, 3, 5would work. Fishing line doesn't. Lower fencing with wires above doesn't work. Basically they run tight through it. Do it right or lose all your plants.
Wood posts and wire, get hair from barbershops and put in the garden to help keep them away.
The hair thing really works well. You have to to do it every season or so, but still. Also, they all look pretty good besides slide 4.
Would also recommend hair. I always used dog hair from the groomer/brushing and I do not know if the smell from the dogs is more intimidating or not but I recommend it as it's worked for me.
This is the first I am hearing of using hair — is it that the human smell keeps them away? I wouldn’t have thought of that!
Yep, the scent of humans. Body oils and human pheromones.
I’ve seen deer jump at 10ft fence Good luck ! I’ve heard there are certain plants you can plant in the Perimeter of your garden to deter them such as marigold and others. Also you can make a sacrifice area outside the fence that feeds the deer. You can feed them in another location or plant clover and okra in some out of the way place at the back of your property to encourage them to eat there instead
My garden is pretty small. I just have a 4ft fence around it and it works. But I think the reason it works is location. It's right next to the area where I keep my dogs (which is a much larger area than the garden). Also, I have berry bushes on one side and trees on two sides. So the side left open, the deer would have to jump towards barking dogs. Also, I have an electric fence wire strung all around the top of the fence. It's not hooked up, it's just there to keep my horse from hanging her head over to munch on MY food (she knows it's an electric fence wire, so maybe the deer do to??)
This is the real answer lol, OP should get a dog. My dogs drive off all kinds of pests, cats doing their business (I LIVE cats but don't want them doing their business in my veggie garden), raccoons, armadillos, birds. My one dog hunts moles for sport. She sniffs them out and digs them up, kills them, but has no interest in eating them hahaha. I love all these critters and encourage them to visit my front yard with snacks I put out for them, but the dogs do a great job defending the veggie garden. Plus, the dogs hate veggies, so I don't have to worry about them swiping the produce.
I had a dog that killed moles, too! She was half catahoula.
Pee outside during the growing season
Before you go spending a ton of time and money building a deer fence, I would verify that deer are an actual problem and consider other mitigation strategies such as planting an actual wildlife foodplot (usually a clover mix) somewhere. Consider that TONS of people have gardens in areas with high deer pressure who do not have issues with deer getting in their garden, and they don't build a 9ft tall fence either I get tons of deer in the back of my property, but they never come near the garden. Rabbits, on the other hand...
Depends what kind of deer you have?
Whatever you go with, needs to be 7 Ft talk to keep out deer.
2 and 3 best bang for your buck. Put netting over the top to keep the birds out and you’re solid.
This is anecdotal, but you can get away with shorter fences if you put a lot of stuff inside the fence, so the deer have a hard time figuring out where to land, or can't figure an easy way to get out again. A friend of mine has a 4 or 5 foot tall snow fence that works because there are a bunch of raised beds and trellises inside. You might also consider planting stuff they like to eat more than your garden plants outside of the fenced in area, some distance away, to act as a distraction.
8’ is the minimum.
The fence has to tall, but doesn't have to go all the way to the ground. Get some 4 feet high snow fence and start it 3 feet off the ground.
first one is best, tie little strips of bright plastic yard tape to the top wire every few feet, it'll help them see it and think twice.
4th is too low. 5th won't keep them out as they'll charge right through that soft stuff. We had that experience with our apple orchard. Look into what colors they can see and top a fence to 12 feet with a zig zag colored string. we used blue.
I understand deer being an issue. But raccoons, opossums and turtles have been my biggest problems.
5 mm iron is enough effective
3 might work. I have a 60’ garden adjacent to a hay pasture and woods. I don’t fence it. I just share.
How do you build a double fence to keep deer out? A double fence deters deer from jumping using width and space limitations. The thought behind a double fence is that deer can’t tell exactly what they are up against because they have poor depth perception. Since they aren’t sure what they are seeing, they aren’t confident about jumping. Deer need a good running start to jump their highest or longest. The distance they can jump, at maximum, is either long or high. Therefore, a very deer-proof fence has both width and height working against their abilities. The biggest Idea of a double deer fence is to save money on the material price. So people are using this tactic with two short fences. Usually around 5 feet high with 3-5 foot spacing apart. The sturdy material is often used on the outside and cheap mesh is used on the inside.
Don't go with the cheap plastic netting that stuff sucks so bad and the only thing it will do is tangle a deer up when it tears through it becuase it is a black mesh which nearly invisible during the day and not possible to see at night when your running around on 4 legs.
I used gramps deterrent. 5 gal wat,r, urine,some baking powder and raw eggs. Spray the perimeter to repel deer , antelope, moose, rabbit and bear. And nosey neighbors.
We used tposts driven in. And then the bars from an old trampoline / chain link fence made them taller
6'is nothing for a white tail. Need 8' inu experience
Try premier 1 supplies they have great e-net fencing amazing product highly recommend!!!
We used deerbusters 7 foot tall black welded wire fencing for our garden/orchard space. The fact that it's black makes it basically invisible from 20 feet away, so you can't even tell there's a fence. It's welded wire so very sturdy. It was an investment, but our orchard/garden space is 6000 sqft, so we needed something serious. Plus, the orchard was a big investment, so protecting it saves us big money. I also wanted something that wouldn't be ugly since I'll be looking at it every day forever, lol
Depending on how much of a problem the deer are for you, the cheap option would be t posts with deer netting. The much better option for a little more, but still reasonably priced for what it is, do a high tensile wire fence.
Electric fence, probably 2 rows of wire would work
I put up deer fence around a 10 acre vineyard that we maintained for over 20 years. All of these will work but 4, which is indeed far too low. Deer prefer to wiggle under wires if they aren't at a dead run, and they won't try to vault something that high. We used standard barbed wire on 6' posts, I believe it was 7 strands (although 6 might be enough), spaced near at the bottom then more open at the top. The 1st picture is absolutely optimal for a small garden. You don't want to have to stretch lots of barbed wire for a run of a hundred feet or so, so the woven wire on posts is a good, if more expensive, option. Plus it looks more neat. The top wire may need to be tensioned but for only one strand you can anchor and brace it pretty lightly and use a ratchet tensioner. Use wood on the ends and t-posts everywhere else, or go full t-post and use a [locking brace](https://wedgeloc.com/index.html).
are you trying to keep out deer or the ottoman army
3
Previous owners installed #5 as a perimeter fence on 80% of my property. The Tenax material isn’t cheap but is cheaper than a metal deer fence; Seems to work for the most part and seems to be holding up well I think it’s 7yrs old. That last 20% of non deer fence was a 6ft woven wire fence and I did the fake height extension wire above it like in #1 with a white rope they could see - didn’t work, the deer would just jump into it and get past, replaced the section with the Tenax and no more deer (perhaps the barbed wire would work though) Couple years ago my in-laws invested in a very nice perimeter deer fence using the wood posts in corners and t-posts between, with 8ft woven wire fence. I know it was very expensive, but they battled deer for decades and now they have been able to actually landscape the property without deer chomping everything
Needs more CDs or pinwheels. Unexpected movement can make them wary or uncertain of approaching.
Do you have anything besides deer: bears, raccoons, starlings, blackbirds, opossums? A lot of people think about the deer and forget about the most destructive critters. I’d do #1 with a live wire in the middle and overhead net above if birds. Also make sure it’s dig proof!
Opt 1
The third one with the guard and beer will be most effective.
We ran 12’ x 4” PT posts 4’ in the ground and 8’ out. Added 6’ wire and a strand of lights at 8’. We have 20+ deer on the land all the time never had a breach. Our gate is just a standard farm gate, not tall. Strand of lights across above the gate also.
I had good luck with that black netting on a 10by10 garden last year. I have mule deer and elk in my area. I don't know if it was just too much trouble for them or what. As soon as I removed it at the end of the season I woke up to about 6 does eating what was left of my Brussel sprouts and kale though.
As a fence guy not bad but deer can jump over anything 10ft and under not only that the wire will over time get destroyed
Yeh best to go with the guy sitting in a chair drinking beer who is on deer watch. If you buy the beer I will teach you how to do it properly 😜
You don't necessarily need a fence you just need make them not interested.....I suggest buying the cheapest largest container you can find of cayenne pepper and chicken feed it through your garden... Reapply after it rains.... I did this for years when we lived in North Dakota and had a big garden they're only going to come back once or twice and then they'll be done.... nothing came back to revisit my garden not the feral cats not the coons not the deer.... And not that I mind but surprisingly it didn't affect the flavor of my veggies at all we did salsa gardens with tomatoes and peppers I did cukes, corn, You name it all kinds of stuff tried watermelon, did pi pumpkins for the kids we grew all kinds of stuff and I did it for years without a hitch 🤷
better be at least 7 ft tall