5 foot high deer fence construction
The deer snuck in again last
night and ate some swiss chard, which Anna says was a little buggy, so
no big loss there.
I managed to get another
stretch of 5 foot high chicken wire up.
It's starting to feel more
like a perimeter with this latest barrier.
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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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I read in a homesteading book that if you put the fence up b4 you build the garden, the deer will leave it alone. That's going to be our first strategy.
May you lose no more crops to the critters!
5 feet is no where near tall enough to completely keep them out. We've got a buddy who raises red deer for meat (basically a european elk) and he had to install 10 ft fences with a slight slant inward. Ive personally seen whitetail deer stand next to a 5-6' fence, then jump & clear it from just standing, no running start. They are crafty creatures no doubt about it. But the fence will deter them, as they often take the path of least resistance.
Have you tried using predator smells by chance? I read somewhere that using fox/coyote urine and sprinkling it around makes them think there is predators in the area and they are less likely to stay around. A thought maybe. That and practice your target shooting, then enjoy the venision! We actually just used up the last of last years venison by making it into andouille, italian, bratwursts, salami, and pepperoni sausages.
We don't expect the five foot fence to be a hard barrier, just a deterrent blocking off their favorite path. The idea is to come back in this winter when we have more time and turn that area into a chicken pasture --- the double-walled moats tend to be extremely effective at keeping deer out.
We haven't bought the pricey predator scents because every other scent-based deterrent we've tried has had no effect. Actually, I take that back --- I think Mark's mom bought us some a few years ago, but they did nothing. The efficacy of various deterrents declines drastically when deer populations get as high as ours are.
Unfortunately, we missed our kill permit window. I was out in the woods for about 20 hours (and exhausted myself since I was keeping the garden going to) to no avail. At the moment, it seems more time effective to plug away at making chicken moats than to invest more time in hunting.
Thanks for the heads up on this....it's the first I've seen of such a thing.
That does seem like an intriguing product and 60 dollars seems reasonable if it does the job, but I'm wondering just how high the voltage can be with only AA batteries.
I think one might be better off getting a regular electric fence charger and making your own zapper, but then it would not be wireless and it might be too unsightly to some neighbors who care about those things.
Of course I'd be glad to give it a WaldenEffect evaluation if said company was interested in sending us a complimentary one for us to try out and report the results to the web.....heck if it worked I'd probably buy a few to give those pesky swiss chard snackers their long awaited electrified comeuppance.
Hello, I am the inventor and manufacturer of the Wireless Deer Fence. Please see our website. The scent pieces are not expensive, only 19 cents each so a years supply for 3 posts is $6.95 including the postage. The Wireless Deer Fence has an unconditional guarantee to control the deer in your yard or garden and it has a return rate of only a few percent. My phone number is 866-GOT-DEER (866-468-3337). Thanks. Keith