Keeping Deer Out: Shorter Poles (6/7') at 45 Degree Angle-- Have You Tried It?

emkouma
emkouma Posts: 5 ✭✭✭

I hear that deer can clear 8 feet (sometime more) but don't normally jump higher than 7.5' unless they're being chased...

I also read that if a shorter pole (6 or 7 feet) are angled at a 45 degree angle with wire around the top, they won't jump it because they have height but not distance.. Has anyone tried this? Did it work?

Thanks!

Comments

  • MaryRowe
    MaryRowe Posts: 736 ✭✭✭✭

    I hadn't thought of that, but I have tried another trick that (fingers crossed) seems to be working so far. After deer leapt my five-foot fence and wiped out my garden three years ago, I went hunting options. Read in a couple different articles that you don't necessarily need an actual eight- or nine-foot fence, just something that looks like that to a deer. So I tied lighter nine-foot (more or less) poles--saplings I cut in my woods, with the branches left on--to the fence posts, and strung three strands of wire with old CD's and other bright, shiny things attached to it from sapling to sapling. Haven't had deer in there since, at least not so far....

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    @emkouma Welcome to TGN's forum.

    I can attest to deer clearing 8 feet. The angled fence might help. It might give them a visual disturbance that would prevent them from trying. But I have seen them just a long distance as well.

    I have tried something similar to what @MaryRowe has done. We strung wire cord above the top fence boards and hung bits of flagging tape and tinfoil from it. It seemed to help quite a bit in the spring but by the time they came back in the fall they were more used to it and found their way in.

    Another thing you could try is planting shrubs on the outside of the fence that will give them an extra barrier to jump. I have a shrub cherry and currant bushes along one side of the garden and they don't seem to jump over that.

  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭

    While I haven't tried it, I have read that having two shorter fences is effective in stopping deer. The deer will not leap the first fence because they see they will crash into the second fence, and they are smart enough not to want to do that.

    You can use the land between the two fences for planting, so it is not wasted.

    I sometimes wonder if the combination of my own fence, about 8 ft high, with the obvious beds raise 6 - 12" above the soil line visible inside the fence, deters them for the same reason. The deer could leap the fence, but would have a good chance of breaking a leg when landing.

    Whatever the reason, I have had no deer problems inside the fence since putting it up, despite heavy deer pressure in the neighborhood and elsewhere in the yard.

  • Tave
    Tave Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Tom Bartel has a video on a psychological fence to keep deer out. You run an obvious line about a foot inside the fence. The deer see it and think they can't land between them, and then they walk away.