Deer Eating Apples and Peaches off tree. Need help!

[ChrisC_77]

My neighbor has several fruit trees. Recently, the deer have been showing up in the wee hours and eating up all the fallen fruit as well as the reachable ones. What advice or or methods do you all use to keep deer away? Does human hair or urine around the base of the tree work? Or something else...or some sound emitting device. Thanks!

[tomc]

Buck shot or slugs works pretty good.

[applestar]

...hmm I was wondering if one of those motion activated flailing type of Halloween decorations -- ghost, witch, skeleton.... -- would work?

[JONA878]

If your deer are anything like the devils over here then there is not very much that will deter them. We have to spend a fortune in erecting deer fencing to keep them out....and that has to be 6ft 6inch high minimum to have any chance of keeping them out.
We have tried the noisy bird scarers....human hair in stockings....dog bark recordings....bird tapes that vibrate.....etc.
We have found that we just have to try to keep the numbers down to acceptable levels and patrol as much as possible.
By the way....if you have a rose garden...they do seem to prefer rose buds above all else. 'that's life I guess.'

[bowhuntaz]

Visit the barber shop and get a bag of hair clippings.
Sprinkle the hair around the perimiter, like an invisible fence, and see what happens.
The strange smells will freak them out and they'll stay gone a long while...at least enough to get the harvest in before they eat it all.

[PaulF]

Most of the ideas other than deer fencing work for about 5 minutes until the deer figure out what is going on. They are smart and relentless. I have lost peaches 2 of the last three years; this year the fence goes up around the trees just like around the vegetable garden.

[jean64]

As several people have already said--a tall fence is the only thing that really works. I have been gardening with mule deer here in town. The commissioners here consider them a tourist attraction, so you can't bother them I put white flagging at the middle of the fence and also at the top. The white pieces mean danger to a deer--white tail up! They don't challenge it. I guess you just have to bite the bullet and shell out for the fencing. Jean

[Mis3836]

Try Milorganite it's sold as a fertilizer (don't think it's a good one) but it's made of human sludge deer don't like the scent of it (smells human) spread it around in a single circle about 4 feet in diameter around the spread of the trees it may help wortth a shot. They used to get in my veggie garden I started spreading that around the perimeter and they stopped messing with the gardens hope this helps

[organicPete]

really .. if you were in California I would come over with my recurve bow. then we could have venison as the entree, and apple pie as dessert. sounds excellent.

failing that ... how about painting the fruit with something that ruins the taste? maybe balsamic vinegar? or try your own ideas.

keep in mind that deer are "in the food chain". they have to leave if they believe a predator is around. maybe you can install a motion-activated light, or IR-activated warning sound.

good luck,
organicPete