Bambi in the garden – that sounds like the perfect idyll. However, anyone who actually gets to do with deer there usually quickly gets to the edge of despair. The animals eat the young shoots on trees and bushes with great preference. How to drive away deer in the garden is here.
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background
Deer usually avoid being around people. However, when food is scarce in winter, hunger forces them to go to settlements and gardens by spring at the latest. The hungry animals have even been spotted in urban areas. As a rule, however, they will turn to areas that are in the immediate vicinity of their natural habitats – gardens that are located near forest areas or fields. There they are primarily targeting the following plant-based foods:
- Bark of trees
- young buds on trees and bushes
- Shoots on fruit trees
- fresh leaves
- first fruit clusters
The deer can cause enormous damage in the garden. It is not uncommon for the affected plants to die off. Once the animals have discovered that there is relatively safe food for them in a garden, they will haunt the place again and again – with catastrophic consequences for trees, bushes and the harvest. If a property is located in a potentially endangered area, it is therefore well advised to take precautionary measures so that the game does not even get onto the area.
Prevent
The same applies to deer: prevention is always better than driving away. The only effective preventive measure is fencing in the property. A chain link fence is just as suitable as a picket or lattice fence. The key point here is the height of the fence. A minimum height of 1.70 m should not be under any circumstances. The fence must be a barrier that the deer cannot cross. Enclosing with hedges is only conditionally useful or effective, as the animals can very well squeeze through branches or bushes – and experience shows that they do so.
Drive away deer
If deer appear regularly in the garden and eat trees there, for example, measures must be taken to drive them away again. It goes without saying that you should proceed as gently as possible. It shouldn’t be about hurting an animal. The best way to do this is to take advantage of the fact that deer are extremely shy and very cautious animals. Even the slightest irritation can lead you to run away. Noises and visual effects are therefore a tried and tested means of driving the game away. The following home remedies in particular have proven effective:
- CDs that are hung in trees and bushes
- Aluminum or glitter foils hung in the garden
- Wind chimes in the garden
- Floodlight with motion detector
CDs in particular are extremely effective. They reflect both sunlight and moonlight. The light reflections that result frighten game deeply. The effect usually lasts longer. The installation of a light source that switches on by means of a motion detector is somewhat more complex. Here, too, the animals are frightened when the light suddenly comes on and flee.
Deterrents
In the meantime, there are also a whole range of deterrents in the trade, which are particularly intended to drive away fallow deer. They work either on the basis of fragrances or on the basis of sounds. The most famous fragrance is called “Wildstopp”. It is applied generously to plants in the garden area and gives off an odor that signals danger, especially for deer and rabbits. The animals will avoid the area from the start. However, rain leads to the fact that the odorous substances are washed off. The procedure must therefore be repeated regularly if the effect is not to suffer. The extent to which deer can be deterred by electronic scare devices is controversial. These devices mostly work with tones in the ultrasonic range, which should at least have an irritating effect on the game.
Conclusion
Anyone who has deer in their garden has a problem. It is therefore best to secure the garden from the animals with fences. If that is not possible, you should use simple home remedies such as CDs or wind chimes, which are usually astonishingly effective and efficiently drive away the deer.
