That is really strange, deer browsing in that woods and meadow across from you would reduce the fuel . It's hard to believe they prefer that bare woods to that lush looking property.

Some how so far in all the years we have lived here 40+ the deer do very little, practically no damage. An occasional nibble or two and they did a job on Ric's young bush a few years ago but it grew back .

Ric, I didn't mean to imply that either you or Holly are wrong to feed your deer. Your herd is being managed. Ours is not.

I suspect the reason the deer that showed up on my lawn, and it is really a very small lawn, was because they had been born and raised to feed on my neighbor's lawn.

Thanks for mentioning the milogranite. I'll put some around my magnolia.

All of the planting out in front is supposed to be deer resistant. What isn't deer resistant has well built deer cages. However, when town deer are starving, they eat anything and everything in a garden and ignore the places where deer normally find food.

All of my roses will grow back. I am not sure about a few of my other plants, but the hard part is knowing how many deer are starving.

Lyn, Certainly no offense taken. We both realize that in most places what works well for us would not work at all.

Ric, I think what Lyn means by "fuel reduction" is the practice of removing shrubs, trees, etc. that are close to homes and could serve as kindling when there are wildfires. The less brush there is, the less chance there is that brush fires will spread. This potentially deprives the deer of food, of course, although my sister and BIL in California have (apparently) ideal landscaping from a fuel reduction standpoint, but still have plants that Virginia deer would find tasty.

Thanks, Holly ...

Vienna ... that's a fair explanation of fuel reduction. If you look at the trees in the second photo above, you will see that there are no limbs near the ground. Initially, all of the blackberries were removed during our fuel reduction project. There is a 7' cliff there across the road that was covered with the berries which are highly inflammable.

CalFire cleared all of the brush, limbed all of the trees and thinned a lot of the trees in front of my house, my neighbors' houses and the neighbor's property above my house higher on the slope. However, Ric is right. If that meadow caught fire during the dry season, since fire moves uphill, my house would probably be gone. As long as we keep the blackberries from getting thick again, I have a chance.

The sad thing is while that doe was eating everything she could in my garden, even plants that deer don't normally eat, that meadow was just across the road and she didn't know that there was a LOT of food over there. That's a town deer.

Lyn, I am so glad to read your postings about 'town deer', those who have been raised in town to forage gardens , taught by doe mamas to eat landscapes instead of 'woods edge' and clearing browse. No cougars or wolves repopulating here just yet, so vehicles are main killers. Auto insurance rates are higher for heavy deer population areas.

I remember watching some public tv program that talked about two herd of deer in Europe that had been separated by a huge fence and barriers as part of WWII blockades. These barriers stood until about 15 years ago when they were removed. However, the deer do not cross over the former fence line; each herd keeps to its own side!! There is exactly the same forage and no sign of the fenceall through that valley. It is only the 'memory' and its passing down teaching to the little ones that keep the herds separate!

Managed hunts do cull deer but not always the sick and diseased. Seems size and sex matter to hunters, so the wise ones are taken to leave the juveniles to fend for themselves and forage where they might.

Wonder whether deer can be taught to eat the great number of 'invasives' that fill our woodlands around here, displacing native plant ecology? Goats eat ivy, couldn't deer?

MariposaMaid said:
Wonder whether deer can be taught to eat the great number of 'invasives' that fill our woodlands around here, displacing native plant ecology? Goats eat ivy, couldn't deer?

Love that idea, Mariposa!! I have a lot of Creeping Charlie I wish they would nibble on!!

They generally avoid plants with a "minty" taste.

I forgot one other way to keep the deer from walking your property. Instead of putting up deer fence lay it down on the ground. As I mentioned before they take great care when they walk to protect their feet. The fence laying on the ground is something they will not walk on it. I'm enclosing a picture from were I use to study and their sign about the fence on the ground.

Muddy, what I meant was the deer should be browsing on the understory thereby reducing fuel.
In areas of high deer populations the woods are somewhat clear because of browsing. In some areas there is concern that they are killing back the native aspens by over browsing.

Eric4home said:Glad you found a solution for your place. I've found a number of things can help. One of the easiest is using Milogranite fertilizer where I don't want the deer browsing our beds. They find the odor to their dislike. I also cage a few plants to be sure they don't get to them.

Glad Milorganite works for you up there Eric. Here at my house in Texas it keeps them away for maybe two days if at that. They even stroll into my greenhouse in the spring and summer when I have the sides up for a tasty snack. These were taken last August in my backyard. Those are my tomatoes they're going after and yes, there is Milorganite in the tubs. The one with the two Doe in it, the one in the back is munching on my Hydrangea that has Milorganite added to the soil.

Chris, Have you ever tried mounting a fence wire inside your roll-up? That should help keep the critters out and not be in your way.

I'd thought about that Ric, not sure if I'll use chicken wire or just get some of the cloth type fencing. Depends on which is cheapest and easiest to install.

@MariposaMaid

"vehicles are main killers. Auto insurance rates are higher for heavy deer population areas."

That's true up here, too. However, because I live in the mountains, often with narrow roads with no guard rails, there is also the significant danger of falling off the mountain if you hit a deer or try to avoid hitting a deer. So, it's not just vehicle damage, but some people actually die or have life changing injuries. Most of us who live here all of the time, know better than to try to avoid a deer and just hit it. It's generally the tourist trying to avoid deer that fall off of the mountain.

"Wonder whether deer can be taught to eat the great number of 'invasives' that fill our woodlands around here, displacing native plant ecology? Goats eat ivy, couldn't deer?"

Town deer do eat ivy. The ivy hiding my propane tank looks like it has had a military hair cut. She ate every leaf off of the vinca out in front. Deer hate vinca. All of my deer resistant plants out front have been eaten to the crown except for my lamb's ear and santolinas.

We do use goats to clear creeks and streams of invasive blackberry bushes. But there is no rent-a-goat program because of the cougars.

Their mamas did teach the town deer to eat plants that regular deer would avoid.

Cat ... the doe cleaned out my Creeping Charlie, too.

greenthumb99 ..."greenthumb99" using minty plants in the landscape does work for regular deer.

treehugger .... I did try laying down wire under the maple tree. I did it both laying the wire flat and in rolls. I ended up putting that wire on the vinca slope, but I also caged the slope.

I think the real issue up here is that the herd is simply too large and they will eat anything, so it's kind of like nothing is safe.

When I read up on deer eating habits, I found that deer normally eat grasses and the leaves of understory plants during the milder season, but automatically change to eating twigs and small branches during the winter months after leaf fall.

To protect the small towns up here from wildfire, there has been a lot of work done outside the town perimeters removing the understory plants and thinning the trees using controlled burns. Yes, it is destroying the natural habitat for town deer, but they don't really dine in those areas ..

Here's kind of an interesting article about the impact that a controlled burn can having on a fire.

http://www.redding.com/news/lo...

greenthumb99 said:They generally avoid plants with a "minty" taste.

Darn! Too bad we can't breed a strain of deer that enjoys only the taste of weeds...

Sorry ... I didn't mean to hijack the thread. It's the town deer thingy.

Lyn, I think it's been quite interesting

Thanks, Sally ...

It's so abnormal for deer I would have never guessed there was a difference from town deer and regular deer ...

Lyn, are your deer white tailed deer which is what we have here?

Some deer can eat grass or graze that meadow downhill from your house, but white tail can't.

"The whitetail flexibility stops at grass. They did not develop into grazers like some of the other deer species. They did not develop the special teeth or stomachs that can efficiently grind up and digest the tough fibers in grasses (like the horses and bovines did for example). The types of deer that do graze (like the axis deer) prefer to follow behind the coarse grass grazers so they can eat the new-sprouting, more tender shoots that spring up after the first "mowing"

Whitetails, like all deer, have incisor teeth (the cutting teeth in front) on only the bottom jaw, and a cartilage pad on the front of the upper jaw (They have molars on both upper and lower jaws.) This tooth pattern causes them to pull out the grass rather than shearing it like the specialized grazers do. The tender base of the grass is low in fiber, more nutritious and more digestible. So while whitetail can digest some of the grasses' most tender shoots, overall they would not thrive on grass alone.

What they eat is a huge variety of low fiber foods—-they are "concentrate selectors". They eat tender shoots and leaves from all sorts of trees, vines, plants and bushes; fruits, vegetables, nuts (acorns are a real favorite), grains, mushrooms (a gourmet treat to deer) and mosses. Here in the South they eat Spanish moss (which is actually a bromeliad) and up in the cold climates in winter they eat frozen vegetation that has turned into a nutritious, natural silage.

The deer's diet can turn into a starvation diet if food runs out in winter, and deer will then eat the undesirable mature forms of the previously delectable foods, and in fact will eat almost anything. At times a starving deer will have a belly filled with food that it cannot digest and will die with a full stomach."
http://www.suwanneeriverranch....