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I live in NE GA on 10 acres mostly wooded and I'd like to hear from you who use some type of economical deer repelent.
I'd like to keep them away from around my house and a small arena to start. I have a real tick problem and I'm hoping this year to keep it down.
At the feed store they have some stuff but it's pretty pricy...I have heard about using human hair but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually used it and any other economical product.
A dog is the only way to keep deer away. Use an invisible fence and have the dog free to roam the yard.
Is your problem seasonal or constant?
Where do the deer hangout when they are not eating local shrubbery.
Deer are as smart or smarter than people when it comes to learning to avoid danger or repellant odors, etc. They know if a yard has a dog that is tied up and how far the chain can reach. They know what time someone comes home or stays in for the night. These are not dumb creatures.
Alternatives are high fences, although a motivated white tail can leap an 8' fence from a standing start. Most repellants, if they briefly work, need constant reapplication.
If you want to keep the ticks away it would be more cost effective to apply tick repellant to yourself.
If hunting is an option, deer will learn to stay away from that home or even an individual while they get in the face of other people where they perceive no threat. Amazing how some folks tell me they try to chase deer and the deer just look at them. If I go outside the deer scatter. I hunt out back and never hunted on my actual property.
Each state Ag dept will have lists of trees and shrubs that deer will tend to eat last.
You might consider a biological approach by planting a sacrificial foodplot. A draw back if not done right would be to concentrate the deer which defeats the purpose of what you are trying to do. Might be better if you encourage your neighbors to grow gardens to reduce your landscape predation. Nearby croplands might all attract deer away from your property on a seasonal basis.
Doubt the presence of absence of deer eating your landscape will have an impact on the probability of deer ticks getting on you. Mice are intermediate deer tick hosts.
You can put hair clipping in sections of stocking then hang it around the area and that does help keep the deer away. But ticks are not just associated with deer and sadly you will most likely not effect the tick problem.
I suspect you are worried about lyme. I am here in NJ and we are loaded with ticks and lyme. Everyone in the family has been diagnosed with LD including the dog. We have gone the traditional venue with antibiotic for years but of course we continue to get bit year after year.
Recently I have decided to go the alternative medicine route, I felt there had to be some thing in nature that would take care of this problem.
I have found taking back walnut hull, wormwood, clove and pumpkin seed was beneficial, I seem to be symptom free.
Good luck,
Mike
dm if you like since I don't always have time for the forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ReturningWest
I live in NE GA on 10 acres mostly wooded and I'd like to hear from you who use some type of economical deer repelent.
I'd like to keep them away from around my house and a small arena to start. I have a real tick problem and I'm hoping this year to keep it down.
At the feed store they have some stuff but it's pretty pricy...I have heard about using human hair but I'd like to hear from someone who has actually used it and any other economical product.
Funny story. Some friends of ours own a cabin in the woods and had their dogs with them out there for the weekend. One of the dogs spotted a deer near the cabin and chased it into the woods. About 30 seconds later the dog comes flying out of the woods with the deer right on his tail and went right by the cabin. I guess the deer turned the tables on the chase.
Economic deer repellant? How about 12-gauge buckshot? If you're not the hunting type, I'm sure there's no shortage of folks in the area who'd be more than happy to help you with your problem.
Thanks everyone however, Mr. Kovacs it's illegal to shoot deer out of season.
NJMike I'm also a Lymes sufferer, I'm trying to come up with some cheap ideas to keep the deer population down on my place, I'm aware that they are not always the carriers but around here they tend to be and they are my biggest pest problem.
On any given day I might have 30-40 deer wandering thru my property...grrr
We have 2 acres, and use to have a herd of 10 - 20 move through everyday but the relentlessness condo development around us and increase number of cars has cut the heard down to 0 - 4 per day. The lilies will be the benefit this year since they are a favorite while browsing.
As a sidebar just remember lyme is past back to the tick by many warm blooded creatures and insects like mosquitoes, in certain areas . It is appalling that the lesser known transmissions or spread of the LD parasite and associated co-infection parasites are rarely mentioned, like insects and invitro, mother to fetus.
I believe we are constantly defending ourselves from all types of parasites. In decades gone by we may have dealt with them better benefiting from the foods and things we ate.
I am going to continue this lyme topic in the health section since it is better suited there, I will mention and add to the previusly mentioned herbs, olive leaf extract to explore for preventive parasitic treatments.
But back to the deer and nature in general, I would rather stay a part of it then remove it.
If there was a deer repellant that worked everyone would be using it and you would clearly find that solution in a web search.
Deer are attracted to shrubs for food or cover. Eliminate the those variables and the deer won't hang out on your property.
Consider, even if you kept all the deer off your property, deer would be roaming all over the neighboring land. So there is no real solution to your problem.
Free ranging dogs 'on your property' are the only sure solution to keep deer away but again do nothing to mitigate your tick problem.
An interesting story about what repels/attracts deer, although I apologize if anyone finds it offensive. Bucks will go around their territory making scapes during their mating season. Any does that come by will urinate in the scraped area and leave a footprint with scent from their interdigital gland. Hunters will sometimes make fake scrapes and use commercial scents or urine to 'freshen' the scrape. Some hunters will urinate in the scrape. Urinating in a scrape does nothing to discourage the buck and seems to spur them on. What chance do you think other human products have to repel a deer?
I worked in an exotic wildlife park where folks tried lion droppings around their plants to no effect.
In the 1980s, the University of Wisconsin Arboretum protected their endangered species from deer by surrounding the plants with human hair from barbershops (I don't know if they are still doing this, you can contact them and ask).
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only one way
