Deer

How to Get Rid of Deer

There are many techniques you can try to deter deer from munching on your plants. Try some of these methods for your garden:

• Spray flowers and shrubs with a deer repellent that contains a mixture of dried bovine blood, sulfured eggs, and garlic. These repellents are available at most home and garden stores. They will not harm your plants and are usually effective in deterring deer.
• For another natural deer repellent, combine 1 raw egg, ½ cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of dish detergent, and 1 gallon of water. Lightly spray the mixture over plants. Respray after rain. Or, mix two tablespoons of Tabasco sauce to a gallon of water and spray the foliage and fruit. If it rains, reapply.
• Use scare tactics. Try putting several metal posts 4- to 5-feet-tall around the garden. Attach a metal pie tin to the top of each pole with twine. The least bit of wind makes the pine tins clack with a noise that the deer don’t like. 
• Put a transistor radio in your garden and keep it on all night. Switch the station when you think of it. The noise will keep deer away.
• Set up an inexpensive motion detector in your garden. When a deer triggers it, the noise will scare the deer back into the woods.
• Drape fabric netting over plants and (most) deer will stay clear.
• For a natural deer deterrent, scatter dog or human hair around your garden, or hang human hair in pantyhose or mesh bags in trees. Find human hair clippings at a barber shop. 
  • To keep deer away from apple trees, hang nylon stockings filled with human hair from the limbs so that the clumps of hair are suspended about four feet from the ground. The hair and hose should be changed often.
• Scatter or hang bars of deodorant or cheap motel soap around the garden; if you leave the wrappers on, the soap will last longer. Irish Spring is particularly recommended. 
• Mix rotten eggs in water (a dozen or so per 5 gallons) and spray around the perimeter of the garden.
• Spread kitty litter around the edge of the garden.
• Soak old socks in Lysol, spread around garden’s perimeter, and hang from a tree limb or stake.
• One reader, Rick, says, “Smelly old shoes can be used as a deterrent to deer. Just stick the shoes on top of tomato sticks, and watch the deer walk a wide circle around them. My shoes usually last from mid-May until about mid-August. That is, they keep the deer out of my garden for that long. This depends on the amount of rain and how much your shoes smell.”
• You can also drape your unwashed laundry around a low fence, or make a very pungent scarecrow of your unlaundered clothes.
• For a real odor offensive, use predator urine; wolf and coyote urine are sold commercially in most garden stores. (Note: Use a responsible source for predator urine, to make sure that the animals are treated humanely and the brand complies with state and federal regulations.)

Prevent Deer in Your Garden

• Make it tough for deer to browse. Trim off lower branches of trees. No deer wants to waste time picking through your scare yard if there are lush bushes next door.
• Clean up your yard. Don’t leave acorns, rotted fruit, or leaves on your lawn; they are an open invitation to hungry deer.
• For your garden, choose flowers and shrubs that are unpalatable to deer, such as forsythia, lilac bush, marigolds, zinnias, daffodils, lavender and snapdragons. Contact your local cooperative extension for suggestions in your area. See our chart with a list of deer-resistant plants.
• Put strong-smelling plants that deer don’t like on the outside of your garden and smaller plants that need more protection on the inside. Deer tend to stay away from poisonous plants, strongly flavored plants, and plants with hairy or furry leaves.
• The most reliable method is to fence in your garden. Put up a strong, 8-foot-tall metal fence. 

See more about critter-resistant plants.