After several age ofkeeping hungry cervid out of my woodlet with an 8 - foot margin fence , one stubborn deer is repeatedly breaching my defence force to crunch on clavus beds , devour sunflowers , and enjoy a folio snack bar .
When I first spotted the cervid in my orchard , I seize part of my fence must have been damage . My woodlet is beleaguer by forest on three sides , and the fenceweaves among trees to use them as fence spot , so the fence ca n’t be examined at a glance . I had to take a walking through the woods ( weather mosquitos along the mode ) to determine its wholeness .
I was mixed-up to find the fencing in ( mostly ) unspoilt shape , still stand tall . There were a mates footling issues here and there causing the fence to sag , but nothing too spectacular . And this remain the case even after the deer made its way into the grove again … and again … and again .
Look Down
But on one occasion , I startled the deer and it promptly take to the woods by slippingunderneaththe fence , labor up the black plastic with its nose and darting off into the Wood . on the spur of the moment , a electric light went on in my head .
It turns out that during the row of my many perimeter checks , I ’d focused too hard on theheightof the fencing ( to foreclose the deer from derail over ) and not enough on thebottomof the fencing where it forgather the ground . When I ’d built the fence , I ’d folded the bottom 6 inches outward and pinned it down with metallic element stakes to discourage deer from pushing underneath .
But tire out and tear over fourth dimension had make the bottom of the fencing to break barren of the stake in some places . This provided chance for the deer to push the fence up , skid underneath , andwreak mayhem .
Patching Things Up
At the moment , I ’m in the middle of making significant fence repairs and betterment to cease the cervid encroachment . Years of maple leaves blown against the bottom of the fencing bell ringer places where the deer clearly is n’t nosing under , but any station where the bottom of the fencing is exposed is getting heighten .
In some places , I ’m stapling blocks of Mrs. Henry Wood or sometime wooden fencing posts to the bottom of the fence to pin it down . In other places , I ’m install section of welded wire to create a unassailable barrier that ca n’t be pushed off so well . I ’m alsoplanning to expend a metallic element detectorto locate the original metal stakes ( which are buried under leaf litter at this spot ) and put them back into right usance .
It ’s a metre - ware project , but I ’m making progress . And I do n’t think the deer has regress to my orchard in several twenty-four hours now .
It blend in to show that when installing a cervid fence , the unity of the bottom is every minute as crucial as the height . Come to think of it , this is rightful for other type of fences as well . The key to build a garden fencing to keep out hare , squirrels and other small brute is tobury the bottom of the fencing undergroundso critter ca n’t tunnel underneath .
Have cervid been breaching your orchard fence ? Give the bottom a exhaustive examen . Maybe , like me , you ’ve been overlooking an obvious trouble touch .
