Dealing with Deer

Or, as I now refer to them, "hoof rats".

In 2019 I came out to a tree farm where most of my pines and cedars had been eaten from ground level to 4 feet above ground. Tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

I've been researching deer damage since.

If you are serious about this, you need defence in depth.

Fences

If Bambi is starving, he will ignore all repellants and deterrents. There are several styles of fence you can put up.

All boundary region defences will work to keep Bambi in, as well as out. If you forgot to close the gate, and Bambi wanders in, he may not find the gate on the way out. So now you force him to dine on your fine buffet of choice apple trees.

8 foot elk fence. The wire fence part of this is about $1.50/running foot if you catch the sales at Co-Op. You need posts every 15 feet from one source. The fence needs to secured to the ground, otherwise Bambi will push a nose under, and weasel his way through.
Low visibility mesh fence. This is roughly a badminton net -- 1 inch squares of thin very strong fiber with a plastic coating. Deer run into it, and can see it at eye level, but their vision isn't acute enough to see where the top is. Instation instructions suggest tying visibility markers on it at 6 foot intervals at deer eye level to help the deer learn where it it. The fence is cheaper to buy, and you can put posts much further apart, and hang the fence from a strand of wire. I suspect that it's higher maintenance. It is NOT strong enough to keep out moose.
An opaque fence 5-6 feet high. Deer won't jump if they can't see their landing place. One of the ways to do this is to plant a row of shrubs to back up the fence. This takes a while to grow. Meanwhile, Bambi is practicing the Fence Jump.
A pair of fences, with the outer one dog proof, and the inner one moderately deer proof. You also need a dog that has a hate on for deer. The idea here is that you are creating a deer unfriendly zone. It helps if you have the mindset of a cold war era East German Stasi goon.
Electric fences. Best way is a multiple strand fence with alternate wires charged and the other ones grounded. This helps in winter when the ground isn't sufficiently conductive to give Bambi a good jolt. Electric fences have to be regularly checked that they aren't shorted to ground by wayward grass or bush. Normal practices is to keep a few feet of bare earth. Spray twice a year. Note: Some weeds are glyphosate tolerant. Dandelion and thistle will burn down, but not be killed unless you keep coming back. Because grass grows quickly bottom charged one should be about 2 feet up.
Peanut butter fence. This consists of a single strand electric fence at nose level. The fence is baited with peanut butter by taking sections of soda can aluminum, folding in half around the wire and including a blob of peanut butter between the leaves. Secure with a staple. The idea here is that Bambi will be attracted to the peanut butter, and get a zot on his sensitive nose or tongue. Bambi, is conditioned to avoid shiny bits of aluminum. Hang similar bits of aluminum baited with peanut butter from the trees you wish to protect.

Aversions

The peanut butter fence is a case of trained aversion. Red hot chili peppers are another. So are bitter agents. You create an unpleasant association with some stimulus, and the deer avoid that stimulus. The problem with aversion training on your plants: Bambi has to eat your plant to find out there is a problem with it.

When you spray anything, you have to worry about how long it will stay. Some things come off with the next rain. There are spray adjuvants generically called 'sticking agents' or 'stickers' that you can add to the mix to keep something else from washing off readily.

Bitter agents. There are several of these on the market. You spray on the plant to make it taste bad. Apparently deer given a choice between bitter food and plain, will choose the plain, but they don't work very hard to avoid the bitter. Ineffective when Bambi is starving.
Hot pepper agents. Essentially ground up jalapeno or hotter peppers sprayed on your plants. This can be difficult to apply, and I can just see myself scratching an itch on my forehead, then having it get in my eyes.

Fear of the Unknown

Many things work for a while, or when Bambi is snacking and not starving. Deer aren't very bright: It doesn't take much in the way of brains to sneak up on a twig. Anything strange either sight or smell or sound set them running. But after a while, they become accustomed to the presence, and return. One article put it, "Anything works for three weeks."

Scents. Strong herbal scents are supposed to repel deer. Peppermint has been recommended by several sources. Lavender also. Similar logic behind coyote urine, human hair, scented bar soap. The problem with these: Limited reach. The effect of the repellant is only about a meter. Lavender and peppermint are recommended. I've not seen any comparison between natural and artificial scents.
Predators and Death Threats No, you're not sending the deer poison pen letters. Few of them can read. Coyote urine, cat urine come in this category. A variant on this is dried blood. Plantskyd is essentially dried slaughterhouse blood, mixed with binding agent. The notion is that the scent of blood means predators in the area.
Sound Cannon Think in terms of automated thunder. Deer acclimate to a regular blast quite quickly. Making the timing irregular helps. Even better is to make them motion sensitive.
Moving Sparkly Things Old CD's, pie pans, strips of aluminum baking pans, beer can spinners. Deer are attuned to movement. Could be a coyote sneaking up on a faun, or a cougar considering a venison lunch. But there is lots of natural movement when the wind blows. These are all "three weeks" items.

Alternate foods

Some plants tolerate browsing far better than others. Dogwood, alder, willow, chokecherry, pin cherry, saskatoon are all browse that deer eat naturally, and have adapted to this.

An abundance of these in the woods near my tree farm didn't help my pines last winter.

Rerouting.

Creating paths that go around the areas you want to protect is possible. Deer are creatures of habit, and also lazy. If you can make it easy to browse elsewhere, they may pay less attention to your extra tasty bits. Mowing a trail that allows them to migrate across your property to the next zone of woodland may help.

For me, most of the problem is in winter. Making paths for deer with the snowblower can work.

Hunting

I've tried this several years. The problem: With 80 acres I really don't want multiple groups on my property at once. Deer season is only a month long here, so with 4 weekends the best I can hope for is to get rid 8 deer, assuming the hunters are solo. Most of the time, 2/3 of the hunters have left empty handed.

Poisons

Don't.

It's illegal.
Most poisons are quite cruel, putting the animal in distress for some hours before death.
There are no poisons registered anywhere for use against deer.
It is very difficult to set up bait stations that are limited to a single target.

If you decide to do this anyway use an agent that won't poison whatever eats the carcass.

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