Every day it seems like the deer are getting closer and closer, and that they’re no longer afraid of us and where we live.

About Deer

• Deer ticks carry the bacteria that cause LYME disease. One deer will facilitate the birth of ONE MILLION Deer Ticks per year! WOW! But when deer and other pests are excluded from your property, your tick counts will see a 90% REDUCTION!
• Deer have multiple stomachs, so they don't need much time to devastate a large property.
• Deer eat green plants in the spring and summer, and corn, acorns and other nuts in the fall. In the winter, they eat the buds and twigs of woody plants.
• Whitetail deer are the most common in Connecticut and New York, and can live up to 10 years in the wild.
• Deer around your home are much more shy of strangers than neighborhood residents.

About Deer Fences

Barrier deer fences can be found with many different heights and materials. Most deer fences range in heights from 6 to 15 feet. Shorter fences work as well as taller fences because deer rarely jump fences – they will look for a way around them. They’ll try to find holes created by smaller animals, weak points along the fence line, or nose underneath the fence (most common). Most of the time, a 7' height is plenty.

The average white tail deer can jump as high as 15 feet, but they are hesitant to jump any height or barrier unless threatened. This is why 7' deer fencing is most commonly used.

Another deterrent to keeping deer from jumping fences is the color spectrum they are able to see. Because of this, it is difficult for them to discern where the top of the fence ends and the trees or sky begin.

Riverside Fence offers two types of fence to meet your deer fencing needs - Polypropylene and Steel WebSM

Polypropylene Deer Fencing - Better

All polypropylene deer fencing is not created equal. Some of the lesser quality fences will not stand up to the pressure deer will place on it. At Riverside Fence we use heavy perimeter grade polypropylene.

This is a high-strength, wire fence-like mesh (1.75 inch squares) material constructed of UV stable black polypropylene. This "hi-tech" plastic fence is 7 ½' feet high, very cost-effective, and provides long-term deer protection of the property. The installed height of the fencing is approximately 7'. Six inches of the plastic fence grid is "flared" out onto the ground away from the protected area to keep deer from pushing underneath the fencing.

Steel WebSM Deer Fencing - Best

For a stronger, longer lasting, more invisible deer fence, Steel WebSM is your choice. Made of metal coated with black polyethylene, this unique 1" hexagon cell design is the strongest shape known. When the fence sustains impact, there is a remarkable “gelatin effect” that occurs, in which the individual hexagon cell stretches to absorb the force created.

The wire is also thinner then heavy perimeter grade polypropylene, and combined with the cell shape, causes the fence to fade seamlessly into the background of your yard.

Just like polyethylene fence, Steel WebSM installed height is approximately 7'. Six inches of the plastic fence grid is "flared" out onto the ground away from the protected area to keep deer from pushing underneath the fencing.

Have your deer fence installed by a professional

Most deer fence breaches happen because the fence was not properly installed. Installers (including many landscapers and semi-professional deer fence installers) tend to focus on getting the fence high enough (which in most cases is not needed) and forget to leave enough fencing to secure the bottom effectively.

The first instinct of browsing deer is to poke about the bottom of the fence. If the bottom just brushes the ground, even if it is pegged down, the deer will nose under it and eventually work themselves underneath and through. This means that a deer fence set up this way is very vulnerable. To make it secure at the time of installation, one needs to sacrifice 6 inches of height and leave enough material at the bottom to create a "flap" of fence lying outward on the ground - toward the direction from which the deer will come. This flap is then pegged down securely approximately every 6 feet to create an effective barrier.

Do other deer deterrents work?

Deer Resistant Plants

Any honest landscaper or nurseryman will tell you that even "deer resistant plants" are mostly edible and vulnerable to deer damage. Deer will eat these plants if they are hungry enough. There are very few plants that are considered truly deer damage resistant, and the number gets smaller every day. What the deer don't eat in one area, they may devour in another depending upon the amount of animals per square mile and the available food supply. The bottom line is if the deer are hungry enough, they will eat almost anything…even "deer resistant plants"!

Repellants

This form of deer damage control can be separated into three categories:

1) Deer damage control substances that make your plants smell bad.

2) Substances that make your plants taste bad.

3) Control substances that make the deer believe a predator is near.

For enhanced deer damage control, some manufacturers will actually combine the odor and taste ingredients, typically making a more comprehensive repellant. Commercially, there are available deer repellants for each of these categories. In our opinion, the "predator" repellants are typically the least effective. The reason for this is that in many parts of the country, deer have become more adapted to having humans and other dangerous creatures like dogs in close proximity to their natural habitat. Typically, ingredients such as lion feces, fox or coyote urine, and bags of human hair work as viable deer damage control techniques for only a very short time or not at all.

There are a few reasons why a "smells bad" and/or "tastes bad" repellant may fail to protect your plants from deer damage. A repellant is typically a spray-on chemical that is prone to being washed off from rain and watering. Fresh growth (a deer's favorite part of any plant) that goes untreated will be vulnerable. Deer are persistent and adaptive creatures that can get used to a repellant. Deer repellants are more effective if they are applied often. Their effectiveness is enhanced if different types of repellants are used and rotated on a regular basis. Historically, the problem with this type of deer control is that most people forget to apply these deer damage control substances regularly and never remember to rotate the mixture. If deer are hungry enough, repellants may sometimes be ignored all together.

Another group of deer damage control repellants (not dignified by a category) we call the "home remedy" variety. Included in this category are things like shredded deodorant soap, creosote, and mothballs. Although these may work to varying degrees in low deer pressure areas, we would not bet your landscaping or garden on them.

Electric Fence

Electric deer proof fencing is designed to deliver a mildly painful shock to the deer, keeping them from penetrating the fenced area. Baited deer proof fencing has a foodstuff attached to the wire fence strand that, when the deer sniffs or licks it, will shock them. Baited electric fencing will fail as a deer deterrent method if the baiting of the fence is not maintained or the deer learn to go over or under the strands. Multi-strand deer deterrent fencing is designed to prevent deer damage by shocking the deer as it attempts to go through the strands. Many are constructed 5' to 7' tall to deter deer from jumping. Multi-strand electric deer deterrent fencing will fail if the deer (whose hollow hair and hooves act as an insulator) learn that if they move through the fence quickly or carefully, they will receive little or no shock at all. Both types of electric deer proof fencing are susceptible to falling limbs and growing weeds that "ground out" the fence, rendering it useless. Dry ground conditions can also make deer essentially "not grounded" and the resulting shock can be all but non-existent. Bottom line… electric deer deterrent fencing is fairly effective for providing deer damage control for large farms in rural areas where the deer pressure is less extreme and where some crop damage is acceptable. For residential neighborhoods with moderate to high deer pressure, multi-strand electric deer proof fencing may work for a while, but if the deer learn how to push between the wires, the fence becomes all but useless for deer control.

Scare Tactics

Scare tactics include anything that is supposed to scare or steer the deer away in order to prevent deer damage. The current offerings include a variety of motion activated devices including: strobe lights, sirens, sprinklers, scarecrows, sonic and ultrasonic devices, continuously pulsing ultrasonic devices, and many other commercially produced "gizmos" meant to scare your deer away. Of the "home remedy" variety, many people try playing the radio or setting a disco strobe light near their plantings. These may work in certain locations for some amount of time; however, these are usually effective for only a few days to a few weeks. The deer simply learn that there is no physical threat and this deer control tactic becomes ineffective.

The main problems with physical barriers are their prices and their high visibility. If what you are in search of is of is a low visibility solution, few options are available. Black colored grid-like materials prove to be the least visible deer deterrent fencing material in most environments.

The only deer damage deterrent method that is capable of being virtually 100% effective is a physical barrier. The least visible barriers capable of keeping out deer are heavy-duty, "grid-like" black colored plastic mesh or PVC coated black materials, typically called "deer fence". Existing trees are typically used in lieu of posts whenever possible as they make the deer proof fencing even more invisible. Deer proof fencing does vary greatly by manufacturer. Buyers need to be wary, as most deer deterrent fencing products referred to as "deer fence" are thin plastic nettings that are not able to keep a deer from breaking through them. That is why at Riverside Fence we only use the best in deer fencing products, because we want your fence installed with the right materials.