Probably a gardening question but...

Budget? Well if you want to spend a little, you can purchase a six strand preditor fence from Electrobraid Fence. This fence with charger, or solar charger has about a 6-9000 volt pulse running through it and with six strands up to 8' high you should not have to worry about anything short of a rabit getting into your garden. For a complete system around a 1/4 acre I would guess you would spend about $3500.00 maybe more. I am using this system around my building project to keep out bear, but from what I am told it is very effective on just about everything else. Katmai National Park has had a 99% sucess rate against moose and bear. (There aren't any dear there)


-Ryan

www.pawcreekhomestead.com

Most of Australia. OK, a few ferals, but there are probably more keen hunters than there are deer. The deer are miles off in the back-country, hiding - the live ones anyway.

Of course, then we do have kangaroos.

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ô¿ô Don Armstrong,Terra Australis

Grandad, tell us a story about the olden days, when you were young and men could walk on the moon.

Next year we'll have a big garden - vegies and flowers. I'm planning a picket fence to surround 3 sides with a dog run down the remaining side. I figure if they jump in from the side facing the house, it will seem that they are jumping "into" the dog's pen... otherwise they'll have to go past the dog to get in. I'm hoping this will help with small critter control too. Anyone know how far away a dog can be to scare a rabbit or other midnight snackers? May be a long skinny garden...

My sympathies.

The peanut butter baiting actually works just fine--spread it on aluminum foil and place on the electric fence.

Our first year, we did a small electric fence. What a joke. The second year we added a barrier fence around the main electric fence. That worked until towards the end. (The idea is that they can jump high and they can jump wide, but it's difficult to do both at the same time. The key is to set the second fence far enough to give it width but not so far that they can jump the first one, land, then jump the second one.)

Finally, we have a six foot non-electric fence, and we extended the height by adding wires across the top for 8 1/2 feet. They could jump it, but because the wires extend outwards (effectively making our fence 8 1/2 feet tall and 2 feet wide), they don't bother. This is year two and so far so good.

Our dogs don't chase the deer (except the babies). I guess when they get a certain size, the dogs figure they're honorary horses.

Urine, human urine, properly aged has worked for me. Gross? Yes, but I too tried everything to save my orchard.
I hung stockings full of barbered hair, cotton balls laced with cologne, bars of soap, and even a deer proofing tabasco recipe from a gardening magazine.
Nothing but urine worked.
Good luck with what ever you try.

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No lotus land ever cast its spell upon a man's heart more than Wyoming had enchanted mine.-The Virginian-Owen Wister-

Did they just walk 5 feet from the door? or did they make a point of going around the periphery of your garden? this has worked for me too