A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 What to do with deer.....

I have a problem with deer eating my sunflowers. I don't know what to do. What can I do? Merfee

I suggest a little salt and pepper, then cook the venison until itis medium rare and serve while still hot! MMMMMMMMMMMM!
Whoops! Wrong forum sorry.

We had a bad problem with ours, as the bushy tailed tree rats were eating the seeds as fast as we could plant them this past spring. A live trap and a squirrel relocation program (from the trap into the freezer) took care of that problem really quick! But it may be kinda hard to get the deer to crawl into the trap.
If the sunflowers are not being used for human consumption I would suggest using a spray called Ropel or a Hot pepper spray on them. Both of these will not deter birds from feeding on the seeds if that is your intention, but mammals do not like the taste of this stuff at all and will leave them alone.
If you do want to eat the seeds then try using different types of scents to scare the deer away. The trick is to change your scents weekly as the deer become accustomed to them and they no longer work. Oh by the way predator urine or any other type of urine does not really work. This stuff is found all the time in the deer's own habitat, and it does not scare them at all. Actually it makes great cover scent for you while hunting them!
Some of the better things to use would be:

1.Hotel soaps. ( those little bars that we always steal from the hotel and they wind up sitting in a drawer for all eternity) drill a hole in them and hang them with a piece of thread.

2.Human hair. This is a good one since different people have different smells, one trip to a barber shop should give you enough hair for an entire season. Just put a small handful into an old pair of nylons and knot it then hang it near the plant.

3.Dog hair. If you don't know anyone with a dog, stop by a groomers.

4. Moth balls. Again in a small sack made up from a pair of nylons.

5. A rag with some perfume on it. This may not last as long as the other scents though.


Hope these ideas help, if they don't rifle induced lead poisoning has not failed me yet

Mike gave some great one's!!!

I used a couple of tomato cages', the one directly
over the plant *after they chewed the tops the first time* UPSIDE DOWN, with the points pointing up in the air...and when I thought they'd return in the next couple of days, I layed
a couple on their sides, each going in a different direction, so, as they approached, there would be a pointy thing sticking at them..
They left them alone, I then took off the others laying down and only left the one poking up..
and is now covered by the multiply heads it produced since it couldn't grow up any more...

(we dropped our camera and haven't been able to take a picture, but we barrowed f~i~l's camera and will take a picture of it to show multiple heads)