Deer are eating my garden
Exclusion beats deterrence, every time, and it gets cheaper the longer you own it. The trick most people don't know is that you don't need an eight-foot fence — you need two short ones.
What actually works
Two fences 4–6 ft apart, neither tall. Deer jump high and far but not both at once. Roughly half the cost of an 8-ft fence.
Roughly half an 8-foot fenceEgg-solid sprays genuinely work — they smell like a predator ate something. The catch is reapplying after every rain.
$20–40 a season, plus the reapplyingStartle plus water. Works, but relocate it every week or two or they habituate.
$50–80Sold for exactly this and repeatedly failed controlled testing. Same shelf, same price as the sprinkler that works.
$20–60 wastedFolklore, and with mothballs it's also a pesticide label violation.
$5 and, with mothballs, a federal label violationSurveyor's tape every 6–10 ft. Deer have poor depth perception in low light and will run straight through a wire they can't see.
Nearly every deer-fence failure is a gate, a corner, or a washed-out low spot. The fence is only as tall as its shortest point.
Run the numbers
- Fence materials & cost → — free calculator, works offline.
Also searched as
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