How to Keep Deer Away From Trees

Deer are beautiful creatures but can prove a hazard for fruit trees and landscape trees when they wander into lawns and orchards. Deer are smart and quickly adapt to disruptions in their environment. Shooing deer away usually results in them coming back when people aren't around and chewing the leaves or rubbing the bark off of important trees. There are commercial repellents available, and it is possible to make your own deer repellent. Each repellent has different ingredients and can be combined with other methods to save trees from unwanted damage.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Three raw eggs
• One cup of Tabasco sauce
• One cup of water
• Blender
• Four lightweight glass bottles
• Two feet of string

1. Blend raw eggs and Tabasco sauce together the water. This results in a frothy mixture with a very pungent odor. The eggs give an olfactory signal of danger to the deer, while the Tabasco sauce drives them away if they hazard a taste.

2. Allow the mixture to sit in a cool, dry place for three days. The solution must rest before it is applied to trees, and aging the eggs makes them more effective.

3. Apply the mixture liberally to trees using a sprayer or scoop. Spray or pour the mixture around the base of the tree and on the lower branches. This discourages deer from damaging the leaves and trunks of your trees.

4. Reapply a freshly mixed solution after each rainy spell or every two to three months. This homemade mixture is biodegradable and can actually help the nutrients in the soil near where it is sprayed.

5. Hang bottles close together from the higher branches. They should be light enough and far enough apart that the wind or any motion in the tree can knock them together, frightening the deer with the sound.

Tips & Warnings

• Rotate the use of homemade and commercial repellents every season so that the local deer don't become used to one active ingredient.
• The more of a deer's senses that you can offend, the better your results will be. Be careful not to overdo it, though, as it may be offensive to workers or neighbors if you do too much to drive away the deer.

References

• The Walnut Council Deer Repellent Study

Resources

• LiquidFence.com Commercial Deer Repellent
• HavAHart.com Deer Off Commercial Deer Repellent