Deer protection

Like your suggestion not so sure our horse would tho as he currently is munching his way through a fair acreage of grass as I type!

 

The mule can go in the other 4 acres

 

Cheek. I may say our now very much retired nag was, accent on the was! prime Irish Sports horse, however like his owner, somewhat passed it now. The other 4 acres I hasten to add are the house and my garden/veg patch plus a bit of wood. Twinkle toes (horse) ain't getting his great gnashers on anything in the garden,the deer are bad enough but he'd hoover everything in sight up in nano seconds!

 

Lol you only said horse so you should have a goat are a mule to keep it company, horses are herd animals and shouldn't be left alone .

 

Sympathies, silu! I've only got to protect 2 acres, but this year the wild boar are back with a vengeance. There were 8 large adults last year...it's 15 this year + the bambis, of course.
I've put the electric fence back round the perimeter. It's not too expensive to buy here....enough posts and wire for two strands + the battery/transformer thingy came to around €300. I'm sending the bill to the Federation de la Chasse (official hunt body) as they are liable for damages caused by wild game. Don't suppose I'll be reimbursed but it makes a point about the inefficacity of the local Chasse.
I know this sounds daft, but have you got any scarecrows around? They can be fun to make and I've found them to be very effective at deterring deer. Especially if they're holding cheapie toy guns!

 

@silu , we have a big fallow deer problem too, a c50 strong herd. I don’t grow vegetables but they cause a lot of damage. One of the worst things is the damage caused by the males rubbing their itchy antlers on trees and shrubs in the spring. They kill fruit trees! I can cope with the browsing but the antler rubbing is too much. We recently planted a small wood, about 50 trees and have electric fenced it.....so far so good. I know it’s a bit drastic but it might work to save the broccoli.

 

@Irmemac I really like that system you have linked . That looks like it would handle the winters no problem. I have one similar but much lighter and it recently withstood 140k winds. Even the sections that I had custim made medium gauge plastic covers for.

 

Ha you don't know Norman aka known as posh event horse Hailbopp. He loaths other horses (maybe due to being orphaned as a foal) and had to be kept away from the other 2 horse we had at 1 time. Yes horses are herd animals but there are exceptions. We had a gorgeous Selle Francais horse who wouldn't stay in the field on his own without a companion, they are all different!

 

Theirs only one Gaffer in a herd maybe Norman is just showing who is the boss seen it many times they calm down after a while,

True you know him better than me .

 

Actually @Redwing you may have just hit the nail on the head as I have electric fencing stuff left from when we had to separate the horse Norman (please note @martin-f ) from our other equines. The transformer thingy got chewed by sheep, oh the joys of country living, but it might be salvageable. Running on a battery it's cheap to run and just might put the deer off enough. Many thanks will get the transformer resurrected and give this a go.

 

Doh,,,, I should have thouht of that too! I have a solar powered electric fence on top of my regular fence to discourage raccoons. I have to run both pos and neg wires because it is 6 ft off the ground but it sure would woek dandy for deer!

 

Bought him as a newly broken 4 yo and he is now 16 so yes, know him pretty well. Far too smart for his own good. All the athleticism to go a very long way but far too clever to be that obliging unless he thought it was a good idea. Many of the best competition horses aren't the brightest and easily told what to do, neither applies to yours truly!

 

Thanks @shiney daughter's BF is being volunteered (doesn't know the good news yet) to try and repair the transformer "thingy" which arms the electric tape. If the thingy is too badly damaged then I will definitely look into the cage idea. The thingy was quite expensive to buy from memory and I'd rather spend money on a cage than getting a replacement. If it is a cage i go for would the stiff plastic stuff you see sometimes on building sites be any good? That usually comes in some ghastly shade of orange tho, not exactly enhancing to my garden Maybe it comes in a more forgiving colour.