Deer Control & Identification
Deer can cause hundreds of dollars worth of damage to your landscaping and plants. Varment Guard's technicians are licensed to perform humane deer removal services at your property.
ABOUT DEER
Common Name: White-tailed deer
Scientific Name: Odocoileus virginianus
To learn more about wildlife removal, take a look at our Wildlife Removal & Trapping page.
DEER REPELLANT & CONTROL:
Exclusion
Deer are best excluded from farms, orchards, nurseries and commercial and residential properties through the extensive installation of wire fencing around these properties. Fencing can be made effective for excluding deer in two ways: (1) by being higher than a deer can jump (i.e., at least 10 feet tall) or (2) by being electrified so as to deliver a high voltage, low amperage electric shock when contacted by deer. Electric fencing types, utilizing posts 4 to 5 feet tall, and designed to repel deer are commercially available from a variety of manufacturers (for brands, enter key terms in an Internet search engine). However effective, these options may be too cost-prohibitive for most residential property owners and not very practical depending on location.
Repellents
A variety of commercially-available deer repellents are available for application to landscape plants. Most repellents cannot be used on fruits, vegetables and crops due to their bad odor and taste to humans. Repellents may be based on soaps of fatty acids, fungicides, bitter compounds, predator urine or glandular extracts, irritating essential oils, garlic, capsaicin, putrescent egg solids and other agents. Some repellents that contain capsaicin can be used on crops according to product labeling. Few of these repellents retain their ability to discourage feeding for very long. Therefore, reapplications will be necessary at intervals that depend on the product used. Using different repellent types on a rotation may also be necessary so that deer do not become accustomed to any one repellent. Effectiveness of repellents are not 100% and depend widely on deer population size, availability of natural food sources, and weather conditions. Areas with high deer numbers that have limited natural food sources available may fight through the discomfort and fear of repellents and eat treated annuals, perennials, and shrubs.
Varment Guard provides deer control services where technicians make monthly applications of liquid and/or granular repellents. Our technicians use a liquid repellent only available to licensed commercial applicators. This repellent is a putrescent egg-based formula that has low odor and dries clear. Once dry, the repellent is waterproof and doesn’t need to be reapplied after rain or irrigation. The granular repellents can be used alone to create a barrier around vegetable and herb gardens, landscaping, or in combination with the liquid treatments.
DEER BIOLOGY
- Adult body length (without tail): 4 to 6 feet
- Adult body weight: 50 to 400 pounds
- Coloration: Tawny above; white underneath, including tail
- Gestation period: 202 days
- Offspring: 1 to 4 young (at one time) per year (usually 1 or 2)
- Breeding season: October through January
- Birthing season: April through June
- Age at which young are weaned: 8 weeks
- Activity period: Anytime
- Range: Several hundred acres
- Primary foods: Leaves, stems and buds of woody plants, live bark, fruits, acorns, crops (e.g., corn, soybeans, grains, vegetables, alfalfa), weeds
DEER PEST STATUS
White-tailed deer have multiplied within their reduced woodland, prairie and wetland habitats to the extent that their foraging on crops and ornamentals results in millions of dollars in loss and damage to agriculture, commercial and residential landscaping every year. The large deer populations in Ohio state parks and municipal parklands, and their foraging impact on woody plants and wildflowers, is resulting in a significant threat to the ecological balance of these otherwise protected lands. Damage to woody ornamentals is particularly devastating in the winter, when food is scarce and conditions severe for the overly-abundant deer populations.
