Am I crazy here??

[Typhoon]

Well, this last march, I planted 800 loblolly pines on my property. All in strategic locations where I wanted them. Well, I have several buddies that have planted the same amounts on their property.. and after one winter, they are left with like 50 because of the heavy deer browsing that goes on in Southern Illinois. Well there are many products out there to protect them.. "Deer Away", Dial soap, human hair, eggs/water mixture... etc etc. But from what people are saying, if the deer are hungry enough, it doesnt matter what you put on them.. they will pluck the seedlings right out of the ground! Well, I have always enjoyed hard work, doesnt bother me. So, I decided to make a wire cage for every single pine tree to protect them. Im using dog-pen wire, and each cage is 3.5 feet tall and 2ft in diameter. The cost is not that bad... the whole thing is gonna cost me 400.00 in materials. It is just labor intensive. I am making about 20 of them per day and staking them around the trees.  So far I have 200 finished. What do you think about this idea??? I want to keep my trees!!

[LogRite]

Nothing wrong with a little hard work.

You gotta keep the deer away somehow. I say keep doing what your doing.

[Tom]

It's not crazy if you are enjoying yourself and it works. Combatting Deer is War.  I've seen folks, myself included, go over the deep end trying to protect a vegetable garden or flowers.

I eventually had my electric fence over 6 feet tall and the deer would tear it down.  What I figure they were doing was congregating outside of the garden and odd-manning to see who went through the fence. The loser was elected and the rest followed him in.  I could tell because there was only one set of hoof marks that had the ground torn up.  The rest of them were just walking.

I was told that my shotgun was the only answer.  I finally quit gardening.  They won. :-/

[Danny_S]

It is a prerequisite to be crazy to be here in the forum but yer not crazy, but you will be when you get to 795th cage..

[Shamus]

     I have used the metal cages concept and it works, but they can be a little high maintenance, often getting knocked over in the winter when the brush dies back, or deer push them over. There is also the possibility of forgetting a cage or two, and having the tree absorb the cage, a nasty surprise for the faller in 50 years.
    Another concept, also suspiciously resembling work, is to grow your seedlings in pots in a fenced nursery until they are 6 feet tall, and then plant them. This way you can fertilize and water them while in the nursery, and plant them large. It helps with outcompeting brush, and if the deer browse some of the lower branches, consider it as free pruning. As long as the leader growth shoot is left alone those trees will shoot sky high in no time. Its been working on our property anyway, a small island with more deer than humans, and no natural predators.

[Frank_Pender]

Typhoon, are you planting some of those new pines they are working with at North Carolina State University as well as the University of Florida and The Texas Forest Service at Texas A & M?  I was reading an artical from the Forest Products Equipment Journal about the efforts to produce a more marketable tree for increased yeilds of up to 30%.  
I would be interested in getting a couple hundred to plant here in Oregon to see how they would take to my deer population.

[Bro. Noble]

Tom,

There is a type of electric fence wire that is made with woven plastic.  I have a neighbor that uses a bunch of it on his dairy.  Says the deer don't tear it up.  My dad uses a chicken wire fence and two strands of electric wire to discourage deeer and coons.  We use old dog

[Typhoon]

To be honest Frank, I am not sure. The seedlings came in a yellow bag, containing about 1,200 of them. The bag says "West Vaco" on it.
And, from what my local forester told me when he gave them to me, they are the latest hybrid loblolly. He told me that the good thing about these particular trees, is that if a deer nips off most of the top, they will still survive.  I conducted my own experiment. When I planted them, I waited for  them to come out of shock, then I cut a few of them off almost at the ground. Amazingly, they are growing new chutes! Pretty impressive.