A question on behalf of my aging mother

[half-dutch]

Down in NW Iowa the deer are emptying her bird feeders almost as fast as she can fill them. Is there some remedy? She is 82 and so raising and lowering anything heavy or really any extra hassle is out of the question. The deer are not afraid of the houses. She is right in town, and the deer will actually bed down in her yard over night.

[highlife4me]

You could feed the deer but that can be frowned on and can get expensive, change the type of seed in the feeder deer like some seed more than others. You could also get a different style feeder. Stay away from the "tray" type and get some with the small holes on the side.

[croixflats]

Are her feeders all in one area? If they are you could put up a zone of electric fence around them. Other than that I don't know what else a guy could do.

Ive seen an elaborate set up where a guy set up a zone along with wrapping the post with wire to also discourage them squirls.

Some people hang lifeboy soap around to keep them away but I am not sure if that is much of a deterrent from an easy food source.

[Steve Foss]

We live with the deer. We put enough seed out each morning to last the day, and the deer mostly come in at sunset so they don't get much.

[JayinMN]

Is it possible you could make an easy pulley for her so she can raise them out the deer's reach? If you put a small fence around the area, say 4 feet tall and no bigger then 6 feet in diameter the deer are unlikely to jump into it. That is what I use around some of my trees I don't want destroyed. Deer usually don't want to jump into a tight confined area.

[Raider4ever]

Teach Granny to shoot a bow.

[Raider4ever]

Seriously, have her sprinkle some Cayenne Pepper in with the seed. It doesn't affect the birds but it does affect the deer and squirrels.

[Raider4ever]

If she doesn't mind working with face-masks and gloves,she could use Ghost Chilies instead of Cayenne. That, my friend, would really put the kibosh on mammal invasion.

[DARK30]

What Steve said.

But they are kinda cool....

[half-dutch]

Thanks, guys. Mom tried the cayenne pepper on her squirrels. That didn't work. Her deer will also go to the tube feeders and tip them up to let that seed pour into their mouths. She is 82 and 200+ miles remote from me; so options are somewhat limited.

Other neighbors are having similar problems and not just winter. A lot of folks loose their summer gardens in that town to deer. Deer actually bed down in her yard and wait to see if the feeders get filled in the morning, and they come back through in the evening. She normally gets a group of 4 or 5 and they watch to see if they are being watched through the windows. The neighbors call each other back and forth when that herd goes through. Kinda cute, but too expensive for my mother to maintain. You sorta gotta feel a little sorry for the deer. Their normal graze got covered by a lot of snow very early this year, and no doubt they are hungry at this point. I would even be willing to bet that the cayenne wouldn't stop them for very long. It sure didn't work on her squirrels.

For them she changed feeds and that worked pretty well, as it did for the black birds. She will have to check into different feeds and hopefully keep what she does have coming in. That looks like the best option. There is a wild bird seed outlet in Sioux Falls, SD that she got the squirrel proof feed from, I think she needs to ask them about this.

Thanks,

[WDH]

Try feeding safflower. And raise the feeders up and keep the snow moved away from the feeders. Deer, House Sparrows, Common Grackle and Squirrels do not like it. I have up to 22 deer comeing in every night. I do put out about 10-15 lbs of corn for them and they leave my feedres alone.