Does can start producing fawns in their first year (usually one fawn the first year) and continue producing fawns each year of their lives, often having twins or triplets and quadruplets are not unheard of.
Deer can live to be nearly twenty in captivity, although nine years in the wild is an old deer. Even allowing for fawns that don't live to maturity, their fecundity rivals the rabbit.
As their populations increase and are restricted by development to smaller areas, they don't migrate; they just eat themselves out of house and home.
They will, literally, eat everything in browse range. This destroys native plants, songbird and small mammal habitat and hardwood forest regeneration, not to mention the damage to our gardens.
Deer stay in the territory where they were born, probably no more than a third of a square mile (approx. 1km). If they eat all the available food in their territory, they don't leave, they just starve.
Whitetail deer are creatures of habit who, if permitted, develop a daily routine that takes them over the same trails, only shifting their pattern due to seasonal availability of food.
If your garden is part of their territory and contains tasty plants, they will continue to return to enjoy the smorgasbord.
The longer they live around humans, the less they fear us. I have encountered a herd within a few yards of the house who, when I bellowed Get Out Of My Garden!!! simply looked up at me as if to say, "Who? Me?". You have to startle them for them to run; otherwise they just mosey off in a leisurely fashion. They soon learn that you're not actually going to harm them.
So, what's a gardener to do? The web is rife with advice. I've tried most of it and most of it is either totally or marginally ineffectual, at least for a large garden surrounded adjacent to woodland.
What Doesn't Work
Keep in mind that something that works once may not work after a period of time. Deer get used to non-threatening changes in their environment very quickly.
- Human hair.
- Blood meal. (Does a great job of attracting small local carnivores)
- Garlic spray. (My herd considered it a tasty addition to their otherwise bland diet).
- Hot pepper spray. See above.
- Fish emulsion spray. I have not tried this, but others have, to no avail. It's a good organic fertilizer, however.
- Bath soap. (Irish Spring or any brand) There's not enough soap on the planet to hang a bar on every branch in my garden; any branch without a bar of soap is fair game. A garden festooned win disintegrating bars of soap is not a pretty sight.
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