DEER FENCE INSTALLATION: FINISHING TOUCHES 2 FINISHING STEPS, CONTINUED
Remember, 99 percent of the time deer will not try to jump a 7-foot deer fence. However, should you feel deer are likely to jump your fence (white-tail deer jump higher than black tail deer and much higher than elk)–because it is out in the open, or it crosses a deer path, or you have “witnessed” it being jumped before, then it pays to take out “anti-jumping insurance”. There are essentially two ways to exclude jumping deer. The less effective is to raise the height of the fence. You can add any reasonable amount of height you like to a jump-prone length of fence by combining 9-foot angle-iron posts with 4-footers (the 4-footers come with nuts, bolts, and washers for purposes of attachment) (see items 15-01 and 15-02). Situate these taller combined angle-iron posts up to 40 feet apart and string 11-gauge monofilament line (item 16-01) through the angle-iron holes at roughly 6-inch intervals. Once you have drawn these lines reasonably taut and have secured them well, you will find that you have effectively added up to three-and a half feet to your fence. The problem with all of this is that raising the fence height doesn’t discourage potentially jumping deer from exploring your fence and even jumping up to examine its upper reaches. Jumping deer (white tail deer) can jump at least 12 feet, probably more, if they really want to. So if they have a powerful incentive to explore and then make a jump that “ventures a guess,” raising the fence a few feet won’t stop them. Fortunately (although jumping is rare as previously noted), there is a better way to stop jumping deer. Start by installing round one and five-eighths inch diameter black galvanized steel posts (item 15-03) at intervals of 40 feet along the vulnerable run of fence. If your soil has no rocks or very few, use a post driver (item 15-05). Otherwise, if the soil is at all rocky, you are better off using an ordinary post-hole digger. Set these posts at an appropriate depth and tie them into the rest of the established fence with zip-lock ties (items 17-03 thru 17-07). If the fence is new, plan to intersperse these posts with trees, wood posts, or black angle-iron posts (item 15-01), including one round post roughly every 40 feet and arranging things so that the fence won’t sag by using brace bands (item 15-12) or by making the distance from each round metal post to its neighboring trees, wood posts, or angle-iron posts relatively short (on the order of 10 feet). On top of each round post, place a cap with a 13-inch notched steel bracket (item 15-04). Place this cap so that its bar extends upward and directly outward (toward the jumping deer), rising at an angle of 45 degrees. Then attach an 11-gauge monofilament line (item 16-01) to the row of outward-projecting bars. Do this by setting a length of filament into the lowest of several notches on the top of the bracket, wrapping the filament around the bracket, tying it down with other lengths of monofilament line, and going on to the same notch on the next bracket and repeating the process. Do this until the monofilament line is connected to all the brackets and then go on to the next notch up until all the notches are occupied and the monofilament lines proceed outward at no more than 6-inch intervals to the ends of the 13-inch brackets. This arrangement, which can be used with both polypropylene and metal hexagrid fencing, strongly discourages jumping–even by white tail deer–because any white tail deer or other deer that jumps up to explore or go over the fence will be thrown back by something coming out sideways that the deer simply cannot see. The resulting effect is daunting–so daunting that the system appears 100 percent effective. That is, we know of no case where any white tail deer or other deer has ever jumped over a fence reinforced this way. |
McGregor Fence Co. 508-888-8305