Forest garden with wild animals

I have 40 partially wooded acres in Montana and would like to put in some forest garden areas. But I also have mule deer, whitetails, elk, bear, moose, and probably cats. And mice, one skunk sighting, every once in a while a loose cow and loose dogs.

Is this a stupid idea, to basically plant bear attractants and deer food? Is there a way to make it work without resorting to massive amounts of fencing?

I tried to search for similar threads with no luck, but if you can link to any already answered that'd be great.

Thanks, Alexa.

Oh I hope not....my forest garden in Maine draws in deer and bears every year.  We all share.  So far I love it but I do sometimes wonder what the future will hold with my wild neighbors.  My general strategy is to just keep planting more and to enjoy their company....hmmm, we'll see.  I'll be looking forward to seeing what others have to say.

I guess it's something you have to learn to live with. Generally speaking, animals don't like to hang around places where people spend a lot of time, if they can help it. We've only just started getting Black Bears returning to the area in the last 10 years. I still have yet to see one, but I'm dreading happening across one one day. I looked up bear mace online & it was about $100 a can.

And, one day, if things go well enough, we may even start getting wildcats returning too.

A couple livestock guard dogs are probably the best bet.

I agree with the previous poster with dogs. I live on the edge of forest service and blm property, 40 mtn. acres. The few times with no dogs, we had bears prune our apple trees, and get into a freezer in a shed, ate a 1/3 of the contents about 100 lbs. of frozen solid 10 below zero beef. Even though I have 2 dogs, they have still treed cougar and black beer 50,75, and 200 feet from back door. Yesterday I was running a chipper on an old skid road, dogs are with me, and within a 100 feet I see 2 deer. My garden is fenced for animals, mostly deer. I do forage for mushrooms, berries, etc. I have watched one of my dogs, a siberian husky, herd a black beer pretty much off the property(dogs territory boundary?) and turn and come back home. If I got goats or chickens I think I would have to fence them in, fence out predators. I enjoy seeing the wildlife, I am the intruder...

Alexa said " I tried to search for similar threads with no luck, but if you can link to any already answered that'd be great.

I don't know what search terms you used.  I searched "deer" in Forest Garden and selected these that might be interesting:

https://permies.com/t/141651/Forest-garden-plants-deer-won

https://permies.com/t/143667/vole-damage-forest-gardens

https://permies.com/t/135070/Natural-Protection-Young-Plants-Trees

We also have several threads on fencing.

I found the information in this book to be very helpful:

Deer Proofing Your Yard and Garden by Rhonda Massingham Hart

The book talks about using plants to deter deer, fencing and explains habits and their habitats.

Since you've got 40 acres to work with, making a couple areas might be your best bet. One area has dogs, humans, blind fence jumps, and leaves them feeling exposed. The other"friendly" areas are in easy reach, have the same tasty treats, and good cover.  They might still have reasons to visit ( overpopulation, ATVs or other loud human activities, injury, etc) but when there's better options from their POV they'll take them.

randal cranor wrote: I enjoy seeing the wildlife, I am the intruder...

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. I understand wanting to live /with/ nature, but obviously not so much that it comes into the house.

Tonya Hunte wrote:

randal cranor wrote: I enjoy seeing the wildlife, I am the intruder...

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. I understand wanting to live /with/ nature, but obviously not so much that it comes into the house.

Yes, exactly!

I'm so glad to hear others have been able to coexist, that was the answer I didn't quite dare hope for.  I do always carry bear spray (paw prints in driveway are inspiring and intimidating) but a dog isn't an option while I'm still traveling for work.

Thank you!

Alexa Kelly wrote:

Tonya Hunte wrote:

randal cranor wrote: I enjoy seeing the wildlife, I am the intruder...

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. I understand wanting to live /with/ nature, but obviously not so much that it comes into the house.

Yes, exactly!

I'm so glad to hear others have been able to coexist, that was the answer I didn't quite dare hope for.  I do always carry bear spray (paw prints in driveway are inspiring and intimidating) but a dog isn't an option while I'm still traveling for work.

Thank you!

In my experience, if you don't have dogs, you'll need fences.  At least, if you want to eat anything you grow.

Dogs, as everyone had mentioned. Make zones 2/3 places that the dogs visit frequently and will chase animals out of.

Dogs aren't fool-proof. My LGD went into heat last spring/early summer when everything was chaos. Ended up having to kennel her to keep from ending up with unwanted puppies. It only took the deer 2 or 3 days to figure out that she wasn't free and gobble up my entire garden. When my neighbor shot that buck it weighed in at 305 pounds.

As long as you reapply after it rains, I find that a nettle tea works as a good deterrent. They'll nibble once, but after that they won't touch anything that smells that bad. Urine also works great for many herbivores. I have a friend that likes to tell me stories about some all-female camping trips that were overrun with mice because everyone was neatly using the restroom in the same spot rather than marking the perimeter.

If you can live peaceably with predators, that's ultimately how nature keeps herbivores from eating everything to the ground. They don't have the time to kill reasonable established plants because they have to constantly be on the move to keep from being eaten themselves.

Overplant everything. It's a numbers game.

Animals take the path of least resistance. If you can plant or place difficult to penetrate obstacles around the areas you want to protect, that often encourages them to take a different path. At the very least, you can reduce access enough that dogs and other strategies increase in effectiveness.

I do always carry bear spray

I prefer an air horn.  I do not trust that I will think to check wind direction if dealing with a bear...would hate to spray myself or the dogs, and be incapacitated out in the bush facing a bear.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:

I prefer an air horn.  I do not trust that I will think to check wind direction if dealing with a bear...would hate to spray myself or the dogs, and be incapacitated out in the bush facing a bear.

This is brilliant! :D

I say go for it Alexa.
It'll be a challenge getting trees to grow taller than browse level but if you succeed then it'll be worth it.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:

I do always carry bear spray

I prefer an air horn.  I do not trust that I will think to check wind direction if dealing with a bear...would hate to spray myself or the dogs, and be incapacitated out in the bush facing a bear.

I once worked up north and took polar bear safety training. The instructor had a lot of experience training people all over Canada regarding all types of bears, and made a point of telling us that about 25% of people using bear spray in an emergency spray themselves, whether it's from wind or improperly aiming.

Well for managing deer in a food forest, fisher (Pekannia pennati) will eat small deer to help keep the population from exploding. Coywolves, wolves and hunting are only way to take down adult deer, so yeah dogs can act as a deternent but can interfere with befriending the local coywolves.

In terms of fencing if you're growing a food forest not really gonna be able to make that much fencing. But could use Osage Orange, hawthorn, honey locust, and such to make a barrier the deer wont cross.

But where you could use fencing is for individual seedlings to help them get above browse height.


That said the indigenous managed deer through hunting, bow hunting is quiet. If you run out of tags or don't need the extra meat can get some extra income hosting hunting parties.

I know you mostly talked about deer. But for a food forest I find rodent, squirrels and rabbits are a major consideration. They are best managed with mustela frenata or mustela ermine for anything near ground level, including mice, rats, chipmunks, rabbits and ground squirrels.  They will also help with excess birds at least in your shrubs.

For the large trees, you want pekania pennati cause they are excellent squirrelers, and will also help with birds and deer.

If you somehow manage to befriend a local pack of coywolves then your deer problem should be well managed. Dogs can't take down a deer but a pack of coyworves can.

Also don't worry they wont drive anything to extinction, wild predators pick off the weak and sick improving overall species health.  The predators will help keep it manageable.

In my area we have a very high deer population, I would say an overpopulation, and because of this much of the beneficial native plant species have become less common. However, because of the deer browse pressure only certain deer resistant plant species have become common. Looking at some of the characteristics of these plants I believe can help us design a food forest that is more resilient to heavy browse pressure.

Much of my area is old cattle pasture and introduced pasture grasses like smooth brome, meadow foxtail and Kentucky bluegrass can thrive under high deer populations.  This is because the deer help to greatly reduce the competition from young woody plants by browsing them until they die. Also grass is highly resistant to the light grazing from deer (grass is only a minor component of a deer's diet) and actually benefits from deer trampling down the older dead vegetation.  

Other plants that thrive are invasive annual weeds like starthistle or houndstongue that the deer largely avoid due to spines or toxins in the leaves.

As for the woody plants the only ones that do well are conifers like pine that are mostly unpalatable to deer unless the deer is absolutely starving. Also thorny species like invasive dog roses or the native hawthorns are able to do pretty well because of the sharp thorns.

Another interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that species that would usually be browsed to death by the deer, such as serviceberry, can sometimes do very well if they happen to be growing among the canes of a rose bush. The rose essentially acts as a natural tree cage complete with natural barbed wire protecting the young tree from the deer nurturing it until it grows above the rose bush and above the browsing height of deer.

After witnessing these things I believe a potential strategy for growing a food forest in an area of high deer browsing pressure would be to first plant hundreds (depending on the scale of your property) of fast growing thorny nurse plants such as roses, brambles, hawthorns, locusts etc. In order to provide a safe location to plant your more desirable trees. And after the trees have grown above the height of the mouth's of hungry deer then you can come back and chop and drop the nurse plants to use as mulch for the growing trees.

So instead of spending lots of money on fencing, tree cages, deer repellent etc. Why not just grow your own tree cages on site many of which can also produce a yield of fruit themselves while you wait for your other trees to mature. And then you will also be growing your own mulch once the nurse plants have performed their duty.

This is all still somewhat theory but I am running this experiment myself on my own property at the moment and so far it seems to be working. I think you're always going to have some hungry deer that will carefully weave themselves through the thorny bushes and nip a few leaves here and there, but I believe overall this strategy could greatly reduce the loss from deer pressure on your newly established food forest.

Yeah, I agree with Travis regarding planting of thorny "nurse plants". I would go a little further to recommend creating a property perimeter of various thorny species, including hawthorn, osage orange, honey locust, sea buckthorn, raspberries, roses, etc.  Especially if you end up pleating them, eventually it will become a natural barrier which deer simply can't get in, or would not bother unless starving. Osage orange grows 12-15m tall, and honey locust grows to be 20m tall. no deer is gonna jump that.  Those honey locust thorns can stop a mastodon.

One of the best "nurse plants" that I think will fit the bill is sea buckthorn, because it is also a nitrogen fixer, and has vicious thorns, especially if you harvest the berries by cutting the branches, which promotes extra thorn growth. It also spreads very easily so you can quickly have a lot of them. They need full sun so they will die off once the main plant outgrows them. Black raspberries are another good one that grows prolifically and have vicious thorns (yet delicious and bountiful berries), and I know rabbits don't bother it, and black raspberries can be trellised on a tree, they grow up to 3m tall, but you can also keep them closer to the ground. Similar to sea buckthorn it will die off once it gets shaded out.  

By contrast while hawthorns are thorny I think they grow too slowly for this purpose, and are better for wetlands, or borders where they can grow for a long time.

I think a living perimeter fence could work pretty well if you were able to make sure all the potential gaps were completely closed up as deer are pretty good at finding their way through thick brush.

Another potential option if you have an area that is being cleared of mature forest and you have access to heavy equipment is the idea of building slash walls. Here's a video that talks about the idea.


https://youtu.be/k3_aDNURj_8

Deer Pressure:  one thing many forget is deer are not climbers or scramblers - they will not crawl under a fence, or climb a barrier; if they cannot jump it, then it will work.

Likely the fencing would not need to be strong, sturdy or even large or ugly.  While awaiting a "live fence" to grow all one really needs for deer is a few lines of string/fishing line/rope or even woven or placed vines and branches every 6 inches from 2 feet up to 7-9 feet (depending on slope and animal size).  The line must be flagged with anything from old/recycled CD's or DVD's to flagging tape or recycled tin foil or beverage cans so that the barrier is visual.

Visual barriers are all that is required with most deer, the key is making is visible and ensuring it is high enough; don't forget to factor in the height of winter snow if you reside in high snow fall areas or the assist that a "downhill" leap has in scaling heights.

Depending on size of area, saving your night water (aka urine) to pour around the perimeter regularly is sworn to work by many, as is the distribution of hair (human or pet salons are good sources), and others insist that hanging bars of Irish Spring Soap does the trick (although I have to question if this is the soap or the visual barrier that is the deterrent  (I have not tested these ideas myself).

If there is LOTS of room to roam, the collection and redistribution of predator scat (both wild and domestic) around the perimeter and along known trails may also be useful.

Lastly, it may be worth obtaining or borrowing some game cams to determine what if any animals causing damage - always best to identify ones foes before planning an attack.