Deers and fruit trees!

[littlebluefish]

Is there any way of repairing damage to fruit trees after the deers have stripped them of bark, nearly in a circle around the poor things!

Whilst beautiful, these are becoming a real pest!

[AdamW]

Hey Blue!

You can try to 'bind' the bark back on if it still exists, gently reapply and loosely tie it up, did the deer damage near to the base? Which fruit trees are we talking? and roughly what diameter are the trees?

If it is near the base apply a near opaque tree guard as this will help retain moisture, if the tree dries out and crisps off it wont stand a good chance, if the tree has been completly rung you could try some de-barking paint but the majority of trees which will be rung unfortunatly could die

Good luck and keep me posted, ill look into some brands of 'paint' for you too when im back at work tomorrow.

[littlebluefish]

They ate the bark entirely, the selfish swines, even swallowed it!

They ate it at around four foot from the ground, in a variety of fruit trees - today they moved onto the veggies and ate my mother's plants!

i think most of them aren't entirely rung and we've fenced them off a bit now.

Someone suggested putting a salt lick nearby to distract them from the trees but I'm thinking this is attracting them more!

We found one thing today that you can apply and we're trying that (I forget the name though because it is up at the field, a mile away!) which is meant to replace the bark when damaged so if nothing else it might keep infection at bay.

Thanks for looking into it for me! I really appreciate it

[Shirley]

I'd be really interested to hear about the repair stuff... our goats chomped a load of the bark from some of the apple trees late last year.

[ina]

The main thing to do to prevent further damage - get some tree guards in place. Either the plastic types, or build kind of cages of chicken wire. Equally, you can protect your veggies quite well with wire or tree guard cloches or tunnels.

[littlebluefish]

The main thing to do to prevent further damage.

Done!

I made a little netting nest for my veggies, and my mother put a deer exclusion zone around the trees!

She is oddly feeling less friendly toward them.

[littlebluefish]

I'd be really interested to hear about the repair stuff.

The stuff we found (and are trying out) is called Seal and Heal by Arbrex -it claims to be organise and claims it helps pruning wounds and prevents infection.

It is easy to apply, which is the only comment I can make so far!