DIY Deer Cages - Protect Your Trees From Marauding Deer!

In central Texas deer are a real problem if you planting new fruit trees! Deer fencing a whole area is expensive so we've found this to be the best solution in many contexts. You can remove the cages once the tree is big enough to tolerate deer browse and reuse it infinitely. Follow as Adam Russell explains how to build a tree cage to protect trees from deer, livestock and other predation. He gives a list of materials needed and all the steps for constructing these valuable pieces. Protect your tree investment by learning how to install a stand alone tree cage.

[@ViolettaZhao]

Thank you so much for such a detailed explanation. Deer learned to jump over my 4ft property fence and devoured several of my newly planted rare flowering trees. All new growth is gone overnight. I've been searching for a simple but effective protection. Thank you!

[@symbiosistx]

Glad it helped!

[@stevebehe7115]

Excellent Detail, Well Organized Video, Good Job!

[@marianlane8507]

THANK YOU! I pulled your video up first and you have EVERYTHING in this video (fence height, snippers, wire) that I need. Thank you for all the tips and for saving me some time figuring it out. I greatly appreciate the underground wire tip and the clipping off the sharp fence pieces. I have done both the forearm cramp from twisting all day AND scratching myself on the pokey ends. I'm a 5', not 20yr old woman and this will be easy enough to do without pestering my busy spouse.

[@symbiosistx]

You are welcome!

[@chellelivinggreen]

Thanks for sharing. I am going to try this when planting my trees. ❤

[@PTL-vm6ox]

If you cut your squares halfway through the wire (as opposed to cutting very close to the end) you leave wire tabs on both ends to secure the ends and form a circle. Using gloved hands and needle nose pliers you can get the wire tabs wrapped close enough it is not a scratching/cutting/stabbing threat. Additionally, it makes the circle more rigid because the wire splice is double reinforced (the two end squares overlap and there are two places wire is wrapped) and cannot fold or bend the splice. Finally, it saves the cost for the red wire, cutting the red wire and having to pick up all of the scrap wire ends.

[@symbiosistx]

Fair point but we’ve done it both ways and prefer the irrigation wire wraps for many reasons. You’re right though, that way works great too.

[@stmcgarret]

Good tips. I've done basically the same. Problem this year is that the deer busted down the fence when they smelled the apples. I did not have them secured with t-posts so it was an easy task for them. Next year I have to secure them better.

[@symbiosistx]

Rebar stakes and irrigation wire can be less expensive ways to tie them down

[@stmcgarret]

Thanks for the idea - rebar may in fact work. @@symbiosistx

[@whunderwood]

What trees did you plant?

[@stmcgarret]

@@whunderwood They went after the apple trees. I have peach, plum and cherry also but sadly no harvest to date. Stone fruits have been a problem with canker. Not enough time in my days to properly manage my little orchard.

[@1970brent]

Hi quality explanation. very nice teaching!

[@symbiosistx]

Hey, thanks!

[@goodfriend6428]

Great work! Thank you!

[@drthuntclub4153]

You don't need the wire. Just don't cut the excess wire from the cage and use that to hold the cage together. You are not going to need to open the cages very often. Maybe never. I have a 20+ Pear and Apple tree orchard and the cages soon will come off. They are tall enough for the deer not to reach the trees. My trees are from 12 to 15 tall now. It's ok if they browse on the lower branches. Natures pruning. You are going to need them tall enough to mow underneath.

[@symbiosistx]

1we've done it that way too. Takes a lot more time to undo the more rigid wire depending on how you wrap it. We do go in maintain thousands of trees in these cages each year so it does matter to us if it takes less effort to get into each one.

[@baugustine3879]

How are you securing the deer cage to the ground? I don't think that was mentioned but I may have missed it. It looked like you were just partially burying it in the last few seconds of the video.

[@symbiosistx]

These are wide enough to stand in high winds but if you have marauding live stock 3 t posts and wiring the cage to them is best. Even then some animal impact can happen. We’ve also used rebar and wire to anchor them at times

[@ChristopherKomuves]

Great video! But I can't find 12.5 gauge fence near me. I'm wondering if the thinner 14-gauge 2"x4" 6-foot high fence that I could find would work, or if it would be too thin. I would probably just use more like 12.5' of it to make a 4' diameter cage for my new fruit trees. Also thinking that an extra foot of height would help a lot, as deer can reach things up to 6' high to browse on--so wondering if they would reach their heads above the 5' high fence or not (our whitetails here are often over 200 pounds).

[@symbiosistx]

There’s tons of pros and cons to all different options your mentioning and bottom line, your probably going to be able to get the trees to survive no matter how you do it, within reason. We’re just recommending what we like best from doing thousands of these now and managing them over time and even reusing them once trees get established