How To Build A Temporary Garden Deer Fence

Introduction

What we’re talking about here is seasonal fences. It’s convenient to have your fencing and posts removed for tilling, typically during some part of the off-season, and then to replace the fence before things start growing in the spring.

It’s convenient all right, but if the fence is long don’t try it. Make the fence permanent. That way you’ll avoid wear and tear on the materials that inevitably reduce the fence’s life, as well as extensive toil involved in taking a long fence down and putting it back up.

Where this temporary seasonal fence ploy is useful is with short garden deer fences, typically fences less than 150 feet long in areas with little snow and less than 100 feet long in snow-prone places.

Simplicity

Try to keep things as simple as possible and choose your materials accordingly. Avoid corner and end braces, needed to brace longer fences against sideways stress. Stay away from tensioning systems, because these greatly complicate takedown and reinstallation. Avoid stainless steel zip-lock ties, because these are harder to remove and more expensive than nylon ties. And shun those handy rodent barriers for plastic fencing—because, again, they complicate removal and replacement of the fence.

Materials

Fencing: The basic choice here is between plastic and metal fencing. Plastic is less expensive (you only need our 700 grade for this job), but it has two serious disadvantages. First, it sags—and you’re not going to install a tensioning system or top wire to correct that. So if the fence needs to look good, avoid plastic.

Second, if there’s no rodent barrier, rabbits or woodchucks will be prone to gnaw holes toward the bottom of the fence, holes that deer can poke their heads into to enlarge and penetrate the fence. But you may not need a rodent barrier, partly because the fence is so short and partly because, if you’re like most gardeners, you’re apt to be out there pretty often. So, if you regularly inspect the fence for little holes, you may find none (because the fence is so short), or else you’re likely to find them before the deer do and patch them up. So in many cases you can get away without a rodent barrier - especially if you use the new Critterfence brand Bitterfence poly fence mesh. 

Another way to avoid the need for a rodent barrier is to install metal fencing. Here the best option is probably 1” x 1” black galvanized welded wire – because it has very low visibility and discourages baby bunnies and other small critters better than the larger mesh sizes.

Posts: Use virtually any deer fence posts, including wooden posts, if you’re not planning to remove them seasonally. However, if you’d like to take the posts down along with the fencing, we highly recommend our round black galvanized steel posts. These posts come with 2.5-foot sleeves. (You install the sleeve in the ground and then insert the post into the sleeve.) The sleeves come with a patented screw and plate that can be tightened to keep the post from moving in the sleeve and loosened to remove the post. This makes removal of the posts in the off-season an easy matter.

Zip-ties and Ground Stakes: Use nylon rather than stainless steel to attach the fencing to the posts, because these are less expensive than the stainless steel ties and easier to remove.

To take the fencing down, pull up the stakes that secure it to the ground. Do this by pulling on the fencing gently until you see a place where it is secured to the ground with a hooked ground stake. Insert a screwdriver at that point to get under the hook in the stake and pull up the stake. It’s really easy.

Next, use a grass clipper to get under the fencing’s bottom fold and cut away any grass or weeds that have grown into the bottom fold. Then cut the zip-lock ties that attach the fencing to the posts, roll up the fencing, and store it for the off-season. After that, remove the posts from the sleeves, as described above, store them with the fencing, and you are done.

Please visit this page for more deer fence information: Shop - Gates, Posts And Everything Else - Everything Else - Deer Fence Sale, Clearance and Specials - DeerFencing.com