Deer Fencing

[Rod Taylor]

In the process of completing an application to restart coppicing in our wood. Part of the requirement is to errect temporary Deer fencing around work area. Any other members in same boat and have any tips on tracking down reasonably priced materials.

[Darren]

Hi rod

I've bought plastic deer fence from this company http://www.boddingtons-ltd.com/acatalog/Deer-Fencing.html

The rabbits chew a few holes along the bottom the fence, I just tolerate the bunnies as they don't do too much damage compared to how much it will cost to keep them out as well. Come spring there off chewing the new grass leaving the trees to grow too high for them.

You need plenty of stakes because in the summer the plastic fence goes soft and floppy in the sun.

[Chris]

If you really want to do the job properly and let the coppice grow back so it can be used for thatching spars and hurdles after a rotation or 2, you need to make sure that deer really can't get in.

There are several ways to do this. The most comprehensive, which should prevent deer, rabbits, hares and people(to some extent) getting in is metal deer fence with rabbit mesh at the bottom using good strainers at corners and changes of direction and posts in between. This is really more permenant deer fencing and is quite expensive even if you do it yourself, which is quite heavy work.

If you use plastic net, you may find the cheapest supplier is your local agricultural wholesaler. Some do their own make. The best, but often most expensive is Tenax. If several people get together there is a bit of a reduction for over 10 rolls I understand. If plastic mesh is hung from wires stretched between good strainers and posts with rabbit mesh at the bottom, it will last for years, but is prone to vandalism.

I have often seen plastic mesh hung between long hazel props, and quite honestly, if you want a crop from your hazel, you are wasting your time with this, as the mesh sags and deer and rabbits can get in quite easily. This is, however the cheapest option.

If you have a fair number of rabbits make sure you use rabbit mesh at the bottom. They can decimate coppice in large numbers. Of course make sure you are not enclosing a warren. You will probably find there is someone round your way that will catch rabbits for you if they are a major problem.

You could also consider crowd control fencing.

Sorry if this answer is a bit over the top, but there is really no such thing as good cheap fencing.

If you are restoring coppice you may be able to get a grant towards the costs from the FC, which I assume is what you are doing as temporary deer fencing is a requirement. The grant available should go a long way towards paying for the materials, but will not really cover labour.

Chris W

[Underwoodsman]

As chris says in large numbers rabbits can do enormous damage. We were asked to advise one of the owners in Hyden woods because they were convinced the deer were getting in and eating their coppice, there was no evidence of deer but hundreds of neat square holes all along the bottom of the fence and rabbit dung everywhere. They tried to add rabbit net but as the fence was hung from only one wire on hazel poles it was never a success and we were employed to replace the lot with strained metal deer fence and rabbit net.

When we have used plastic mesh with rabbit net we use three straining wires one top and one bottom wire and one at 800mm up. We then use pig rings to attach the mesh to the wires this will leave 200mm of rabbit net laying out from the fence line, along the ground, to stop the rabbits digging under. We would advise against plastic if there is public access of any sort although having said that ours has lasted for the last four years but we have had to sew up a number of knife slits.

[Rod Taylor]

Many thanks for the feed-back. Hopefully 'people' damage shouldn't be a problem in our remote location and although we have rabbits the numbers don't seem high enough to need the expense of excluding them. We do however have an extremely active Badger population so quite a few Badger gates may be required. Will be ringing around for best quote on 500 metres to errect in the spring (minus of course Gordons' 2.5% vat)

[Darren]

Try owl boxes to keep the rabbits low.

[tracy]

Yes, I like that idea - we need natural predators to keep the animal population balanced. Bring back the wolf ;-)

[Catweazle]

I have three people shooting in my woods and have just had the local firearms officer inspect it and clear the land for rimfire and centrefire rifles, there are still loads of rabbits though and I'll be looking for a local with ferrets soon. They really do breed faster than you can shoot them, ferrets will make a much bigger dent in the population.

[tracy]

or hawks... take a look here!

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-activities/falconry-and-woodlands/

[John - SEPS]

Without a doubt ferreting will help, it’s a real countryman’s sport. You could also get yourself about 20 MK6 fenn traps as well or the most prevalent method of dealing with rabbits is to gas them after ferreting…..

Using methods other than gassing and you have to keep a constant eye on them, if left they can return very quickly to their old numbers …

If they get to bad you could always farm them : )