Gardner’s California Homestead

[Finnie]

I’ve been researching how to bait electric fences lately, and what keeps coming up is people trying to fence out deer. They put peanut butter on foil pieces and attach those to electric wire. Then I got to thinking, someone on BYH (maybe @Beekissed ?) said that deer don’t like to jump into small spaces, so double fencing will often keep them out. (Far enough apart that they can’t just jump over both, and close enough together that they have a hard time gathering themselves up for the second jump.)

Of course, fencing is expensive, but strands of wire held up by step-in posts are not so expensive. You could make the top wire hot, and bait it with peanut butter. You could make lower wires hot, too, to keep out raccoons. But I don’t think you could put hot wire low enough to keep out gophers or ground squirrels. My lowest hot wire on my step in posts doesn’t even keep out rabbits. They go right under it without flinching.

 

[GardnerHomestead]

I’ve been researching how to bait electric fences lately, and what keeps coming up is people trying to fence out deer. They put peanut butter on foil pieces and attach those to electric wire. Then I got to thinking, someone on BYH (maybe @Beekissed ?) said that deer don’t like to jump into small spaces, so double fencing will often keep them out. (Far enough apart that they can’t just jump over both, and close enough together that they have a hard time gathering themselves up for the second jump.)

Of course, fencing is expensive, but strands of wire held up by step-in posts are not so expensive. You could make the top wire hot, and bait it with peanut butter. You could make lower wires hot, too, to keep out raccoons. But I don’t think you could put hot wire low enough to keep out gophers or ground squirrels. My lowest hot wire on my step in posts doesn’t even keep out rabbits. They go right under it without flinching.

yes! we somewhat have the double fencing, i think that is what has kept them out this long, we have an electric fence for our goats (its short, only 4 feet) and then inside of that we have the deer fence. Part of the problem too, that we werent aware of was our electric fence got grounded out sometime in the last few weeks as well. The goats (and us) didnt realize it but the deer must have because they were touching it. Its back up and running now and i saw a deer shock itself the other day in the lower field. It was like the perfect storm of deer invasions. We luckily dont have alot of wild rabbits up here. Jack rabbits tend to be in the lower elevations. Those little buggers seem persistent.

 

[Beekissed]

(maybe @Beekissed ?) said that deer don’t like to jump into small spaces, so double fencing will often keep them out. (Far enough apart that they can’t just jump over both, and close enough together that they have a hard time gathering themselves up for the second jump.)

Wasn't me! We've always used a single strand of hotwire about knee high to the average man, no baiting of the wire necessary. Never had a deer cross it and we are in deer country central. Used that kind of fencing for over 40 yrs successfully....now we have a fenced garden surrounded by dogs, so no need for the hotwire any longer. Deer are curious and they usually explore that with their nose or accidentally bump against it, as the single strand is not real visible. That one bite they get seems to do the trick.

It's cheap, easy to put up, 100% effective. One caveat: Keep it hot always. If the deer learn it's not always hot, they no longer respect it and will hop it like it's not there....that's the most common mistake people make with this type of deer fencing~ go into the garden to work, forget to turn the fence back on when they leave~ then they bound and declare it doesn't work where they live.

 

[GardnerHomestead]

Garden is coming back pretty well, the heat has been pretty intense so alot of my green beans arent setting but i put in a second crop of them a couple weeks ago so they will come into fruit during the cooler weather we hopefully have in store. Watermelons, carrots and corn has been harvested, watermelon was a success! corn was really hit and miss this year. I may have planted to close together? got about 40 (edible) ears from 100 plants. The goats thoroughly enjoyed the corn stalks. Deer have stayed away, barring the occasional one that walks by and peers in. A guy was giving away an entire garden on facebook, the raised boxes ended up being rotted but we were able to get all the posts, gate, fencing and three brand new wine barrels. they also didnt want their plants but most didnt transfer over well so a couple peppers and quash are all i ended up with. now that the corn and melons are out i plan on putting spinach and beets in its place in the next week or so. Been pulling tomatoes, tomatillos, squash and strawberries daily.

Flowers are doing well and i have been busy collecting seeds from all my favorites for next year.

Blackberry harvest wasnt good this year, berries were small and the deer and goats got most of them. was able to make a couple batches of blackberry turn overs.

We butchered our chickens and Tom, he ended up being 20lbs after gutting. Since the chickens were given to me half grown they ended up costing us about .40 a pound. I stalked tractor supply for a week or so and snatched up their 18 meat birds for .25 each. they are a few weeks old now and growing quickly. Im experimenting with supplementing their high protein feed with the abundance of eggs we have. Not much of it, maybe 10-20% of it.

The pigs are getting huge, about 200lbs each. about 6 weeks till butcher. Or sooner if the weather cools down quicker. Looks like four of my does took so babies are due in about 4 weeks. Took our lab to a stud mid july so we will have puppies due about the same time. Kids are back in school. Things have been crazy busy. I have way more chickens then i need and should go through them and sell some. Haven't really had the time or energy.

 

[farmerjan]

Some REALLY NICE pictures.... sounds like you are doing pretty good overall....

 

[GardnerHomestead]

Its been a little while... did some necessary scaling back this last couple months. im trying to find the sweet spot between enjoying everything and being completely overwhelmed. I feel like it comes in waves, especially when the days become shorter and i leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark. When the weather is bad it just compounds the difficulty of taking care of everything in the short 3 hours im home and awake. We have been doing some home renovations (new flooring, painting) and some long awaited repairs so all of our weekends have been consumed with that.

Our goats gave birth end of September, two singles, two sets of twins, and one set of triplets. All healthy and born to fantastic mothers (ive weeded out all the bad mothers, i just simply dont have time for that). One baby is still awaiting her new home, the rest have sold. I also sold 2 older does so im down to 4 does and one buck. the buck is out on lease right now and set to come back this weekend to service my does. These will be my first babies from him so cant wait til late spring

The same weekend our dog gave birth to five puppies. One male and four females. So much fun but also sooooo time consuming. Pups went to their new homes around thanksgiving.

In the beginning of September we hit temps above 110.. I lost 6 of my .25 cent chickens. We butchered the rest the next weekend as the temps werent letting up. They were almost fully grown and it was a horrible loss. I took all my excess roosters to auction. so im down to 14 hens and one rooster. some of which im going to sell in the spring as new layers. Traded one of my hens for a trio of muscovy ducks, one ended up being a female and two males. Racoon got the extra male. Now Fred and Ethel are in with the chickens cooped up nice and safe at night. Excited for babies in the spring.

Hickory and Maple, our IPPX pigs were butchered last month. Ended up with 300lbs of meat. Still have sausage to grind but so far its been great. Its been nice to not have the extra work honestly. They were sweet creatures but i needed them off my plate (or on, depending on how you look at it lol)

The garden wouldnt quit, with the extreme temps in the summer it just didnt take well until fall, after about 8 months of seed starting/gardening i was done. I put all the garden beds "to bed" , canned or froze everything i had left. We have a greenhouse we will get set up early next year to start again.

We got our first snow recently, got all animals houses prepped with extra hay and food. with no rain for months and then record breaking rain everything is a sopping mess. The ducks are having the time of their lives

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[GardnerHomestead]

Spring is well on its way. Got our greenhouse up, temps have been so wild most days its not even needed, but then will come back with a random 17 degree overnight temp. Started my tomatoes and peppers, no sprouts yet I have 3 does due in the next week from my moonspotted buck. these will be his first kids on the ground very excited about that. Alot of the bulbs i put in, in the fall have come up and hopefully the predicted snow this weekend doesnt kill them all. Same with my peach tree that is starting to bloom. Bought some raspberry bushes, ones starting to leaf, the other two arent doing much. Also put in a grape vine but for some reason i have never had luck with those, not sure what im doing wrong. maybe my soil isnt made for grapes Hope everyone is doing well!

 

[Baymule]

You have been busy! I love moon spots! Got a picture of your buck?

 

[GardnerHomestead]

You have been busy! I love moon spots! Got a picture of your buck?

I'll have to get a picture of him, his first kids were born early this morning from my only FF this year. A girl and a boy. will post some pictures later Mama did it all on her own, i found them when i woke up at 430 for work. Its been chilly here since the snow on saturday and was in the low 20s last night. The little girl had gotten chilled so i brought her inside for a bit, dried her off all the way and warmed her up. Put her back out with mama and brother before i left for work and saw her eat on her own.

 

[Baymule]

And now you have newborn kid pictures to take too!