Use Soap As A Deer Repellent

Use Soap as a Deer Repellent LIVESTOCK Miscellaneous 10-1-22 Deer can literally eat up a fruit grower's business. Countless methods have been tried to keep the animals away, but the newest one we've heard of is using a bar of soap tied around the tree. Phil Wager, Red Creek, N.Y., has an orchard with apple, peach and cherry trees. "On young apple trees that we're training to take the proper shape, deer will chew off the terminal buds leaving the lateral buds. When this happens we get a bush instead of a tree." Wager's extension agent Steve Hoying told him about using soap as a deer repellent. They experimented for two years on various plots and then used it extensively this past year. Wager drills holes through small, hotel-sized bars of Ivory soap and then uses string to hang the soap from trees. He places bars on trees around the perimeter of the orchard and on the end trees of each row. "We've had good results," says Wager. He notes that you don't have to use Ivory soap and that one small-sized bar lasts about one year.

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