Question. I hun 350 acres in Young county . 200 plus acres is a wheat field . Our woods are all mesquite and thick in most places . Last year the rancher put up new fencing around the fields but the perimeter is still old fencing . Most of our deer especially the big bucks come from the north where there is very old fencing low in spots . The fence he put up is 5ft 6 strand barb wire. The question is will that fence be a deterrent to deer. I keep thinking not . I feel the lack of mature bucks is because of the heavy oaks to the North. No hunters to the north.

If it's truly 5', a lot of deer will try to find a way around it. They can go over it but that's a stout jump.

No, they go under it if they can't get over it. Are you sure it's 5'?

If there is something they are interested in, food wise or lady wise, a non issue. They will go under or over, whatever works better, no problem. Seen it hundreds of times.

My deer at home come from across the road. I put up a new fence 4’ tall net wire and now the deer walk 150-200 yards down the bar ditch to crawl under my side fence. They are amazing jumpers but that doesn’t mean they like to! My experience is they will go out of their way to not jump. The exception for me is the hill country. Decades of sheep and goat fencing has conditioned them to jumping.

Yep just got out here today and measured it . 5 ft for sure. Tuff to get under being 6 strand .

Our deer won’t jump four feet. But deer raised in that environment will jump it if they have good enough reason.

Up in OK where I hunt, the neighboring property is the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. They have erected a "Buffalo fence ". 7' tall, 7 strand barbed wire if memory serves me correctly. I've seen the deer slip through as if it weren't even there. I've also seen them jump over it. I don't think your fence will impede them at all.

I once watched a nice eight go through a washout at the bottom of a fence as he chased after a lesser buck and was amazed at how he could maneuver his head and rack through it so easily. It would have taken me a minute or two to crawl through an opening where he appeared to never break stride.