My younger brother intended to build a fence around his feeder to keep cattle out.

Unfortunately, he built it too high and too tight for the deer to get in.

Though this was an epic failure, he somehow was successful in growing corn without irrigation in the Panhandle of Texas.


P.S. Maybe I should have posted this in the food plot forum? =)

Being a younger brother and having had an older brother (that didn't do much of anything) that LOVED to point out any failure of mine, I'm not sure your brother would appreciate your post. I bet he fixes it and...kills a bigger buck than you this year.

I would disagree with the too high and too tight statement....that fence is neither. There is space for a deer to get in and it is well within a deer's abilities to jump over.


What the problem may be is the cattle. If cattle are in that pasture and constantly feeding on the corn that is slung outside the fence (because there is some for sure getting out) that may be keeping the deer away. Of course, there is another possible that I won't mention...

my BIL used to use 50" tall x 20' long cattle panels in the panhandle for WT & MD, 1 wide (ends) and 2 long (sides). Only took a couple of days before they found it and hopped in.

also agree that the cattle being around it might deter the deer. the outside of the pen looks pretty beat down.

Put that in the hill country and they would jump in.

Fair enough. Lets say he built so high and so tight that the deer chose not to jump in. Not that they couldn't. (Only cam photos of deer outside the fence looking in.)

I thought it odd that even the bull didn't lean his head over and munch at that growing corn.

Anyway, I took a foot off the top for him and these guys started to appear.

So you just have lazy deer on your place

Hard to argue when you take some off the top and the deer immediately go in.

Motivated deer can jump easily 6 feet, some higher. There are plenty of reports of deer clearing a high fence.

Lazy deer is the going theory for this pen

My pen was that high and I added a barb wire at the top..if the pen is too small may creat a problem or not. Mine worked great.

Of course they can jump 6' to flee a threat. But they won't choose to go in an enclosure as high and tight as what is shown here unless they are starving due to poor range conditions. We know range conditions are the best they have been in a very long time in the panhandle. As for cattle keeping the deer away, never seen that happen with the right size pen in place. We build huge pens, about 40" high.

Pretty tight pen, if he used 3x the material for a bigger size I bet the jump in

Failure!!!!

He would be much better off tearing that pen down and leaving the feeder without it….cattle have NOTHING to do with the failure!!