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Deer Damage To Look Out For
While deer typically live in woodland areas, the forest itself provides only their cover and bedding areas. They depend for food on the land at the forest's edge, the more newly cleared the better. They prefer tender new shoots growing from woodland plants, low shrubs and trunks of recently felled trees. As these plants have become scarcer, their diet has come to include more than 600 alternative types of plants, many of them cultivated in residential yards.
Most Obvious Symptoms of a Deer
Sometimes homeowners notice the damage from deer before they actually see the deer feeding on their property. The most obvious signs of deer visitors are:
Plants nibbled to their base overnight. They simply disappear.
Tender new growth at tips of small trees and shrubs nibbled off.
The lower stems of shrubs, trees and woody vines striped of foliage.
Less Common Symptoms
The bark on trunks of small trees torn and abraded by bucks rubbing the velvety covering off their antlers in the fall.
Lower limbs of small shrubs and saplings broken or trampled by young bucks rehearsing fierce combat as rutting season approaches.
