I would recommend a fence. I have 3 acres for 5 years now, and I spent more time and money putting wire cages around my trees, fooling with all kinds of egg sprays, losing trees, having trees growth severely retarded by browsing, bucks rubbing Korean nut pines to death. I have to say I didn't try to bone sauce, but imagine keeping it on all the necessary trees in 5 acres? It's a huge job. I tried to build a hedge, mostly Maximilian sunflower, which deer don't like to walk thru. Was going to add blackberry and other such but moved onto different projects. Maintaining a hedge of that size is a huge job, and they'll find a way thru somewhere, anyway. The only way to keep them out is to build a fence. You don't have to be that fancy, unless there are neighbors to impress. 8' game fence and 10' t-posts and a larger solid post every so often. Mine is droopy, cheap, sloppy, but it works. No need for a tight, straight, spiffy-looking fence - where in nature do you see straight lines? Yeah, a fence costs, but then you can relax, enjoy yourself, and not have to protect each single tree. I got used to the fence and don't notice it - it's not that visible against the trees in front and behind it. You don't have to do it all at once. I fenced out a small area first, I'm currently expanding it to encompass 1/2 of the lot, and later I'll expand it to two acres (when the brush/trees on the edge of the property grow up enough that the fence is not visible to neighbors). God, the amount of energy we expend because of those stupid animals which are extremely overpopulated. The only thing I have in common with deer hunters is I'd love to kill every deer I see, but it wouldn't be sport, more like bloody murder.
Tongue in cheek, but those critters are relentless and merciless.
