Smile for the camera.

Before giving birth, mommy was hanging out in the yard.

I realize the deer are a problem for your roses, but for this city gal, those photographs are so sweet! I remember that last photograph on your thread, "Can I get you something to drink"? I didn't realize she was pregnant. Looks like your bed and breakfast is open for business :)

Aw! They are so sweet :) Mine are pests, too, but we had two fawns who left/lost their mother and slept in our gardens together, day and night. They were old enough to get by, but they weren't afraid of people at all.

I was able to tell those two which parts of the garden were off-limits, even! They could graze the dandelions, groundcovers, and woods edge as much as they liked, but no roses! I hoped they'd pass down that info to future generations, lol.

Deer belong in the woods, not the city. The herds are way too large and there isn't enough food so they keep moving further and further into towns. It isn't a good situation.

These deer are urban deer. They aren't in herds, only small groups. They stay in the same area their entire lives.
Plenty of food and few predators except for an occasional mountain lion.

There is a guy in the local paper who writes a nature column. Mountain lions are decimating the herds. His question is what are they going to eat when the deer are gone?

Yes, I understand that there are urban herds now but there shouldn't be. They have become urban because there are TOO many of them. And the mountain lions wouldn't be there either if the deer weren't there in the first place.

I tend to disagree, there aren't too many deer. There are too many of us pushing them out of their homes. I live in a suburb that used to be their bedding ground and we have elk that pass through every year too.
I don't get mad, they were here first after all. We have choices, they don't.
I use the Scarecrow motion sensor water sprayer. It harmlessly keeps them off my plants and Sarah's smorgasbord is now closed.

How adorable and beautiful they are!!! I tend to agree with frenchcuffs. If the whole world steadily becomes a suburb, where are animals supposed to live? Like the poor pet animals that are supposed to be castrated, sterilized, de-clawed and never permitted to go outdoors? Too many people seem to think that animals ought to be like those creepy Disney cartoon "critters",it seems to me.
"We have choices,they don't" So true...

I live right by a lot of woods that have always been woods (this land I live on has been in the family since settlers came here, and same for a lot of folks out here). The deer have a really nice, huge stretch of woods that are even good enough to support a few bears, here in the Piedmont of NC :D

With that said, there are still too many deer here, probably. People used to hunt them for food. We only have one hunter for all the woods I can see. I think there were wolves here a long time ago, too, and definitely panthers. Now it's mainly just the bobcats and coyotes as their foes, and they have TONS of rabbits and other small mammals to eat.

I think the deer eat my roses just because they taste good, though. The woods and clearings are big and diverse enough to have all sorts of things to graze. And I've never seen a skinny deer out here.

There is plenty of food where I live. Two thirds of my lot is natural; scrub oak, oak trees, buckeyes and weeds/grass.
I moved into my house in 1985 and there were two undisturbed mature HT. Over three years I planted two hundred more bushes. They were generally undisturbed.
During the summer, I would pick dozens of blooms every few days and bring them to work. Left on the bush they would fry. Then the deer discovered my yard and despite all my efforts, I would get leaves, blooms and then munching. Rose bushes without blooms are a waste of time. I created my own problem. Most of my sunny area in my yard was in the front and fencing would have given the appearance of a prison camp so it was never an option.

After a few years of munching and neglect, everything was gone accept the tall old garden roses and climbers. Last year, I started again with HT and cages. Less flowers and less problems.

Yep, I brought the deer closer to my house, too (where rabbits had already figured it out a couple of years before). After I started growing roses and tomatoes (and certain conifers), the deer stopped staying in the woods and back fields. Now they come right up to my front door at night! They like the buffet. Quite the gourmands, and I can't blame them for that, I guess ;)

Can't blame them going after those tasty roses. I know i would! :)

I've read that one of the reasons wildlife likes our gardens is the lushness of the plantings - the water in them. One lady put a bucket under a drippy tap, which pretty much stayed full from then on, and the wildlife starting drinking from the bucket and predated a lot less on her flowers and veg.

Deer love roses, particularly HT. New rose growth is put in gourmet salads. The deer get it for free. The new growth is the precursor to blooms.

Other than roses, the deer's favorite food in my yard is scrub oak and Buckeye, both native plants. After 25 years the deer took a liking to my agapanthus and have continued to gnaw on what is left of it. Not much water there. They occasionally pull a leaf of a loquat tree.
They won't even think about touching my lemons. I also have a very large grouping of abelias that they won't touch. The agapanthus was a real shocker.