The green, custard-like Pawpaw fruit is so unique and delicious to eat that even an opportunistic herbivore like deer can’t resist feeding on this delightful gem.
Pawpaw fruit ripens during late summer to early fall, which is the active foraging season for the herbivores like deer.
So, go through this complete article to know about the reason behind deer preferring Pawpaw and the failproof tips on getting rid of them.
Table of Contents Show
What Fruits Do Deer Eat?
Herbivores like deer prefer to eat different fruits, vegetables, crops, etc., according to their taste and availability.
These cunning animals eat a variety of fruits in your garden, including Apples, Berries, Grapes, Persimmons, Peaches, Figs, and many more.
Basically, deer prefer these fruits due to their sweet and appealing taste. Moreover, the alluring appearance of these fruits also attracts them.
Additionally, these fruits are rich in nutrients like vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fibres, etc, necessary for the survival of deer. Also, these fruits can provide energy together with boosting their immunity.
Besides that, these fruits have a high water content that can hydrate herbivores like deer all they long.
However, these opportunistic feeders can also change their preferences depending on the season. They can even feed on those plants that they avoid, like coreopsis, during food scarcity.
Do Deer Eat Pawpaw Fruit?
Deer loves to eat Pawpaw fruit whenever it is abundant in the surroundings. Moreover, the sweet fragrance of this fruit attracts deer towards it, even if they are far away.
Additionally, the sweet and soft flesh of Pawpaw fruit can be a palatable food source for most foraging animals, including deer.
Furthermore, the abundant water content in the fruit also aids in hydrating deer during long summer days.
Thus, foraging animals like deer are naturally adapted to feed on Pawpaw fruit due to the huge availability during the foraging seasons.
Not only the fruits. deer also feed on the leaves and twigs of the Pawpaw tree. However, they avoid the large consumption of Pawpaw leaves as they contain acetogenins which is toxic to deer.
Besides this, deer can also avoid Pawpaw fruits if the area has high human traffic.
How To Prevent Deer From Eating Pawpaw Fruit?
Basically, it may be challenging to stop deer from foraging into your garden as they are persistent food searchers.
Additionally, the strong smell of the fruits can attract deer toward your garden and compel them to invade your garden full of pawpaw fruits.
However, there are many techniques by which you can prevent deer from destroying your fruit garden, physically and mentally.
- Fencing your garden with an 8-foot-high metal fence can prevent deer from reaching your garden.
- Apply deer repellents to your Pawpaw trees to avoid the invasion of deer.
- Use noise-making or motion-activated devices to scare deer away from your garden.
- Grow the folder plants that are the prime preference of deer around Pawpaw trees to draw their attention from the Pawpaw fruits.
- You can also grow deer-resistant plants like avocado, onions, garlic, rosemary, peppers, etc to prevent the invasion.
- Tidy up your garden by removing all fallen fruits from the ground. Fallen fruits can attract deer into your garden with their scents.
- Use plastic mesh or netting cover to prevent deer from eating your Pawpaw fruits.
Deer can be gradually adaptive to many strategies, and there can even be a big problem if the population of deer is high in your area. In such cases, you can get help from professionals to get rid of these herbivores.
From Editorial Team
Use Multiple Methods To Prevent Deer from Eating Pawpaw Fruits!
As deer can adapt to many techniques, relying on a single technique to deter this animal from your garden may not work.
Thus, it will be even better if you combine many techniques. Combining many deer-deterring techniques can make it difficult for those cunning herbivores to invade your garden.
