Deers, cute but harmful. How to prevent damage?

Baby deers were found in the vineyard. Surely they cannot be put to sleep. This is how we safeguard our plants and produce.

Deers, like many another animals, can be harmful to vineyards. They peel away the young sprouts and stuff themselves with grapes. This they do with boars, that, however, are not quite as cute.

One day we found a baby deer in the field, completely still, unable to move, pretending to be dead, responding to its instincts. Everyone’s heart at I Balzini skipped a beat. We decided to respect it and ignore it, working around it, until his mother came back to get him.

Nonetheless, deers can be damaging, diminishing wine production, but we take animals’ rights very seriously, and have found other ways to protect the vines.

This year we tried an organic olfactory repellent. Its is a liquid containing sheep fat. It is recognised as a substance belonging to those useable in organic agriculture, as it is inserted in the Banca Dati Fitofarmaci del Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali (Phytopharma Data Banks of the Ministry for Agricultural, Alimentary and Forest Politics). Highly repellent for deers, it is odourless for humans. So far it has been working, as there are no damages to the sprouts. For what concerns boars… we’ll think about it! Whatever is needed to safeguard our wines!