I need a non-lethal gun for deer

J

JMAudio

New member
Yes, non-lethal.

I live in a deer-infested neighborhood in the mountains of Colorado. Since there are neighbors houses all around me, it's illegal to shoot to kill. But I do need to scare them away before they kill all the trees and other plants in my yard.

Does anyone know of a reasonably priced "firearm" to do that ?
 
Paintball gun with pepper balls may work perfect. It'll bring a little sting but no real injury, and the pepper is a strong deterrent to anything with a nose, eyes, and mouth. You should look if this would be legal though. I believe this would qualify as harassing wildlife in NM, and that would get you a whole lot of trouble from NMDGF.
 
What comes to mind is either blanks or those 12ga shells that sling M-80's. The bean bag or plastic bullet rounds that they use for urban riots would step that up another notch. Heck, maybe fireworks would be best. Something loud for sure. The impact would be secondary to noise if trying to scare them away in my opinion. Could you fire live rounds into the dirt just to make noise? I think there are chemicals out there too that repel deer by scent.

Personally, I think I would let them come in and then use MGYSGT's suggestion just for fun. You would know the ones you've hit before due to the paint marks on them. Catch and release hunting!
 
Well, let me taper my response a little, We are having a wet year here in MO. Fireworks in the mountains of Colorado could be a definite fire hazard that you wouldn't want to be the trigger of. I sometimes think of thing like "if it was my backyard" instead of yours.
As to the harrassment, is it really harassment if they are coming to your house? I know it all boils down to what the game warden has to say but that is my thinking.
How exactly do you make a paintball peppered?
 
okay, I just google educated myself. I see that there are pepperballs out there for sale. They seem very expensive, if you can get them as a civilian. Best of Luck with whatever you try.
 
They sell pepper paintball rounds for dealing with people like in crowds. I know Dogg the Bounty Hunter uses them when people are being less than cooperative. You should be able to order them online somewhere. Google should do it easily enough. If you have difficulties finding them with Google give me a PM I may have a bookmark to them on one of my computers.
 
I would suggest a slingshot made for paintballs, the gun thing may be cooler, but they do make noise, and if a neighbor did see you "shooting a gun at deer" out of season it may cause a bit of a fuss.

That and the slingshot would be

A. cheaper

B fun to master something new

C less range for a miss to travel ie pepper balls all over the neighbors yard, im sure they would hate for their kids to find them, if they are that close.

good luck

Dave
 
Thanks for all the ideas.

I wonder if the BB gun would disturb the deer even as much as me yelling at them. If I yell at them, they'll run away but they're back the next day.

Never been hit by a paint ball, but I've heard they sting. I want to make this as unpleasant as possible for the deer, which is why the pepper paint ball seems to make a lot of sense.
 
I have shot a few people with pepper balls. A pepper ball is a lot harder than a paint ball and they hurt (don't know personally but everyone I seen hit falls and yells).
I like the slingshot idea. You can get one at Wal-Mart for around $10. Pick up a bag of marbles at a dollar store, they are cheaper than the bearings they sell for shooting.
 
Tune down the poundage on your bow and get some blunts. You'd be getting good archery practice in at the same time you're saving the yard from the demo deer. Tell the neighbors what you're doing so nobody looks out their window thinking you're killing deer.
 
Slingshots can be accurate with paintballs. Marbles are frangible rounds in a sling shot. Hit a wall and they send glass EVERYWHERE! Watched from BEHIND my brother as he learned that the hard way.
 
Put some spyder wire fishing line or other monofiliment fishing line around your trees, the deer don't see it freaks them out when they run into it. Sometimes psychological warfare is more effective than physical.
 
Most places you will get in trouble shooting deer with paitballs pepperballs or anything like that. Same with a slingshot although more discrete.
Anyway, not likely to be effective, I live in a suburban area with a real big deer problem and we can get urban archery tags for does. Even the fact that I kill 15 or so in my yard a year dosnt keep the rest from coming back.
Best way I have found to keep them out of my garden is to spray with diluted rabit blood. You can find comercial products that have that as the main ingredient. That or get a fence.
Also petition your local govt to do the urban archery hunts. There are a lot of major cities in Iowa that do that to control the population.
 
I would suggest for long term the urban Archery hunt is a good idea.

I think that the mono line is a good option unless people frequent the area.
 
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