Those days are long gone, however. For the last couple of winters, about 25 deer have called the McConnachie farm home. The deer have been lining up for food when McConnachie goes out to feed his cattle, and have chowed down on just about everything in sight in the farmyard. A fruit orchard planted as an experiment under the Agriculture Development Fund eight years ago has borne little fruit, except for the deer. Eight years after the sticks were planted, the trees are two and three feet high.
Deer chew off the buds, eat the fruit if there is any, and even munch on the branches.
They will walk across thick grass on a brand new pasture to get to these trees. The damage doesn't end there. The orchard is ringed by tall spruce trees. The trees used to have branches right down to the ground. But the deer have eaten those branches bare.