And, adding up the cost of acquisition, training, worming, food, and that electronic barrier, you will have spent as much as if you had purchased that trouble free low-maintenance fencing. If you grow berries, cherries, or grapes, you will have to contend with bird netting for control, but only from ripening to harvest. In the case of blueberries, I prefer permanent heavy gauge plastic mesh with one inch squares to give easy access to the bumblebees and wrens while excluding all others. It happens that I grow my grapes and watermelons in the same patch, and require electric and garden fencing and bird netting, but only during August and September. It would be remiss of me not to mention nature's balance once again.
Small mammals are part of the grand plan.
Hedgehogs destroy earwigs, raccoons eat grubs, and skunks eat the equivalent of their own weight several times a week in harmful moths, grasshoppers, snails, slugs, grubs, gophers, and mice. Moles feed on japanese beetle grubs and a variety of other insects. They can consume as many as 200 sawfly cocoons per day. The shrew has an even better record. It can gobble its own weight in grubs and cutworms in just 3 hours, and has been observed to eat over three times its own body weight day after day.