# Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels

> Voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels each leave a signature on a young tree. Each has a fix: hardware cloth, cages, pulled-back mulch and guards removed in time.

Published 2026-09-15, updated 2026-10-28. Tags: Protection & care, Planting. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/

A newly planted tree sits at the center of a small food web, and most of the web wants a bite. Wrap the trunk in quarter-inch hardware cloth against voles and rabbits, pull the mulch back, cage the tree against deer, and take each guard off as the tree grows. The young trees we see lost to animals are rarely eaten in a night. They are girdled under the snow in February, clipped off at the ankle in a hard winter or rubbed raw by a buck in October. The damage is found in spring when the tree fails to leaf out. Each animal leaves its own signature, and once you can read it the protection is straightforward.

![Sapling with the bark rubbed off one side, raw orange wood showing along the stem](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals-1-1000.jpg?v=e7c5cd47 "A buck rubbed this sapling bare in southeastern Pennsylvania in October 2015. Bark taken all the way around a stem kills everything above it.")
*Photo: Wasp32, [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADeer_rub.jpg))*

| Animal | The signature | When | The fix |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Voles and mice | Tooth scrapes an eighth of an inch wide, at odd angles, at or just below the soil line | Winter, under snow, mulch or tall grass | Quarter-inch hardware cloth sunk into the soil, mulch pulled back, grass mown short |
| Rabbits | Stems clipped cleanly at 45 degrees; bark gnawed up to 2 feet above the ground or the snow; round droppings | Winter, higher as the snow deepens | A guard taller than the snow depth plus 2 feet |
| Deer | Twigs ending in a ragged tear up to 5 feet; bark shredded in vertical strips | Browsing all year; antler rubs from August to December | A 5-foot welded-wire cage 4 to 5 feet across, or an 8-foot fence |
| Squirrels | Bare wood high in the crown; clipped twig tips on the lawn; seed dug up | Late winter and spring; seed time in fall | A hardware-cloth lid on the seedbed; a crown cannot be protected |

## Voles and mice: girdling at the base

Meadow voles and pine voles are the quiet killers. They work under snow, [deep mulch](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/leaf-litter-not-wood-chips/index.html.md) and tall grass, gnawing bark at the soil line and just below it, where nobody looks. The marks are small, irregular tooth scrapes, roughly an eighth of an inch wide, at odd angles, sometimes stripping the bark all the way around; pine voles chew roots as well. A girdled tree often leafs out in spring on stored reserves and collapses in early summer, so [the cause is often missed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/new-tree-check/index.html.md?sign=wilt-stays&animal=yes). Mice do the same on a smaller scale.

A mulch volcano against the trunk, [one of the planting mistakes we see most](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md), is a vole shelter with food inside. Pull mulch back six inches or more, mow grass short around young trees through fall, and guard the base with hardware cloth, as described below.

> "Do not pile mulch up against tree trunks or underneath shrubs." (University of Maryland Extension, *Voles*)

## Rabbits: clean cuts at 45 degrees

Cottontails clip small stems cleanly at about 45 degrees, and in winter gnaw bark from the lower trunk with paired tooth marks wider than a vole's. Their reach is about two feet from the ground or the top of the snow, so in a deep-snow winter the damage sits higher than you expect. Slant-cut twigs and round droppings nearby are the giveaway. A guard taller than the snow depth plus two feet stops them.

## Deer: torn tips and shredded bark

Deer have no upper front teeth, so a browsed twig ends in a ragged tear rather than a clean cut. They browse buds and shoots to about five feet, and a young tree within reach can be held at hedge height for years.

### Buck rub: August to December

In fall, bucks rake their antlers on trunks one to four inches thick, shredding the bark in vertical strips and often snapping the stem. Rubbing is the worse of the two: a buck can girdle a ten-foot tree in an evening, and he comes back to the same one.

> "Fencing or tree guards are better protection from larger bucks and should be in place from August through December to protect plants from antler rubbing." (University of Minnesota Extension, *How to manage deer damage on trees and other plants*)

![Thin young scarlet oak inside a cylinder of green welded wire held up by a steel stake, grass at its foot, a hedge behind it](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals-3-1000.jpg?v=8fd9ce5c "A young scarlet oak caged in welded wire in October 2026. Guards belong in place from August through December, when bucks rub their antlers on young trunks.")
*Photo: Blue Whale Trees*

## Squirrels: stripped branches and clipped twigs

Gray squirrels strip bark from the upper branches of maples, beeches, sweetgums and sycamores in late winter and spring, leaving patches of bare wood high in the crown. In late summer and fall they [bite off twig tips](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/why-trees-drop-twigs/index.html.md) and dig up newly sown seed. Squirrels rarely kill an established tree, though stripping can kill a branch, and there is no practical way to protect a crown. Where they matter is a [seedbed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-acorns-nuts-and-seed/index.html.md), which needs a hardware-cloth lid until the seedlings are up.

## The protection that works

What to buy: quarter-inch hardware cloth, landscape pins, welded wire with two-by-four-inch openings, and two or three stakes for each cage. Tree tubes belong only where you will take them off in time.

### Hardware-cloth cylinders

Quarter-inch mesh stops voles and mice; half-inch stops rabbits but lets voles through. Make a cylinder 18 to 24 inches tall, taller where snow gets deep, and a few inches wider than the trunk. Sink the bottom edge an inch or two into the soil so nothing tunnels under. Pin it with two or three landscape pins, the U-shaped steel staples sold for [landscape fabric](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md#landscape-fabric), so it cannot be pushed over. Keep mulch pulled back so the flare and the base of the cylinder sit in open air. This one measure prevents most of the losses we see at Blue Whale Trees.

### Tree tubes

[Plastic or paper tree shelters](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) keep rabbits and deer off a seedling, and a tubed seedling usually gains height faster at first. The downsides are real: tubes overheat in a hot summer, and the sheltered stem grows tall, thin and unable to stand on its own when the tube comes off. Wasps and mice nest inside, and a tube never removed girdles the trunk. If you use them, stake them well, keep them ventilated, and remove them in stages once the tree has grown out the top.

### Welded-wire cages for deer

A cylinder of welded wire with two-by-four-inch openings, about five feet tall and four to five feet across, is held by two or three stakes. It keeps deer off the tree and bucks off the bark. Deer cannot reach the middle of a wide cage; a narrow one just guides their mouths to the outer leaves. Pin the bottom with landscape pins and, where rabbits are a problem, line the bottom two feet with hardware cloth.

### Fencing

Where deer pressure is heavy and you are planting more than a handful of trees, an eight-foot fence around the planting beats a cage on every tree.

### Repellents

Sprays based on rotten egg, hot pepper or predator scent reduce browsing for a few weeks, then wash off or get ignored. Use them as a bridge through a bad stretch, not as the plan.

![Looking down into a translucent tree shelter tube at a young hornbeam seedling growing inside it](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals-2-1000.jpg?v=ab569d62 "A hornbeam seedling three years into its shelter tube. The tube keeps deer, rabbits and voles off until the tree is big enough to take them.")
*Photo: RobbieIanMorrison, [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACommon_hornbeam_growing_in_plastic_tree_shelter_tube_inside_view.jpg))*

## Taking the protection off

[Every guard is temporary](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/care-calendar-for-a-new-tree/index.html.md), and every one becomes a hazard if forgotten. Loosen or replace a hardware-cloth cylinder as the trunk grows, and remove it once the bark has thickened and roughened, usually after four to six years. Take down a deer cage once the leader and lowest branches are above the browse line and the trunk is too thick to snap in a rub. Check every guard each fall: ties cutting into bark, tubes packed with mouse nests, mulch crept back to the trunk. All are fixable in ten minutes and fatal in ten months.

Every tree [we sell](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/index.html.md) leaves the nursery [small enough to need this protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md) for its first few years, so plan the guard with the planting.

Rows of small holes on the trunk are not an animal problem [but a bird's](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/sapsucker-holes-and-wasp-damage/index.html.md), and need none of this.

## Common questions

### What mesh size do I need?

Quarter-inch hardware cloth stops voles and mice, and half-inch stops rabbits but lets voles through.

### How tall does a tree guard need to be?

Eighteen to twenty-four inches for voles and rabbits, and taller where snow gets deep, because a rabbit's reach is about two feet above the snow surface rather than the ground.

### Do tree tubes work?

They keep deer, rabbits and voles off a seedling and usually speed its early height growth. But they overheat in summer, leave a stem too thin to stand on its own, fill with wasp and mouse nests, and girdle the trunk if never taken off.

### Will a young tree survive a buck rub?

If bark remains on part of the stem, the tree lives on it and [closes the wound from its edges](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/pruning-at-the-branch-collar/index.html.md) over years; bark taken all the way around kills everything above it. Cage the trunk before the next August.

### Will a young tree recover after deer eat it?

Usually, yes: a sapling regrows from [the buds below the bite](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/epicormic-buds/index.html.md), within weeks in summer or the next spring after a winter bite, and one of the new shoots becomes its leader. Browsed year after year, it stays stunted and misshapen and can die, so cage it in welded wire before the next winter.

## Sources

- [Bark Stripper Squirrels](https://bygl.osu.edu/node/1466): Ohio State University Extension: gray squirrels stripping bark high in the crown, mostly from March through May, and clipping twig tips in fall.
- [Voles](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/voles): University of Maryland Extension: girdling at the base and what stops it.
- [Rabbits](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/rabbits): University of Maryland Extension: the clean 45-degree cut and fencing that keeps them out.
- [Deer-Resistant Native Plants](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/deer-resistant-native-plants): University of Maryland Extension: what deer tend to leave alone, with the usual caveats.
- [How to manage deer damage on trees and other plants](https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/white-tailed-deer-damage): University of Minnesota Extension: bucks shredding bark to strip velvet in the rut, antler rubbing being a worse problem than browsing, and guards in place from August through December.
- [White-tailed Deer in Home Fruit Plantings](https://extension.psu.edu/white-tailed-deer-in-home-fruit-plantings): Penn State Extension: young trees within the deer's reach, winter browsing of their buds leading to stunted or misshapen growth, and severe browsing that can kill them.

## Related

- Next step: [Write to us](https://bluewhaletrees.com/support/index.html.md#article=protecting-trees-from-animals)
- [A year-by-year care calendar for a newly planted tree, from the day it arrives to its fifth spring](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/care-calendar-for-a-new-tree/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Native shrubs and trees deer usually leave alone, and why the lists disagree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-shrubs-and-trees-deer-leave-alone/index.html.md)