I live in Alton Missouri and the Missouri Department of Conservation has designated my property and my neighbors property as CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer) a hot zone and has engineered a post season ‘‘targeted kill’’ from Jan 15 to March 15. This MDC has given my neighbor a very large quantity of corn (approx a year’s worth) to bait deer and stands on his deck and fires off daily. We have spoken to him and he is going to kill ‘‘as many deer that he sees’’ from Jan 15 to March 15. This is in addition to the regular deer season where he shot his limit of deer. What gets me is that bait stations actually spread CWD and that is the reason why baiting deer is banned in many states, and it is even illegal in Missouri normally, but it appears they lifted that restriction, for the targeted kill, to ‘‘slow the spread of CWD’’ when it actually helps the spread, which is incredulous. . Anyways, I can’t be sitting on my horses back while his rifle is going off about a 100 yards away from where I ride, for the next 60 days. I need a recommendation on a ear plug that will muffle loud rifle shots. If you suggest that I go talk to him and to refrain from shooting deer, say within a certain time frame of day, to coexist, we already tried that. My husband is distraught as it will decimate the deer population on our 40 acres and we live on deer meat. Any suggestions for he ear plugs please? I have never used them before. The deer bait pile is about 100 yards from my property line in a holler so nobody from the road can see, and the deck is about 75 - 100 yards from where i ride. I was already on my horse’s back when i shot went off and my horse spooked. BTW, I am smart enough to not ride during regular rifle season.
FWIW, your horses will get used to it. They might startle a bit at the first one, but it will start being accepted as a part of their life.
I like POMMS, but the little foam cat toys are the same thing for a fraction of the price. There’s a thread somewhere with a list of the right size and material to get from the pet store/Amazon.
I got some fuzzy ones off Etsy a while ago, I like them for the finicky horses because they’re easier to grab with two nails if you’re fighting to get them out. Ask me how I know 
Lastly, a soundproof bonnet might be easier, and I know some people stack earplugs and bonnets. I think that much sound dampening can actually make them spookier but YMMV.
I will research the sound proof bonnet now. i never heard ot them. Thanks
Your horses will become acclimated quickly. Maybe don’t ride for a few days while they adapt.
She hasn’t yet and she been there for 2 years. Neighbor shoots at everything that moves. 2 weeks ago it was squirrels. When see him a-shooting at something, I see his own horse and donkey get rattled and spook in his paddock and they were there a lot longer than me. So in the indoor that i was in 3 days ago, whilst i was trying to do a rope gate obstacle, when the gun went off, she shot fwd a bit, so on a scale of 1-10, i would give it a 4 and it could have been a lot worse, but i made an emergency dismount in my English saddle. Not sure how to do an emergency dismount in Western saddle. I do a lot of of online showing now and started to ride Western too now. I think it is natural to jump a bit, even I do it.
Are you startling, causing her to startle? I’ve honestly never met a horse who doesn’t acclimate. The neighbor of my barn runs those “classes” where people shoot with AR15s and pistols, fake clearing rooms and stuff. My horses couldn’t care less about the sound, they’re more interested in the people shuffling around with their guns.
CWD is a big problem, and reducing the population is the #1 way to control it, bait stations or not.
Right. Especially if OP depends on deer meat for a main food source.
Sound reducing bonnet would be the easiest. I’d be more concerned about the neighbor shooting into my property, but hopefully this is an intelligent - if enthusiastic - hunter type.
I live in the wild west of rednecks. Lots of shooting, very loud stuff. My horses just don’t notice anymore, and sometimes I don’t either other than to be annoyed.
Try the knock off pompoms, for sure, since it’s been so long. I hate to hear that (pun intended).
Horses’ hearing is a lot more sensitive than ours.
Any earplug or sound-reducing bonnet is not going to eliminate the concussion of a gunshot.
You might not hear it, but they hear & feel it.
Horses can & do acclimate to gunfire.
There are Mounted Shooting competitions where riders fire at targets while riding at speed.
Often the targets are balloons, so added Pop!
As long as your neighbor is doing nothing illegal & seems unwilling to accommodate your requests, I see no way besides adapting until this temporary season ends.
ETA:
Since you rely on venison, doesn’t it make sense to cull the herds & eradicate CWD?
How can you be sure your hunting doesn’t include infected meat?
Cwd supposedly does not impact the meat.
I always just used pom poms.
They worked great.
I get the point of what they are having the neighbor do - attract as many deer as possible and completely thin the herd down to as small as possible in hopes of limiting the spread of the disease.
We live about a quarter mile from a gun club and all sorts of stuff goes off over there. We also have lots of hunting in our area including on our farm. The horses don’t care.
A few years ago we used to get Apache helicopters and a-10’s flying nap of the earth. The horses wouldn’t even look up. Horses, as others have said, acclimate. Humans on the other hand …
Lots of different styles to choose from:
https://www.bigdweb.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=ear-plugs
ETA I only have experience with the Standardbred racing types, but they work very well!
We have the deer tested for CWD after shooting,
No, it doesn’t make sense to have deer congregate on bait piles on the ground. There are papers all over the place explaining why. The deer come and transmit via saliva, piss, and poo. Then other animals such as rodents, armadillos, and raccoons do the same thing at night. In fact, corn alone will eventually kill off the deer, as they can’t absorb the nutrients. Imagine people in the woods trying to survive, and the govt just drops junk food from planes like McDonalds out in the wild and that is the only thing they can eat. Imagine people saliva, piss and poo and vomit on it. Then the rodents come at night. Then the next morning, people are fighting over the food for breaky What diseases do you think will spread? No difference. The people will eventually get sick and die on the McDonalds alone. On the other hand, i may go with the poms, rather than the ear mask, as she is a small horse the ear masks that i tried before hand were too big and covered her eye one time. … And I also forgot to mention the neighbors is shooting x number of deer directly ON THE CORN PILE. So blood of x number of deer is splattered all around on on the corn pile, and the deer is eating the blood of another deer, licking up the prions. I checked google satellite and i can see the corn pile from space and all the deer paths leading to the pile
Yes, but the deer are not leaving the bait pile. They come in to eat and are being killed.
So it is different than just feeding them.
Really? The deer congregate around the many corn fields around here, and the population seems to stay healthy. I’m not doubting you, just surprised.
Babalina is not wrong, that where CWD is they do not want the deer congregating because the pass the disease along.
In this case, they are feeding the deer to get them to come in for an easy kill, in mass. To lower the herd quantity in hopes of the thinning of the herd will limit the spreading of the CWD.
I get how the shooting can be frustrating too.
I wasn’t commenting about killing them off, just that deer can’t digest corn.
Easy kill in the short term, but not strategic. Have you heard of Mad Cow Disease? It was caused because they used to put dead cow bone meal in the cow feed, eventually turning them into cannibals of sorts, and it caused protein prions. I can’t explain the science here but you can research it. So when the ‘‘hunter’’ kills deer over the corn pile, and splatters x number of deer blood over the corn pile, and then the deer come along and eat the blood stained corn, it is the same thing, turning the deer into cannibals of sorts, eating their own protein. As to the question someone asked about feeding corn to deer and killing them eventually, i will attempt to link in a research paper here: https://animalrangeextension.montana.edu/wildlife/private_land_wildlife_mgmt/winter-deer-feeding.html
We have CWD in our area too; I can see how the bait and kill station gets employed but have to admit I wouldn’t like it either. I don’t mind shooting and neither do my horses but knowing that something is getting blown away with every shot would wear on me. Try the plugs and hopefully soon the deer population will be diminished and your usual level of random gunfire will return.
You aren’t supposed to eat the meat from a CWD deer; they test them here at the check stations and you have to wait for results to see if the animal you got was infected or not. If it was, it goes to the dump in a specific place. Was supposed to be where all deer/elk carcasses went but I see tons of them still dumped out in the woods.
That was a good article re the corn too, browsing corn fields is different than them tanking up at a feeder. They could have the issues from the fields too but it’s not as concentrated as feeding it in a big gut bomb when they are supposed to be foraging. They eat it like a horse will eat a bag of sweet mix if they find it in their pasture, not knowing or caring if it’s not good for them.
