Do deer eat cabbage?

Updated on September 7, 2026. Ratings below are university lists, not a guarantee for your street. Hungry deer still rewrite any list.

Yes. Deer eat cabbage — the wrapper leaves, the heart, and the young plants before they ever head. Iowa State’s compilation of Rutgers, Cornell, and Michigan State ratings puts garden cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) in the frequently severely damaged fruit-and-vegetable group, next to broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and turnip. UConn’s home-garden sheet lists cabbage with the deer favorites, not the “occasionally damaged” brassicas. Oklahoma State files it under garden plants severely damaged. The mustard oils in a cabbage leaf do not save it.

The same kitchen row usually holds carrots (tops first) and strawberries. Safer vegetables in the same bed are tomatoes and cucumbers. Shade-bed candy on the other side of the house is hostas. For the rest of the yard, start at the deer-proof garden hub and the wild-diet page what do deer eat.

What they eat, and when

Cabbage is a biennial grown as an annual. The head is a swollen terminal bud packed with succulent leaves. That is the whole crop, sitting six to eighteen inches off the ground — muzzle height for a standing doe. There is no buried root to hide the way a carrot does. If a deer takes the growing point of a May transplant, that plant will not head. If she works a September storage head, she peels wrapper leaves with the ragged tear you get from a mouth with no upper incisors, then bites into the heart. What is left looks like a torn softball, not a harvest.

The crop is cool-season. You set plants in spring and again in midsummer for a fall cut. Those windows line up with hungry deer. Minnesota Extension notes that spring damage spikes when fat reserves are lowest. Fall cabbage is worse in another way: after a frost, brassica sugars rise and the sharp glucosinolates mellow. That is why hunters plant rape, kale, and turnips as late-season food plots. A backyard ‘Golden Acre’ or ‘January King’ after the first freeze is the same chemistry at garden scale. Cornell IPM: a deer eats four to ten pounds of forage a day. One night in a short row can empty it.

Red cabbage is not safer. University lists do not split red from green, savoy, or pointed types. UConn does say red lettuces are less palatable than green; they do not say that about cabbage. Flowering kale sold as fall décor is still B. oleracea. UConn rates garden kale as only occasionally damaged, a step better than heading cabbage, but that is a probability, not a porch-pot guarantee. Chinese cabbage and napa are Brassica rapa, the same species Iowa files as frequently damaged turnip. We do not have child pages for kale, broccoli, or lettuce yet; treat the Iowa and UConn lists as the source.

Do not confuse two plants that share a word. Garden cabbage is Brassica oleracea. Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is a wetland aroid. Iowa State puts skunk cabbage with perennials seldom damaged. The swamp plant is not your coleslaw.

Deer damage vs rabbits vs cabbageworms vs groundhogs

Height is a weak tell on cabbage — the crop sits at muzzle height. Use the cut, the tracks, and what is missing.

• Deer: ragged, shredded wrapper leaves; heads gouged or gone; split-heart hoof prints; oval pellets; plants flattened overnight. Damage around dawn and dusk.
• Rabbit: clean 45-degree clips, usually within 18–24 inches of the ground. Seedlings vanish; a mature head is often left. If only the starts are gone, start at how to keep rabbits out of the garden.
• Cabbageworm / diamondback moth: small holes, green frass, the plant still standing. That is an insect sheet, not a fence problem.
• Groundhog: sits and eats in place, often in daylight, with a burrow nearby. An 8-foot deer fence with a gap at the soil line will not stop them. Bury hardware cloth a few inches if both animals use the bed.

Where cabbage gets hit hardest

This is a suburban and farm-edge problem in actual cabbage country. Western New York’s Lake Ontario belt — the same counties in the New York deer hunting guide — still grows processing cabbage. Rutgers built its ratings with northern New Jersey Master Gardeners, the backyard herds on New Jersey’s deer map. Pennsylvania kitchen gardens and Michigan farm-edge plots (see the Michigan deer hunting guide) repeat the pattern: a woodlot, a 20-by-30 bed, fall heads coloring up after frost. Arizona’s mule-deer rating is one report, not a Western survey, but it matches the Eastern lists: heading cabbage is not a plant mule deer skip.

The row next to the cabbage is often the magnet. Iowa’s frequently-damaged vegetables include beans, lettuce, sweet corn, carrots, and strawberries. Cornell’s vegetable program says deer prefer snap beans and soybeans; a farm buffer strip of those crops is not a backyard tactic. Apples keep them coming in fall. Pumpkins take October.

What works

Cabbage is low. That is the one advantage you do not get with apples. You can cage the bed instead of fencing the county — if the bed is small and fully closed.

• A closed hoop or floating row cover from transplant through heading. Insect netting on hoops already belongs on brassicas for cabbageworms. A cover deer cannot lift also stops the herd. Weight the edges. Lift only to harvest. This is the home-scale fix that actually holds a short row.
• A real garden fence. Penn State’s conventional barrier is 8-foot woven wire, kept tight to the ground. Cornell IPM: a 4-foot fence can work on a small, fully enclosed kitchen garden because deer dislike jumping into a tight box; a large plot needs eight feet. Minnesota: motivated deer can clear 12. How high a deer can jump is why a 4-foot picket around an open patch is theater. Layouts: how to keep deer out of garden beds.
• Electric polytape on a vegetable plot. Cornell’s vegetable program uses single-strand electric fence with peanut-butter foil tabs so the deer touch it with their nose, or high-visibility polytape on fiberglass stakes as a portable summer fence. Farmers scale that idea on how farmers keep deer away.
• Food-safe repellents only, on foliage you are not about to eat. Ammonium-soap products such as Hinder are among the few labeled for edible crops. UGA: putrescent-egg formulas must not go on food. Rotate, reapply after rain, and treat this as a delay, not a fence. Details: which organic deer repellents actually work.
• Put the bed next to the house. Minnesota Extension: plants deer want should sit in high-traffic spots, not against the woodlot.

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What does not work

• Trusting the mustard smell. Glucosinolates deter some insects. They do not deter deer. Food-plot brassicas exist because the opposite is true after frost.
• A sacrificial cabbage row to “draw them off the flowers.” That trains the herd to your yard. They will then hit hostas too. Cornell’s bean buffer strips are a farm tactic, not a suburban lure crop.
• Hand-feeding leftover cabbage to wild deer. A chopped head is not winter browse. Minnesota Extension: feeding can harm or kill deer and concentrates them on your property. Cornell IPM: feeding deer is illegal in New York. Many other states ban it. Start with what to feed backyard deer (and why you should not) and the biology on deer digestive system.
• A 4-foot decorative fence around a big open garden, soap bars, hair bags, or a ring of herbs with no cover. Marigolds sit on Iowa’s seldom-damaged annuals list. They do not hide a cabbage. Once the patch is a known food plot, spray alone rarely holds. Cost and layout notes also live on how to keep deer from eating plants.

Three substitutes that already earn their keep

You cannot swap a cabbage for a perennial and still make coleslaw. If the goal is a kitchen crop without an 8-foot cage, plant something the lists actually rate lower:

• Tomatoes — Iowa State: seldom damaged as a crop. Hairy vines are not candy. They will still sample ripe fruit.
• Cucumbers — Iowa and UConn both put cucumbers on the rarely-damaged side because of coarse, prickly vines. Fruit still gets taken when a deer is thirsty.
• Lavender — strong scent, and it sits on every serious “rarely eaten” herb list. Use it in the sunny strip where a fall ornamental kale would have gone.

Peppers, onions, and garlic are the vegetable swaps Iowa State actually rates rarely damaged. We do not have child pages for those crops yet; treat the Iowa State list as the source. For flower color around the plot, use the deer-resistant annuals list.

FAQ

Will a cabbage grow back after deer eat it?

Sometimes the wrapper leaves, never a gouged heart. A mature head that lost outer leaves can still be cut if the core is intact; it will be smaller and may split. A transplant that lost its growing point will not head. Replant under cover. Unlike a hosta crown, there is no next-year comeback from a ruined annual.

Do deer eat red cabbage or ornamental kale?

Yes to red cabbage — the lists do not split color. Ornamental flowering kale is the same species. UConn rates garden kale a step better (occasionally damaged) than heading cabbage (favorite). That is not a reason to leave a porch bowl unprotected in a heavy-pressure yard.

Is skunk cabbage the same plant?

No. Skunk cabbage is Symplocarpus foetidus, a wetland plant Iowa rates seldom damaged. Garden cabbage is Brassica oleracea var. capitata. The swamp smell is not a deer fence for your kitchen crop.

Should I toss leftover cabbage to the deer?

No. A few wrapper leaves in the compost is gardening. A grocery head in the yard is bait. Minnesota says do not feed. New York makes feeding deer illegal. Check your DNR before you put anything out.

Sources

• Iowa State Extension — Susceptibility of Plants to Deer Damage (cabbage frequently damaged; compiles Rutgers, Cornell, Michigan State; reviewed July 2022)
• UConn Home & Garden — Deer Resistant Vegetables and Herbs (cabbage a favorite; kale occasionally damaged)
• Rutgers NJAES — Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance
• Oklahoma State Extension HLA-6427 — Ornamental and Garden Plants: Controlling Deer Damage (cabbage severely damaged)
• University of Arizona Cooperative Extension az2098b — Deer Plant Resistance Ratings (August 2025; cabbage n=1, 100% frequently severely damaged; mule deer)
• Cornell IPM — Deer (4–10 lb daily intake; small-enclosure vs 8-foot fence; NY feeding ban)
• Cornell Vegetable Program — Minimizing Deer Damage in Vegetable Crops
• Penn State Extension — White-tailed Deer in Home Fruit Plantings (8-foot woven wire)
• University of Minnesota Extension — White-tailed deer damage (do not feed; spring pressure; 8-foot fence)
• UGA Extension — Repellents and Wildlife Damage Control

This article is part of the Deer-Proof Garden Guide — plant-by-plant answers, resistant planting lists, and the deterrents that actually work. White-tailed deer biology: white-tailed deer. Wild browse, not garden heads: what a white-tailed deer eats.