Yes, they will grow new stems. The question will be how to prune them to achieve an attractive form. Please place wire cages around them to prevent any further browsing.

They will very likely survive.....but they may not look like much for a few years :)

Japanese maples are very appealing snack items for hungry critters in winter....rabbits and deer in particular. I'd offer protection until they have some age and height to them.

Thanks! I will get them protected by wire cages.

Clean, angled cuts like that indicate rabbits.

Deer chomps tend to be ragged, more like they've been chewed.

I must have very dainty deer in my area :-)) They can do some seriously delicate "pruning" of trees and shrubs in my garden...........No ragged chomps - just missing flowers, buds and branch tips!

Rabbit bites always look like the pictures above, very clean, angled, sharp cuts, even on woodier parts of the shrub. Deer looks more 'bitten' and there should be tracks in the looser soils, where they step up to lower their head to reach downward.

Here's what I saw this Fall when I looked to see what was nipping my hollyhocks (lower center of pic).

And If it's deer, you'll generally see this around the area:

Of course, maybe those western blacktail deer are different than our whitetails idk.

And to back up my comments:

Pages 3 & 4

https://www.a2gov.org/departments/community-services/Documents/Monitoring%20Deer%20Impacts%20final%20report.pdf

Deer don't have upper teeth so they can't snip woody material cleanly.

tree time is counted in decades ..

FIRST.. protect them immediately .. 3 feet of chicken wire .... wired to stakes .. buried at least 3 inches ..

and then walk away until fall .....

with no insult to the root mass.. it WILL rebud.. and it will grow with vigor ...

and a year or two later.. you can prune for the future ...

fert will not take year off this equation .. and nothing you can do will spend it up..

just water properly.. and have faith that it will recover.. prayer never hurts ...

ken

ps: that pot is ridiculously small for this TREE .. in spring.. while still dormant.. PLANT IT IN MOTHER EARTH ... where all trees belong.. by next fall it will be dying if its still in THAT pot ... depending where you are.. you might even plant it now .. big city name ...

When deer browse on twigs, they use their lower teeth to push against as fleshy pad on the roof of their mouth. They then pull or turn their heads while pulling, which breaks the twig off. If you look closely at wounds left by deer feeding on twigs, you'll always see odd length fibers of wood at the break. When rabbits feed on woody twigs, if the cuts don't look like they've been made by a pair of sharp bypass pruners, it wasn't rabbits.

Your trees will be fine so long as the rabbits (or voles) don't start stripping the the young bark, which both are wont to do.

These are maple trees in the developmental stage of becoming a bonsai:

Above and below are same tree

All the trees lived and are doing fine.

Taken in Aug '21, This is the most recent image of the tree in the top 2 images:

Ideally, you should pay close attention to fine pruning and pinching in spring as the first new leaves are beginning to open. Do not allow the tree to grow wild or you'll face a much more serious pruning job later. If you start with a clean tree (no ugly branches and 12-18" internodes) it's much easier to keep the tree clean as it progresses. Ridding the trees of unwanted branches and promoting early ramification (branch density) without having a dozen branches all emanating from a common point should be a focal point.

Are these upright growers or weepers? Dissectum or palmate leaves?

Al

the issue you are worried about is not about seedlings.. it would be about grafted specimens ... wherein the deer.. or other vermin.. may have cut off and eaten.. or worse.. just dropped there [rabbits are famous for that].. the favored valuable scion ... and left you with just understock [a seedling]... in other words.. they ate the 100$ plant.. and left you the 5$ plant ...

so no.. this is not an issue ... you could have mowed it to the ground ... or dear spouse weedwhacked it the the ground.. and any maple will come back to life ...

if you insist on killing it,,,;.. you will have to apply a stump killer or dig it up ....

ken