I walked out to water my goliath sunflowers yesterday morning and noticed they were all eaten downt o the stalk… :mad:
I then felt slightly better knowing I had a dozen more sowed in my Garage. And they were almost ready to be planted.
At our Memorial Day party last evening a friend told me he spreads fox urine around his yard in strategic areas and that keeps the deer away…Now I have heard of using merigolds to ward off the rogue ground hogs but not fox urine!
Does anyone have the dope on eliminating backyard pests naturally and without a fence? I don’t really understand because we have never really had a deer problem, and the merigolds really kept the rabbits out for last several years…???
A local zoo sells bottles of lion pee as deer repellant. It might also work if you used your own, assuming you’re not a vegetarian. I advise against walking out into the back yard and peeing on all the bushes, though. That might cause some talk amongst the neighbors.
I once had a neighbor who’s brother happened to be a barber. He would hang human hair (gathered up from his brother’s floor) in nets on all four corners of his gardens. He was the only person in the neighborhood who was able to grow anything.
I used to work for a garden center that sold fox urine as well as bobcat and coyote “flavors”. I think you needed coyote for deer, and fox/bobcat were more for the bunnies and stuff. I never used it personally, but I always read pretty good things about it in the trade magazines. The usual deal applies where rain and time reduces the effectiveness pretty quickly. As I recall, your options were either little foam sponges on sticks you’d soak and place around the garden or else little vials you could fill and hang on trees to prevent deer damage.
A final note, the stuff reeks. Foxes are rather potent smelling creatures to begin with (at least in my experience which has always been with semi-captive ones – they might keep themselves more scent free in the wild) and the smell from opening the urine bottle will knock you on your seat.
"It is also noted that predator urine, including human urine, is an effective repellent. "
And since, as a male, you come with your own handy-dandy, neat-and-tidy human urine dispenser, now is the time to convince your wife that you’re peeing on the lawn for a good cause.
I was talking to my mom yesterday, up in the Great Nort’woods, where the deer come right in the driveway and up the front steps. She’s had $thousands worth of plants eaten, and nothing stops 'em. They even eat stuff like daffodils that they aren’t even supposed to like.
This stuff just became available there, and she says it works. It won’t wash off in the rain, either. You only have to reapply it to new growth, evidently. She only wished she had it last week when her sixty red blooming tulips were eaten.
I’d give it a shot. This is the first thing she ever seen that’s really effective, and she’s tried everything.
Oh, and she says the urine only works well for chipmunks. She has plenty of those, too, following her as she plants seeds, digging 'em right up behind her.
Well, now I’ve heard it all. I don’t think I want my neighbors catching me micturating at various places around the yard…however, it did bring back memories of watching Never Cry Wolf which is a chronicle of Farley Mowat and his ramblings in Northern Canada. He’d use the same technique to keep the wolves as it were, at bay. And apparently after marking his territory, it actually was respected by the beasts…
Two suggestions:
1: Griss is a canine predator, let him go in the back yard more often.
2: Plant garlic around your young plants. I’m serious. I had a large bag of ordinary cooking garlic that started to sprout, and for lack of anywhere else to plant it, ringed the garden with the cloves. They grew easily; absolutely no work on my part. I don’t even have to replant it, the garlic from that bag is still growing. I saw a buck come sniffing up to the shoots early one spring AM, and he really did not like the garlic. His eyes got as big a plates, he shot up into the air and back about 5 feet, landed and raced out of the yard.
I’ve used it hunting deer, and the back of the bottle states that when deer detect fox urine in an area, they feel secure. (There’s a little cartoon deer with a sentence balloon above his head) “As smart as the fox is…If he’s passing through this area, then it must be safe for me!”
I’ve put it on cotton balls around my tree stand, and have never seen a deer shy away from the smell.
I remember seeing a Dear Abby type column where a woman living in the southwestern US claimed to have had trouble with javelinas (small wild pigs) messing around in her yard. Her brother and her nephews whizzed in the yard after dark and after that she said the javelinas didn’t bother her any more.
My mother had a problem with muskrats eating the garden and I told her to put hairs from the cats and the dog on the garden to keep the muskrats away. It didn’t work.
I had a problem with feral cats “marking their territory” on my porch, stinking up the whole house. The little old lady next door suggested sprinkling fingernail clippings on the porch steps. She said the cats wouldn’t walk over them. She was right. I don’t know if this works for gardens.
Yes, however, Griss is inside when the deer come around. Now that I am home for a few months, I let him out during the day, like right now I can see him out my window, he watching something up in a tree out back. But he’ll be wanting to come in soon. Additionally, he’s not to sure about deer. We saw a herd of them on a recent hike and he didn’t really know what to do…he just kind of growled a little bit and kept walking next to us. If it were a rabbit or ground hog or something small and furry, he’d be all over it. Reference the bloody sqirrel dog thread…
I have a little 3yr old nephew who pees quite a bit on his own…maybe we’ll have him over for the afternoon
Yeah, you all think you’re buying fox, bobcat and lion urine but in actuality it all comes from a large, middle aged woman in an Arizona trailer park named Janet. ambles off to urinate on medstar’s morning paper
