Hi, Jeanie,

I've never found that any of the commercial products for animal control did any good, other than stinking up the place so badly that I had trouble tolerating it. However, I've used some of the cheaper old 'home remedy' types and had success with them. We had a dog that seemed opposed to anything that grew more than the height of grass, and he'd promptly chew it right down to the ground. Shrubs, trees, potted plants; he didn't care. He ate them. I finally got so cross about it that I sprayed the remains with some habanero sauce and waited to see if he'd eat that. I think he got a rude awakening because he left them alone from that point on.

I've had horses that liked to chew on anything they could reach; fence posts, fence rails, trees and so on. I mixed up a box of alum into a runny paste and painted it on all of the goofy beast's favorite surfaces. It only took a couple of bites before it ended the chewing, and it didn't hurt him at all, even though it was pretty funny to see him with his lips all puckered up from the alum.

For moles in the garden, I mix up castor oil in water with a tiny bit of liquid soap added and then pour it all around the garden areas where the critters are invading. They do not like castor oil, and usually find a different yard or flower bed to destroy. As long as it's away from mine!

And then there's the old farm trick of using totally 'natural' material. Another hee-hee for you. If you have a man handy and your garden is at all private and not out in public view, you can suggest that he answer his liquid calls of nature out around your prized plants instead of using the bathroom. Around them, NOT on them! It's supposed to deter deer and rabbits. Maybe even the gophers. My father got so annoyed one year that he began using a coffee can in the bathroom and then would go pour it around the plants under attack. Ladies can do the same thing, in private. I don't know how effective it really is, but it's certainly free. It can't hurt anything to try it.

Just keep in mind that rabbits out in the desert seem to cope very well with all the prickly and spiny stuff, and it doesn't seem to bother them at all. Remember B'rer Rabbit? "Born and bred in a briar patch". I just want to tell all the destructive ones that they can go "Zip-a-dee-do-da" someplace else.

Pat

Did not know that rabbits could contend with spiny stuff. Oh well. Have been intending to add some of the "freebie" cacti to that bed, anyway, since it is my drought tolerant bed. I've tried home-made pepper spray, egg spray, soap spray, and frankly, I think I burned the plants a little, because the buds either didn't open or were small and sickly-looking, if they did. Of course, this year, it is difficult to tell if it is the result of my efforts or the intense heat. I will have to pick up a bottle of castor oil the next time I'm in town. Will the habanero sauce burn the plants? I don't have a gentleman to "whiz" around my plants, but I an getting desperate. HA. My son and I have discussed creating some kind of cute scarecrow. Who knows?

Thanks for all the tips!

Jeanie

Jeanie, I really don't know if the pepper sauce will burn delicate foliage or not. I sprayed/painted it on to the trunk of a rubber plant that the dog had chewed, and it didn't seem to hurt it any, but that's a different situation.

I do know that alum doesn't hurt anything, and a lot of animals won't eat it. I don't know if you could mix it up in a spray bottle and spray it on or not. I've never tried that. However, alum is cheap. Might be worth a try?

Definitely pick up a bottle of castor oil. You may have to ask for it at a pharmacy desk. I don't know why they sometimes keep it put away, but some places do. It's $4 to 5 for a little bottle, but it goes a long ways and seems to last a long time in the garden. Moles particularly hate it.

Yep, rabbits have no trouble at all with spiny stuff. Keep in mind that about the only critters that survive in the Mojave are snakes, lizards, a few coyotes, and jackrabbits. Lots of jackrabbits.

On the west coast, deer are a big problem. They are larger than here, and they seem to get in nearly everyplace that's remotely rural. I've known folks who tried extreme measures to keep them out, including buying bags of commercial "zoo poop" that's is supposed to discourage them. I don't think it works. Even with our dogs, they used to wander into the garden or orchard and would stand and look at us unless we flapped our arms at them.

Quite frankly, I think the only thing that's effective is a deer fence. My mother grows her roses and veggies in a garden area that was designed for it. On the bottom is a 4-foot stock fence (like hog fence) with the smaller openings at the bottom to deter rabbits, coons and so on, and then it's topped with about 3 strands of wire so that it's over 6' high. Unless someone forgets to close the gate, it's pretty effective. The few apple trees that are inside the fence also seem to do better than the ones that are harvested by wildlife. My dad built permanent raised beds to cope with their normal annual high heat and summer drought. They just rotated the planting in the beds, and so far it has worked for over 25 years. Nothing seems to get through it or tunnel under it, and I think only one deer in all those years has jumped over it.

Pat

We have a beagle hunt club here in Phoenix. We hunt jackrabbits on horseback in the desert. They live in the cholla, dead saguaro and ocotillo.
We don't hurt them, just chase them and enjoy the old traditions of British Hunting.

Pat,
I agree that fencing is the answer, but it just isn't an option for me. I am just going to grow less and less delicacies for the wildlife and lean more and more to things that don't seem to tickle their palates.

Tracydr,
Mercy, mercy! Can't imagine braving the Phoenix heat to chase rabbits around the desert! At least, you don't hurt them. Who knows. They might even enjoy matching wits with you, somewhat like a dog chasing a stick. HA

Jeanie

Seedmama told me to put Juicy Fruit gum in the gophermolevole tunnels and it worked for me. I have no idea why. I had a backyard completely full of them and two packs later, they were all gone.

Tigerdawn,
I have a silly question. Do you chew up the gum first or just unwrap the stick and put it down in the hole? I would be interested in knowing why this works.

Jeanie

Jeanie, I had also heard the gum story, years ago. Some folks have said it works. I've never noticed any real success, but it may have been more than one gopher.

While the power was out this afternoon, I was leafing through a Jung Seed catalog and spotted something that might be of interest to you. It's a battery operated animal repeller that is called YardGuard. Said to repel rabbits, deer, coons, skunks and so on, over a 4,000 sq ft area. Might it be worth looking into? Maybe see if you can find any reviews on it? The thing costs $60, but if it really works . . . . . ? It wouldn't take many roses and hemerocallis lost (or saved) to add up to that price.

Pat

Pat,
Googled Yardguard and found that Home Depot carries it for $37.95. Next time I'm in Norman, will check it out. Want to read box and talk to sales personnel about it. I've heard of these electronic devices before, just don't know if they work.

New phenomenon. For two days, I've had a baby deer (about half-grown, but still has spots) hiding in my cedars in the shade. She is all alone and is adorable. Caught her drinking out of the bird bath today. There is NO WAY I could hurt anything like that! Sigh! Rock and hard place.

Jeanie

Oh, dear. Or maybe, oh, deer?! If she's alone, that is not a good sign. I wonder what happened to mama? Is there a Fish & Game office around anyplace that you could call? I think they will pick up the baby and care for it until it's old enough to survive. There is no way it's going to cope on its own. If it still has its spots, it's pretty amazing that it's lived this long in the heat without mama to care for it.

Pat

Just went out and searched through schennery for baby and couldn't find her. Maybe she went back down toward the river about a half mile away
and found some other deer. Hope so, because I have some dastardly neighbors who hang a deer feeder to lure them in for the kill. I can hear their rifles periodically, and it just makes me sick, because I know what they are doing. I even called the locals one time and told them they were using guns too close to our houses ( even though our houses are probably a 1/2 to 1 mile apart), and, of course, they never showed up. Probably some of their "good ol' boy" buddies!

Jeanie

I just can't imagine anyone in their right mind who would kill a fawn, but I suppose it takes all kinds of people to make a world. I hope the baby has found its way to safety among other deer, and with any luck, its mama, because it has no hope of survival on its own.

Pat

Jeanie, Sometimes the does who live near us bring their fawns to the edge of the woods just outside the garden and leave them there while they go off for a hour or two. I don't know why, but they usually do it when I'm in the garden so I've always felt like they were wanting to leave their babies where I could watch over them while I worked in the garden. This sounds silly, but they've done it on and off ever since we moved here 13 years ago, and I believe it is the does who actually live on our land and the adjacent property and who grew up here. I don't think it is just random does who wonder onto the place.

Sometimes I put out deer corn for the deer to eat in this hot weather, but not every night. When the deer start feeling desperate for deer corn, they come stand in the driveway and stare at the house. If I don't come out and put out deer corn, they leave and come back with their fawns. There they all stand, hot, tired, thin and hungry-looking. I feel like they are using the fawns to manipulate me into feeding them "Now!". Does it work? Heck, yes. I'm not going to let a little fawn starve.

I feel sorry for all the wild things. They are so hungry and so thin. I am putting out limited food (it certainly is not an all-you-can-eat buffet) for them every morning and evening, and put out water daily too. Mostly we're feeding all kinds of birds and cottontail rabbits, but also possums, armadilloes, raccoons (unfortunately), turtles, and deer. Lots of small flyers like butterflies, moths, and dragonflies come to the wildlife puddles for water.

The longer the drought and heat drag on, the worse things get. People near us who have a different water company than ours are being asked to restrict watering, but so far our water company isn't having issues, knock on wood.

Conditions are deteriorating here really quickly because of the drought and the heat.

Jeanie, All that works for me is fencing, period. Anything that is too 'precious' to be eaten must be grown behind fencing. It took me 5 or 6 years of fighting the low fencing battle and losing it before I finally decided to stop planting deer chow. Now, any potential deer chow is fenced behind tall fencing. The hotter and drier the year, the more the deer devour. In a hot, dry year like this, they'll eat stuff they never eat in a "normal" weather year, not that any of us ever have a normal year anyway.

I wish I could train the deer to eat the grasshoppers. That would be one way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Dawn

Dawn,
You must have read my mind. I am going into town (PV) Wednesday, and I have on my mental shopping list deer corn. I have a deer feeder but haven't been filling it because the deer just ignored it. Something tells me they will be visiting it this Summer. I can't afford a stock tank (I checked), but I will put out a bucket of clean water close to the feeder. The baby drank out of my bird bath, but I haven't seen it today.
As I have said, fencing is not an option for me, but I have already decided
to grow things that don't attract the "critters" from now on, and quite
frankly, if this weather pattern is with us for a while, I will need to lean
more toward xeric plants, anyway.
You've made me feel better about the little fawn. Maybe the mother was
near-by. The little thing is about half grown, so hopefully, it knows how to
graze and feed itself. I don't know why it drank from the BB and did not
bother my plants, which are right next to it. Of course, as I said, the river
is about 1/2 mile from my property.

Jeanie

I bet it simply needed water at that time. I can't even keep water in a bird bath. I don't know what is drinking it, but I put water in every morning and evening, never see a bird near it (they prefer the puddles on the ground) and it never has any water in it. It may be deer or something else come and drink from it, but I never see them.

I know you keep saying fence is not an option, but that greatly restricts what you can plant far more than you know. When it is hot and dry, they will eat virtually everything, including plants that I see on those lists of plants deer won't eat. Those lists make me laugh. Hungry deer probably would eat the paper the lists are printed on. Deer even eat my daturas when they're hungry enough, although they don't touch them when food is more plentiful.

Hello all,

I can't keep any water in my birdbath either, and it's hanging way too high in the tree for anything to be getting into it other than the wild birds. I think it's simply evaporating in the heat.

Jeanie, I have to tell you a little story about a doe. An old rancher friend of mine had a pretty isolated place up on a hill, and one day he found a fawn with a broken leg. Being a real tough guy, he took it home, set the leg, and nursed it back to health. Although it was free to come and go, it stuck around pretty close to his place, and would take naps on his deck in the shade. On really cold days he'd open the door and it would saunter in like it owned the place and curl up in front of the fire, like a dog. As time went by, she grew up, as they tend to do, and then she vanished to find a gentleman friend.
One day Jim looked up to see her over by the edge of the barn, with a set of fawns by her side. He stayed quiet and waited to see what she'd do. She brought the babies right up into the yard, but a safe distance away, as if to say "See, Dad. Look what I did". Then she turned and left and he never saw her again.

I also have to laugh about the lists of what deer will and won't eat. I wonder if the writers have consulted the deer?? It seems to me that they eat what they want, when they want it, and don't bother to read the lists.

Pat

Dawn,
Oh dear. Well, at least, so far, they are staying out of the Perovskia, Echinaceas, Liatris, Peonies, Gaillardia, Achillea, Grasses, Agave and Cacti. Their main focus have been the Hemerocallis and Rose buds. Unfortunately, roses and daylilies are two of my favorite flowers.

Jeanie

Pat,
What a great deer story! I'm torn between my love for animals and my love for gardening. I guess if I have to make a choice, I will protect the animals. Being a "city slicker", all I have ever had to do is try to keep the dog from digging up my flower beds. Oh well, I really do hope the little fawn found it's Mama!

Jeanie