Deer home brews

There is a plethora of product on the market that can be used for controlling deer and rabbit damage to landscape plants, and just about everyone who has been frustrated with deer feeding activity, will have their own “home brew” of some concoction that they swear works for them.
Starting with the basic pepper spray, using Jalapeno pepper: take 3 fresh peppers and run them through a food processor with just enough water to create a liquid. Pour the liquid through a cheese cloth mesh into a glass quart jar.

Add two tablespoons of olive oil or other vegetable oil, a squirt of Elmer’s glue and a drop or two of liquid dishwashing detergent. Use one part of this concentration to ten parts water. Shake well just before applying. This should stop them if they are in the exploratory stage of nibbling. If this concentration doesn’t work then up the heat from the capsaicin from 3 fresh habanero peppers, and dilute the same way. Caution: The average jalapeno pepper is between 2,500-8,000 scoville units whereas the average habanero pepper is between 100,000-350,000 scoville units.

In preparing with the food processor, wear a nose and mouth mask, protective goggles and gloves, with a fan blowing air away from your face. Just the volatilizing essential oils from the peppers can sting the eyes and sinuses, making this a miserable task.

The next selection of home remedies include bundles of human hair, cut up scented dryer sheets,  Irish Spring or other heavily scented soap pieces, dried blood or predator urine- fox, wolf, cougar, etc. All of these repellents have their devoted adherents, swearing they work for them; and they probably do – up to a point. If food is particularly scarce and the winter is long, herds of deer will eat anything they can ingest, and as a wildlife specialist once told me, can literally starve to death with a full stomach of stuff that is lacking in nutritional value.