adminWhile it can be peaceful and enjoyable to live in an area with wildlife, there are certain drawbacks that come along with the enjoyment of watching deer and rabbits. Deer, especially, are known for their insatiable appetites for anything green, and their ability to destroy weeks of hard work in the garden in a matter of minutes. Deer love to eat leaves, fruits, and vegetables, and they can also cause a lot of damage to trees by rubbing their antlers on trunks and branches. There are various methods of keeping deer from destroying a garden, and homemade deer repellent is one of the easiest, most effective, and least expensive.
Homemade deer repellent, at its most simple, consists of two ingredients, egg and water. Even with these two ingredients, there are several ways in which to make the repellent. The fastest is to simply crack one raw egg into one gallon of water, stirring gently so that it doesn’t create too much foam. Once blended, this mixture can be dribbled directly onto plants, or transferred into a spray bottle and sprayed on the plants. Deer, and rabbits too, will avoid eating any plant sprayed with the mixture.
Because it is the smell of the mixture that keeps the deer away, a variation of the mixture is to let it sit, in the sun if possible, for five to twenty-four hours. This sitting time will make the eggs putrefy and smell even stronger before being applied to the garden plants. A drawback to this method it, of course, that it is a more unpleasant task to undertake when one’s work involved the smell of rotten eggs, and some gardeners point out that the fresh mixture putrefies on the plants anyway, so that the extra time doesn’t make a difference.
Research has suggested that mixing in a cooked egg, or egg solid, into the water, can be even more effective than the raw egg. Using egg solid makes it a little more difficult to apply, because one cannot use a spray bottle for solids. Again, the mixture with the egg solid can be applied to plants directly after being made, or it can be left out to strengthen the deer deterring odor.
Homemade deer repellent can also be made with the egg and water base, and added ingredients to deter the deer even more. Chili powder, cinnamon, and other strong and spicy ingredients are said to help keep deer and rabbits away even more. Even garlic is reported to be a big deer turn off.
A tablespoon or two of oil, either vegetable oil or canola oil, can help make the homemade deer repellent stick to leaves and plants. If the mixture is not as effective as it should be, it can be made stronger by using less water per egg. Even using as little as one cup of water per egg may work best. In addition this homemade deer repellent must be applied regularly after rain or watering, at least until the deer become accustomed to eating somewhere else.
