mtree wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:30 am
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but mothballs, peppermint oil, cayenne, garlic, and salts won't do a thing to repel varmints. Some (salts) may even attract them! And this is based on science not just theory. If you think about it, why would garlic repel anything other than a vampire? Mix that garlic with some onion and you have quite a tasty scent going on. Or it smells like garbage and what animal doesn't like that smell! And salt? No scent at all, but tastes good. Peppermint oil? C'mon. I grow tons of peppermint in my garden and it doesn't repel anything. Cayenne...maybe if you can spray it all over your wires it'll keep an animal from eating them, but how do you know the varmint doesn't have a taste for spicy food? I had a cat that would regularly steal a dried hot chili from a ristra I owned and sit behind the couch munching on it. I'm serious. I grew jalapenos outdoors and animals ate them. Go figure. Mothballs? Nope. Not even close to the amount of Naphthalene needed to repel a mouse. Works for moths and beetles though.
As for coyote or fox urine, I dunno. Would a marmot even know what those animal urines smell like? Would they care? Some folks swear by human hair to repel animals from their gardens. Does that work? I've mentioned soap and have used it, but I don't know for sure that it worked. Maybe just dumb luck. If you really think about it, odors are generally going to rise and dissipate in open air so why do we think they'll have any affect on critters. There are weird smells all around us and our vehicles. I'd think the less scent the better.
I think the only reliable and verifiable repellent would be a physical barrier. Otherwise, we're all just taking placebos and crossing our fingers.
What "science" are you basing this on? Sounds like personal ideas, not science.
In a couple minutes of googling I found this. Sounds like science says some repellents are effective against rodents. And of course, marmots, pikas, and field mice are rodents.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... Open_Field
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2014/249284/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12974352/
"We can therefore conclude that these natural extracts can repel the rats as determined by rat's behaviors in the circular open field"
"Present studies reveal the potential of eucalyptus oil in repelling away R. rattus;"
"Applied to poultry feed, capsaicin may be effective as an aversive agent to deter rodent feeding"
Interestingly enough, in my very quick research, mothballs and garlic seems to be ineffective at keeping away rodents.
I do agree that the most reliable repellent is a physical barrier.
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. -Nelson Mandela
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called Ego. -Nietzsche