Pets
Related: About this forumI spent some time this afternoon spreading Mountain Lion Urine at the perimeter of the yard.
The fox issue is out of control. All the neighbors are reporting problems with the fox that lives in the woods behind our houses. Animal control won't do anything because it turns out the fox is causing some movement of the deer, which are WAY out of control around here.
Anyway, as you know, I have posted about one of our dogs rolling in fox pee and scat. The possible remedy mentioned by most people who know about such things is predator pee. For Mr. Fox, they suggest bear or mountain lion as best, with coyote pee also a possible solution.
Today I got my 8 oz bottle of mountain lion pee. As a top predator, this is suggested as the gold standard (no pun intended). Bears are less of a threat to foxes, hence the suggestion to go to Mountain Lion. It may also keep the deer away, which would thrill me no end, too.
This is some PUNGENT stuff! I opened it outside and poured it into a spray bottle. Being the kind of guy I am, I called it my synthetic cat urethra!
It says to spray it every ten feet or so around the perimeter of the property to be protected. At nearly 500 feet of perimeter, that took the whole $15 bottle of it. After spreading it, I let the dogs out. They were clearly aware of the new smell and promptly marked as they could right on top of it. I'm told this is a good sign and may communicate to Mr. Fox that our dogs are in league with The Mountain LION. My fear was them rolling in the spread pee, but by spraying it on tree stumps, rocks, and even sticks, they almost certainly will not try to pick up the scent on themselves. Gawd I hope not because this makes the fox pee smell like Arpege.
There are 30 day vials that one can get that allow the urine to outlast rainstorms. If the fox isn't gone in a week or so from this application, that's the next step. To that end, I contacted the Pee Packer. He told me I did what every first time user does. I over-applied it. No harm done; just wasted money. It seems I could have gotten two or three more applications out of the same 8 oz bottle. That's why the vials are good. They help you more precisely dose the stuff.
I also asked the question I know everyone wants to know: Where does one get pure, undiluted, slightly concentrated PumaPee?
All his products are from animals in captivity. Most animals will pee in the same place over and over. The people who keep the animals simply put a collector where the animal pees. The big predatory stuff, like bear and mountain lion, comes from zoos. They collect the stuff, ship it to him, he concentrates it a little, bottles and sells it. He pays them for what they send. He, himself, doesn't have any animals; he's just the processor and seller
Anyway . . . . watching the evening stroll of the deer today was interesting. They went around the property instead of going across it. Let's hope Mr Fox does the same.
elleng
(131,006 posts)Good luck, and hugs to your crew.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)(Interesting that your name is Stinky---I thought about that when you suggested how bad this stuff smells.)
I was thinking that this might be a good idea for me to use to discourage the cats who hang around my bird feeders and the raccoons who use my patio as their toilet. But it didn't seem to scare your dogs, they just tried to mark over it. I wonder why.
It sounds like it is doing the job with the deer, who are probably scared shitless while walking the border of the property. Let's hope Mr. Fox gets lost too. Keep us updated about the results.
Stinky The Clown
(67,809 posts)There were four of them browsing on some taller grass along the stream on the side of the yard . . . . in the same exact spot where I put some of the lion pee. I let the dogs out and they ran, but damn.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)a la izquierda
(11,795 posts)TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)I was afraid my suggestion would sound nutso. I sure did when that neighbor told me... I laughed my head off at the time certain he was pulling a joke on me. But he was totally serious, and after thinking about it I figured it actually seemed logical though it just sounds so silly. I just had to look up on the net about preditor pee and was surprised he wasn't kidding. And more surprised there were all kinds of animal varieties.
It seems like it's doing the job so far. Even if it just works with the deer that's a plus anyway. I think mountain lion pee should really scare the hell out of a fox plenty good enough to encourage him to go elsewhere. They have a huge territory, so his missing out on just your property wouldn't faze him.
With the loss of the fox though you may start getting a lot more rodents. Maybe you could also use some kind of preditor pee to keep away rodents along with the mountain lion pee, or would the lion pee maybe work for that as well?
The foxes around us don't come close enough to our houses to be a problem, but they're close enough to be encouraging the various rodents to go elsewhere. They mostly stick to getting into the garbage when people put their trash out at night for pick up in the morning on the streets that have the larger front lawns which isn't our street (they don't seem to feel comfortable getting into our trash when our sidewalks are so close to our houses). But the rest of the week they're going for the rodents for their meals. I've been seeing MANY little piles of fur or feathers around which is the only part of their kills they don't eat. I also noticed a few nights ago that our Mr. Fox now has a Mrs. Fox and they're usually seen together now all the time. I couldn't resist going down to the gully where they build their dens, and sure enough there's a new den dug into the hillside now.
I'm really interested to know if this works for the fox. If our local foxes end up getting bolder I'd want to know what to use to keep them away from the house at least. Yoshi is WAY too interested in them, and they of him... I don't want Yoshi and the foxes making friends since they carry all kinds of vermin. I'm certain it's their interest in Yoshi that keeps them from running away when they see us out walking because other people who have seen them say they always run away when they encounter just people. Several times it's made me a bit nervous how close they were to us but were just watching us, and a couple of times they've followed us for a bit and a little too closely for comfort. I just don't want the dog and the foxes coming into physical contact with each other and not because I think they'd fight - it's the opposite. I'm pretty darn certain they want to make friends with each other... there's definite curious interest going on on both sides.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Huh. I have no idea how that happened.
douglas9
(4,358 posts)Stinky The Clown
(67,809 posts)The stuff I got is a different brand but is also headquartered in Maine. Since I got the impression the urine itself is from far and wide, and mostly from zoos, the business location is likely immaterial. Just a coincidence they're both in Maine?
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)when I first went to work at a CPA firm in Ohio, I was given the accounting and taxes account for a company that raises deer for their urine to be bottled for hunters. They sent a box of all the activity for the year, receipts, bills, bank accounts, etc. I opened that box and almost fainted.....I think every paper in there was stained. I found out that every year, a new person got that job since no one would do it a second year.
a la izquierda
(11,795 posts)a la izquierda
(11,795 posts)as we have a 65# Hungarian Viszla that hunts everything, and a little mutt that lives to eat poo. When we brush our dogs, we take all the shredded fur and put it around the yard. It seems to work, keeping the deer and other furry friends just to the edge of our yard (we're surrounded by 1000 acres).