Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent

This is our favorite product of the year – possibly of the decade. In our experience, this is the only deer repellent that actually, you know, repels deer. Admittedly, your enthusiasm for it may be predicated on whether you live in a rural area and are beset by deer of your own.

Deer are engaging creatures to watch, as long as you can watch them at a distance… or in someone else’s yard. Fearless and perpetually hungry, deer regard gardens and vegetable patches as all-you-can-munch salad bars, and will chew your plants down to their terrified little roots, given the opportunity.

For years – quite a few of them – we suffered the privations of ravening herds of deer. There a lots of folk-remedies available to discourage the beasts, all of which are deer-friendly and environmentally-friendly and just warm and fuzzy, and all of which don’t work. I suspect that some of them actually make the deer laugh.

Our deer aren’t laughing any longer.

Run Like the Wind

Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent makes deer go away. It’s been formulated to smell like predators to a deer, and they want nothing to do with it, or anything it’s been sprayed on. It’s entirely harmless to plants… with one exception, to be noted momentarily.

This stuff is dead easy to use. Its arrives as a liquid concentrate, which can be mixed with water in a spray bottle. Thereafter, it likes to be squirted on the plants you don’t want eaten. The aforementioned limitation in its use is fruit and vegetables, which should not be sprayed directly if you imagine actually eating them. This isn’t much of an issue, because the fragrance of Bobbex is extremely pervasive. As long as it’s been sprayed on something nearby, your tomatoes will be defended.

The only arguable downside of Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent is that it’s a bit gag-inducing when it’s first deployed. Its smell suggests raw meat left out in the sun until it’s about to turn weird. It requires about an hour after its been sprayed for its smell to dissipate for human noses. It clearly lingers at an animal level for much longer.

Once it’s up and working in your yard, Bobbex seems to be on guard for about a month, after which it would like to be resprayed. Light rain doesn’t disperse it – we’re disposed to respraying it after a deluge.

While we still encounter deer at the periphery of our yard, they stay well away from our gardens. I hasten to add that our yard encompasses about two acres, so they’ve definitely left the salad bar.

Bunnies

Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent purports to also deter veggie-munching rabbits. It does, but at least in our experience, it does still more.

It harnesses these voracious little mammals as self-guided weed-whackers.

Deer won’t go anywhere near a garden in which Bobbex has been sprayed. Rabbits won’t actually eat anything sprayed with it, although it doesn’t seem to frighten them away.

We carefully sprayed all the desirable flowers in one of our gardens with Bobbex. Rabbits arrived, eschewed the protected plants and lunched out on the weeds. It was awesome to watch.

Your mileage may vary.

The Mighty B

Our experience of Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent is that deer don’t seem to get used to it, and stop fearing its wrath. They’re wired up to run away from things that might eat them, and at least to a deer, Bobbex smells like a harbinger of death.

In addition to its primary manifestation as a concentrated liquid, Bobbex Deer and Rabbit Repellent is also available premixed, in ready-to-rock squirt bottles. It’s a bit more expensive in this form, but you can spend less time up close with it, a desirable quality for those with sensitive noses.

Your deer will hate you either way.