Protect Your Yard From Foxes With The Spicy Ingredient They Can't Stand

Foxes are known for being sneaky and attacking chickens — they're not exactly welcome guests in most people's backyards. Even if you don't have chickens, they might lurk around since their diet also includes berries, birds, frogs, and rodents, all of which may be on your property. In reality, foxes aren't usually a threat since they don't attack humans, cats, or dogs — unless they feel threatened or are considerably smaller than the fox. If you have these pests frequenting your yard and want to keep them away, all you need is a spicy dash of pepper, either powdered, in flakes, or fresh off the vine.

Spicy peppers are a natural and humane method to keep foxes away without posing much risk to people or the animals themselves. The spice might burn the nose, but it won't do much more harm than that. In addition, you may not need to buy anything if you already have some spicy pepper in your kitchen, making it a budget-friendly form of pest control, too.

Hot peppers make our eyes burn and noses run because of the capsaicin in them, which is a naturally occurring chemical that will keep foxes away. You can use different forms of pepper to repel them. Sprinkling red pepper flakes or powder around your yard is the simplest way. Yet, you can also mix the peppers with water and garlic in a blender to create a potent spray to use around your yard. Just be sure to apply the peppers nearby where you suspect foxes are hiding — in dens under porches and sheds. If you need to make sure the fox-repelling properties will stick around for a while, try what the researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks did to get foxes to stop chewing on cables. They coated cables with hot sauce and silicone to keep the sauce in place, and the foxes soon stopped chewing since they couldn't take the heat.

Peppers can irritate almost all who come into contact with it. If you coat your yard in peppers — via powder, liquid, or otherwise — keep an eye on your pets and small children so they don't accidentally get into it. Consider putting up flower bed border fences to keep everyone out of the area you're treating. Capsaicin is toxic to some insects, so keep the spice away from where beneficial insects hang out.