table of contents
- What is butyric acid?
- How does the active ingredient work?
- How is the mourning done?
- Gentle or deadly?
- Advisable alternatives
- frequently asked Questions
Voles are unpopular with hobby gardeners because they undermine and devastate gardens within a short period of time. Does butyric acid help against voles? Or do you cause more damage through your use than you achieve in terms of benefit?
In a nutshell
- Voles can be easily driven away by intense smells
- Butanoic acid stinks, but it can also cause intense damage to the organism
- Less dangerous alternatives make it possible to drive them away without endangering the lives of the animals
What is butyric acid?
Butyric acid is the common name for a substance known chemically correctly as butanoic acid. It owes its name to the fact that it is odorless in its pure form. If moisture and oxygen are added, on the other hand, it develops a strong smell of rancid butter. No water has to be added for this, it is sufficient if the moisture and the oxygen content of the normal ambient air meet the acid.
How does the active ingredient work?
The effect of butyric acid against voles is based solely on the intensive development of a pungent, unpleasant smell. Since the animals live underground to a large extent without light, you should instead rely on a particularly fine, well-developed nose for orientation and, above all, for finding roots for food. You can certainly understand that a substance that already has a lasting effect on human olfactory organs means a much greater disruption for highly developed olfactory senses.
How is the mourning done?
The application of butyric acid to voles found in the garden is therefore very easy:
- Soak rags or other absorbent materials with butyric acid
- found entrances to equip the vole colony with prepared fragrance sources
- leave an exit near the edge of the garden unprepared as an "escape route"
- Process if necessary repeat after smelling
Attention: Make sure to use the necessary protective measures in the form of gloves and protective goggles when handling butanoic acid!
Gentle or deadly?
If it is so easy to scare the voles with butyric acid, let us still ask whether it is still harmless. Is it effective and harmless, or is the substance not that simple and uncritical to evaluate?
A look at the chemical properties of butanoic acid quickly shows that it is indeed a intense odorous substance, but it is also a real acid with all its adverse properties is. Possible consequences are:
- Irritation of the respiratory tract from vapors
- Burns to eyes and skin on direct contact
- Nausea, in extreme cases vomiting
Of course, all these effects apply to humans as the “cause”, but also to the vole as an affected organism. And since the mouse cannot shield itself with goggles and gloves, you have to get away It can be assumed that in addition to the unpleasant smell, the rodents in the room are also severely impaired stand. So it turns out that butyric acid may be effective, but is by no means the harmless and completely harmless substance it is often thought to be.
Advisable alternatives
If you do not want to harm the animals, but only scare them, it is worthwhile to take one or the other alternative:
Buttermilk
Instead of real butyric acid, use buttermilk to gently put off voles. It also develops an intensely unpleasant odor during fermentation, which the vole detests. Of course, the fragrances are less strong here, so the motto “a lot helps a lot” applies. Put a good serving of buttermilk in each cave entrance and repeat the procedure every few days. The rest is done by the sun, temperature and microorganisms from the soil. If the buttermilk ferments, the same stinking vapors pull through the corridors and the mouse is permanently looking for a new home.
Garden Gloxinia (Sinningia)
The garden gloxinia is considered to be a relatively odorless, lush flowering plant. Only the tuber gives off a bad smell, which you cannot even notice because of the location of the tuber in the ground. The situation is different for the voles. The intense scent of the tuber penetrates from the earth into the caves of the vole and creates an unattractive, even deterring atmosphere there.
Tip: It is important that you position the plants several times over the building, as the transmission of the odorous substance into the soil is limited.
frequently asked Questions
Of course, one could assume that the mice perceive the stench and disappear. In reality, however, the animals first check the foreign body as an intruder in their den and come very close to it. This contact is already sufficient to damage the animals' lungs, noses and eyes.
Although voles are not protected under species protection law, they should not be killed unnecessarily either. Because, like any other animal, you have an important role to play in our ecosystem. If you drive away the animals, they can live elsewhere and make their contribution to a functioning environment.
Of course, artificial preparations can be used against the vole. As a rule, however, these also lead to side effects, for example on the plants or the general nature of the subsoil. It is therefore better to use “home remedies” that occur naturally in one form or another, usually only in a much lower concentration.