Castor oil question

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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Green
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Castor oil question

Post by Green » December 13th, 2020, 11:34 pm

Is Castor oil supposed to have a noticeable scent? I used some today for vole repellent for the first time ever. The product I bought was marketed as a repellent. But I barely noticed any smell from it. Is that typical?

bpgreen
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Re: Castor oil question

Post by bpgreen » December 14th, 2020, 12:02 am

Voles can smell much more than you can. I haven't used castor oil, but I've tried a variety of other deterrents with varying degrees of success. I've had best results with poison.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Castor oil question

Post by MorpheusPA » December 14th, 2020, 3:09 am

You won't notice it. It's actually less of a scent repellant than the fact that they can't stand the sticky oil in their fur. When you spray it, it penetrates into their tunnels, and onto their fur, and gets into it and ruins the water-repellant properties of their fur. Underground, that can be fatal.

Mix with a bit of soap when you spray and they'll really hate you. Did you ever see the movie The Killer Shrews?

Now that I think about it, it might be a combo of things--scent and fur issues. Otherwise, any durable oil would do (castor doesn't decay easily either for some peculiar reasons).

Fun fact: Castor appears in almost every one of my soap recipes (with the exception of the ones where price sensitivity is very high) at low percentages due to its ability to sustain lather with only small amounts in the mix. By itself, it makes a horrible soap with almost no lather and no ability to cleanse.

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