Red LED predator light?

[CityGirlintheCountry]

The Meyer catalog has a flashing LED predator light that is supposed to come on at dusk and go off at dawn. It is supposed to scare coyotes, fox, racoons, skunks, etc. away from the coop. Has anyone ever seen something like this or used it?
I think it cost around $25 and was supposed to work for 2-3 years.

CG

 

[silkiechicken]

Never used it, don't really know how well it would work though... especially if you are in the city. Animals here aren't afraid of anything.

 

[panner123]

Save your money. A better way to keep predators away at night is to leave a radio playing. Those that I leave on 24/7 are on talk shows, they don't have to be loud. Those that I have on motion sensors are on loud music and they are on full blast. Coons hate rap, they are my most frequent night time preators.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Gotcha. I'll save the $25!

Thanks!

 

[patandchickens]

I have no idea at all whether it really works, but I have to say I am pretty suspicious:

A) You only see red eye reflections from a predator (or any other animal) IF you are almost exactly in line with a light that's shining at the animal -- headlights of your car, flashlight you're holding, porch light over your head. Unless animals commonly wander around shining headlights, flashlights, porchlights etc at each other, they themselves should seldom be in circumstances to see each others' eye reflections.

and B) as already pointed out, animals that hang out around human habitation see LOTS of funny lights already, I suspect only the paranoidest predators are going to be deterred. And even then not necessarily for long -- look at how quickly 'pest' birds become accustomed to all the bird-scaring devices people put in gardens, once the birds realize that Nothing New Happens.

Mind, this is just theory, but still, I would not be the first one on my block to shell out money for this particular gadget

Pat

 

[gritsar]

I think we discussed this once before in this category. Ideal has a similar product called a Nite Guard. I was all for it, until I read Ideal's faq page about it. It sounds plausible that it would work, but you'd need several of them. One on each side of your chicken coop/area. That could get quite expensive.

 

[foxtrapper]

I know of no reason to think something like this would work. A predator is not at all afraid of red flashing lights. You might scare a rabbit with this if it thought it was seeing a fox, but that would be about it. And I don't think it would scare a rabbit anyhow.

RadioShack sells red LED's for a few dollars for a pack of them. You could wire them up yourself for far cheaper.