There are several places in the garden where a neighbour's cat (or cats) has pooped. It stinks to high heck and in one place has killed one of my native plants. It/they poop in the sandiest and plain dirt"iest" of spots in the garden leaving the "improved soil and garden beds" alone, for the most part. Sand was brought in by a neighbour several years ago. My garden is not a toilet for cats!
Does anyone have any suggestions to help prevent cats from pooping in my garden?
Cat-traps and then cat-drives
Peter
Is a cat-drive what I call a cat run, Peter?
Have been told sprinkle pepper where they are active.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Rob.
Wildlife lovers will be delighted to learn that our local paper, the Mt Barker Courier, has embarked on increasing public awareness of the horrific risks to wildlife presented by cats. As reported by the Courier a retired doctor & his wife in Stirling have trapped 55 cats in their backyard in the past three years & local councils have grunted in their sleep that something needs to be done.
Hopefully, this issue will be ongoing & make a good contribution to a cat-free, wildlife friendly Australia rather than become another fleeting, ephemeral effort.
That is a champion effort, would like to know some of his methods. Lets hope the council does't turn on him and make hime the bad guy.
Woko,
Does the paper talk about cats go on heat from 6 months of age; and some breeds start at 4 months, others at 9 months of age. The "on heat" cycle last for 7 to 10 days and can happen twice a month. Domestic cats often live somewhere beteeen 15 to 18 years, feral cats life span is much shorter somewhere around 5 to 7 years. However if feral cats find themselves in a colonie supported by volunteers who feed them, ages of up 17 years old have been known. Furthermore cat's don't experiance manopause so can produce off spring their whole life. It's debatable, but cats kill on average from 3 to 7 times a week, and can be several times a day; for fun or food seems irrilivant.
Man I would like to know the doctors system, perhaps it's just persistance and commitement. An average of 1.5 trapped cats per month is not bad. Just imagine if several people in the neighbourhood were doing it. But like I said council may find it easier to snuff out the shinning star than make cat owner be responsible. Keep us posted woko on any further developements.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
Jason, he uses a cat trap baited with tinned fish. Once the cats are trapped he & his wife take them to the RSPCA at Lonsdale which is about 50 minutes drive from Stirling. Only two of the fifty five cats trapped were "suitable" for placing in homes. I don't know if the RSPCA makes it a condition of releasing a cat to a home that the home owners keep the cat in a cat run. If it doesn't it should, in my opinion.
The Courier articles (plural) didn't go into the sort of detail you've mentioned. Perhaps that detail will be provided if the paper conducts an ongoing campaign to develop a wildlife friendly community.
Thanks for all the comments, guys, but a cat trap is not a viable option for me.
Jason, do you know if pepper causes any side effects on insect/bug/worm/spider and bird populations? Is it poisonous to them?
I need to take into consideration the health of the lifeforms in the soil, especially after recently discovering a pair of metallic coloured earth worms in my garden.
I've thought about planting lots of cacti in the garden until I can fill up those spaces with native plants. That'd stop cats from using my garden as a toilet.
Does anyone else have any other suggestions?
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
No Shirley sorry I don't. What about shade cloth. My kids have a sand pit with the cloth covering it and we have never found cat poo in there.
Ipswich Shire Eastern flanks
I would think so
Peter
Thanks.
We had neighbour's cats crapping in our front garden beds constantly (when we lived in Melbourne), so I shallow buried some of our dog crap where the cats were crapping and in a few other spots, and they never crapped in our garden again.
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Hmm, thanks for that tip, Ray. I don't have a dog though but I'm sure I can easily find dog poop around the place somewhere.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
A good way to keep citters out of your garden is to bury plastic forks with the tines sticking up out of the ground.
Keep those cat eradication ideas coming, folks, because the cats will surely keep coming until we have a native wildlife friendly culture.
hi Shirley this is also a problem for me in my garden 2 monster cats have moved in across the way and are attacking the birds and trying to hunt them down in my native dense bushes I am using "Scedaddle" from Bunnins and also lemon peel or orange peel also vinegar mix spray it is very saddening to see and know this is happening and cat owners are very irresponsible can only hope it is helping the birds a bit keeping them semi safe :(
How effective have your various methods been, lilbirdy?
We used to have problems with neibourhood cats using our garden as a litter box; We planted some lavender and didn't have anymore problems, but I've also heard of planting lemon thyme to keep the cats away.