[Closed] Hypothetical Cat Question...

I want a more permanent deterrent.

Owning a cat is antisocial and irresponsible. Buy a rabbit instead.

Helios vid is awesome! That guy is my new hero!!!

Nice work 😉

Owning a cat is antisocial and irresponsible. Buy a rabbit instead.

My cat agrees.

..and here endeth the thread.

Prevention is perhaps better than cure here.

I'll bring my Rapid 17 down there to dismantle your goldcrests and bullfinches. Then the local cats won't be tempted.

Hmmm.

I deliberately keep my cats in the house around dusk and dawn - the times when next door's bird feeders are at their most densely populated.

The local pair of Sparrowhawks were delighted at being provided with a veritable smorgasboard of tasty treats with no pesky cat getting in the way.....

Bird mortality increased by about 500% 🙁

To be honest, I don't understand all this talk of cats crapping in gardens, I never find any from my two in my garden.

I'm looking into the possibility of building a contraption like in that video, but with my HW100 rifle lieu of a hosepipe...

The odd collar dove is a small price to pay. 😉

[img] [/img]

mrjmt - Member
To be honest, I don't understand all this talk of cats crapping in gardens, I never find any from my two in my garden.

That's because they're in your neighbours gardens. If there is one thing I would give a cat credit for it would be that they adhere to the old adage "Never shit on your own door-step".

To be honest, I don't understand all this talk of cats crapping in gardens, I never find any from my two in my garden.

That's because they normally bury it. You'll only find it if you go digging in the flowerbeds. If there is crap unburied, on the lawn for example, then there's a very good chance it's from foxes.

Chilli/Lemon juice is unnecessary, just water will do the trick fine. Quick blast from a water pistol or the hose will be fine, you don't need to completely soak them

As its Friday..

I have a set of cats and the requisite door for them to enter and exit at their pleasure. A local family took on a un-neutered male cat and it became accustomed to entering our house, eating the cat food and repaying the favour by spraying its FOUL micturate around my kitchen. This was REALLY annoying me. 2 years ago it was snowy so to avoid a snow/carpet interface I went round the back to go in, and their sitting on my table was the offending creature.

game on.

I am generally pro animal so wished to dissuade but not permanently harm the beast. I was already equipped with gloves, thick coat etc so I entered and pulled a box against the cat flap. I cornered the fiend after much hissing, once captured by the scruff it resisted and became somewhat resigned to its fate. I dunked it in the sink and poured lime squash (roses) all over its head, shouted an obscenity at it and let it know who was in charge round here. Opened the door and flung the feline assailant into a snow drift.

Job done I thought.

Came home the next day, it was on the sink drainer licking the washing up.

It either didn't care or had a very short memory. Solved by buying a chip activated cat flap and the cat getting run over.

I wish our cat would crap in next doors garden instead of either ours or the litter tray in the house, that would stop our dog from eating the aforementioned cat crap! 🙄

pictonroad - Member

Chilli/Lemon juice is unnecessary, just water will do the trick fine. Quick blast from a water pistol or the hose will be fine, you don't need to completely soak them

As its Friday..

I am generally pro animal so wished to dissuade but not permanently harm the beast. I was already equipped with gloves, thick coat etc so I entered and pulled a box against the cat flap. I cornered the fiend after much hissing, once captured by the scruff it resisted and became somewhat resigned to its fate. I dunked it in the sink and poured lime squash (roses) all over its head, shouted an obscenity at it and let it know who was in charge round here. Opened the door and flung the feline assailant into a snow drift.

Now that's one dark scene conjured up right there. *shudder*

If you want to encourage wildbirds, why not plant lots of hedges in your garden?

Solved by buying a chip activated cat flap and the cat 'getting run over'.

FTFY 😆

And I'm being lambasted for popping a nice little lead pellet in its brain for a quick, pain free lights-out. 🙄

I opened the back door this morning to find a back yard strewn with feathers, and a happy looking cat. Wasn't one of yours was it?

If there is crap unburied, on the lawn for example, then there's a very good chance it's from foxes.

Alas lethal action is frowned upon, so I use an infrared spinkler which I find very effective. Just type "cat sprinkler" into ebay or amazon

bigyinn - Member

If you want to encourage wildbirds, why not plant lots of hedges in your garden?

My "garden" is an acre of woodland. It has lots of hedges, undergrowth, overgrowth, coppicing etc. As I said, it's taken a lot of investment to create the best habitat for birds and it's paying dividends.

Nuthatches and treecreepers are a common sight, great spotted woodpeckers, all manner of tits and finches, goldcrests, and even kingfishers and dippers in the stream. Even had some waxwings last week. 🙂

You have an acre of land and all you can do is cry about a few cats?

Boo Hoo You.

I'm not crying Johndoh, just forearming myself with all the necessary information before the local moggies start to die from lead poisoning. 😉

You attitude I do not understand - you love wildlife, you encourage it to come but you hate cats.

What happens when the birds you encourage start eating worms and bugs and cats?

I think you should either stop encouraging wildlife or understand the concept of 'circle of life'. Disney did a good educational film about it that you might want to watch.

You attitude I do not understand - you love wildlife, you encourage it to come but you hate cats.

What happens when the birds you encourage start eating worms and bugs and cats?

I don't understand your inability to understand that cats are effectively an apex predator (apart from me of course) that is introduced into an environment where it isn't wanted, by irresponsible owners who adopt an latch-key mentality to animal ownership.

Not only do I encourage birds directly (by using nesting/roosting boxes and carefully selected planting and coppicing) but I've created habitats for everything from microbes up to deer.

I'm more than happy for mother nature and her "circle of life" to crack on and take care of the earwigs, moths, bats, owls... Even sparrowhawks and foxes, as they're part of the natural food chain. But I'm not happy about some middle-aged divorced woman letting her cute little predator free all day to decimate my woodland, just because she can't be arsed looking after it.

Cats don't kill for food - why would they when they're spoon-fed prime cuts of meat and fish by their bed-wetting owners?? They kill indiscriminately because they have an unquenchable instinct to kill.

But you have introduced the environment...

No I haven't, it's a section of ancient woodland that was recorded in the Doomsday book. It's a site of special scientific interest.

All I've done is to restore the part that I'm lucky enough to own and reinstate some of the habitat that had been lost to development.

Mother nature takes care of the rest, and she's done a good job of refining this over the millennia. For some pillock to let an apex predator roam free is utterly stupid and irresponsible.

Move somewhere with no neighbours then. Serves you right for having a house next door to your Utopia.

I'd be interested in cat deterrent techniques too.
It's a different situation: a small garden that I'd like to let kids play in, and a pregnant wife so there's concerns about toxoplasmosis.
Unfortunately, neighbours' cats seem to think it's a good place to crap. They need to be persuaded otherwise, prefferably with minimum harm.
Does pepper, chillies, lemon/lime or anything else work?
Can't get a dog at the moment 🙁

Will you be killing all the neighbours too, so you can turn their houses and gardens back into natural habitat?

Also the foxes whose numbers are increased by food scavenged from human habitation?

Also presumably the rabbits that were introduced by the Romans, and the grey squirrels introduced much more recently. Also, you'll want to be careful with your deer habitat since Muntjak, Fallow, Sika, and (obviously) Chinese Water deer are all only here because of humans. As are pheasant and several species of partridge. Also most types of mouse and rat. As for plants and insects...

As I said earlier, if you were actually interested in real, genuine conservation you would understand that we are the most dangerous part of the equation, and that educating people and getting them onside with conservation is by far the most important thing. That relies on showing people what they can gain from conservation, not on shooting their cats (although I'm sure you're not serious about that anyway).

johndoh - Member
Move somewhere with no neighbours then. Serves you right for having a house next door to your Utopia.

Are you for real?

Does pepper, chillies, lemon/lime or anything else work?

Orange peel scattered about should dissuade them. If that doesn't work, a friend of mine had good results with (seriously) lion dung. You can buy it on the Internet, it seems.

Are you for real?

Can't get a dog at the moment

A dog would just replace cat crap with dog crap, which just replaces one set of unpleasant diseases with another.

Spraying a cat once probably won't do much, but if you do it regularly it should discourage it. The RSPB recommend and sell ultrasonic cat scarers:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/catdeterrent.aspx

And have other advice on cat deterrents:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/catdeterrents.aspx

Some apex killers, streamed live.

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/398160/events/1594566/player_pop_up

Also presumably the rabbits that were introduced by the Romans, and the grey squirrels introduced much more recently. Also, you'll want to be careful with your deer habitat since Muntjak, Fallow, Sika, and (obviously) Chinese Water deer are all only here because of humans. As are pheasant and several species of partridge. Also most types of mouse and rat. As for plants and insects...

I've shot half a dozen grey squirrels in the last fortnight. The only deer in my wood are native Roe. The only invasive plant species that causes any problem is Himalayan Water Balsam which I systematically cut back several times a year.

Introduced species are only a problem when they cause a detrimental impact on the eco-system. The effect of things like pheasants is minimal, I'm not concerned about them at all.

As real as someone wanting to kill animals for having the audacity to behave like one.

Audacity? Really??? 🙄

just because she can't be arsed looking after it.

And there lies the root cause of the issue.

Introduced species are only a problem when they cause a detrimental impact on the eco-system.

Cool, you probably don't need to worry too much about the cats then:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx

johndoh - Member

Are you for real?

As real as someone wanting to kill animals for having the audacity to behave like one

I imagine you would consider using a shotgun pretty audacious in that case...Or is that justified under "the circle of life" point?

I suspect he's heard the word "audacious", like the way it sounds, and has been waiting for an opportunity to use it.

He should have looked it up first. 🙄

Audacity? Really???

"Audacity? Really??? "

Sorry I've got no beef with either side here ...

But Yes.

Have you been wound up by posters on here?

Because ... really... honestly... (and I dont even like cats much) killing someones pet is not on.

I was joking earlier when I thanked you guys for some decent entertainment... but this has now gone beyond a joke.

Srep away from your computers and your rage and think about it... FFS

The willingness to take bold risks: "her audacity came in handy during our most recent emergency".
Rude or disrespectful behavior; impudence: "she had the audacity to pick up the receiver and ask me to hang up".

Or 'The cat had the audacity to come into my garden and kill a bird'.

Shibboleth - Member
For some pillock to let an apex predator roam free is utterly stupid and irresponsible.

Just rather a poor choice of word. It's hardly an audacious act!

Solved by buying a chip activated cat flap and the cat 'getting run over'.

FTFY

It continued.

After I installed the chip activated flap the wretched smelling moggy was unable to enter the house at will. We're fresh air people though and it seems I left the back door unguarded for too long on one occassion. I came home from work, picked my bags up that I'd left by the door for a quick exit and headed on the motorway for a weekend drinking in Birmingham. About Oxford I chanced upon a whiff of tomcat, said whiff became a STENCH.

The $%**£*$% thing had peed on my bag that I had then put on the back seat of the car... I knew that I couldn't mess around with this stuff, it's weapons grade foulness. I pulled into a services, found one of the car wash places, pound in the jetwash, opened both back doors and jetwashed the seat in situ spraying the tainted water out the door (leased BMW...) bag in the bin, fortunately the bag was lined, back on the heaters on fierce....

Left the car locked on my mates drive, heaters & air con on for most of the night and it dried pretty well.

A few days later 2 little girls knock on the door.

"Have you seen this cat?"

Cue, unnecessary and borderline creepy diatribe from yours truly reference said cat's activities and their influence on my otherwise cat-pee free existence.

They left sharpish and I felt like an awkward weirdo for a bit...

A week or so later I answered the door to them again;

"you'll be pleased to know our cat is dead Mr"

I wasn't 'pleased' as such...

Generally it's quiet round my way, except the time the odd bloke kept throwing sh1t at my car and I had to have words.

oh, the OP - don't shoot the cats, it's a bit unsporting, it's a touch hypocritical if you analyse it.

OP... How about having a quiet word with all your neighbours telling them your concerns... and asking them if they have a cat and any chance you could put a bell on the cat's choler please ???

oh, the OP - don't shoot the cats, it's a bit unsporting, it's a touch hypocritical if you analyse it.

Fair enough, I wouldn't want to be considered unsporting... After all, I'm the type of man that only uses dry fly for trout.

So, I'll catch the little f****rs on my fly rod.

Anyone know how to tie an imitation gold crest on a size 2 treble hook?

OP... How about having a quiet word with all your neighbours telling them your concerns... and asking them if they have a cat and any chance you could put a bell on the cat's choler please ???

I don't know where the cats are coming from... I could always trap them, shave them, and then write your diplomatic message on their flank in permanent marker... 😉

So johndoh, where do you stand on mousetraps, rat traps, fly spray etc?

It's hardly an audacious act!

Its Friday troll time clearly.

So johndoh, where do you stand on mousetraps, rat traps, fly spray etc?

It is a cat doing what cats do - killing things - it isn't doing it to spite you.

Have you ever found yourself in an empty room, arguing with yourself John??

At no point did it ever cross my mind that the cats are "picking on me" by killing birds in my garden. It's the fault of the irresponsible owners who turn them out all day to kill with wanton abandon.

I know my comment about the marker pen was facetious, but I'm really beginning to warm to the idea. Something along the lines of "Keep this cat under control. Next time it gets the bullet".

If it was in my 1 acre garden I think I'd be happy for them to roam free.

Wow, do you have a 1 acre garden too?? Who'd have thunk I could have so much in common with such a buffoon!

I reckon you should work at keeping the birds away.

They'll all find suitable habitats elsewhere where there may be less cats about.

Maybe put some signs up to warn them?

[img] [/img]

Orange peel scattered about should dissuade them. If that doesn't work, a friend of mine had good results with (seriously) lion dung. You can buy it on the Internet, it seems.

cheers cougar. will try the peel trick.
Although I'm quite taken with the idea of a dung arms race, can't really gamble on the lion dung with the wife. Despite being a cat owner for 20 years, she's just developed a big cat allergy with pregnancy, and that includes big cats (and hyenas too).

Who'd have thunk I could have so much in common with such a buffoon!

Sometimes, they just write themselves, don't they.

she's just developed a big cat allergy with pregnancy, and that includes the big cats

How the gods did you find that out? Most people's allergy to lions is a brief manifestation of copious bleeding followed by death.

Cougar, I'd be careful with a name like that... I'm non-discriminatory when it comes to species of feline...

Unless you're the attractive older woman type of Cougar, in which case you'll need sticks after experiencing my wood 😉

Two out of three.

Cougar - Member
Two out of three.

Didn't know you were an old woman.

😉

Wouldn't be the first time I've been called one, to be fair.

Just being downwind from them at the zoo brought on the streaming eyes, coughing and breathing probs for about twelve hours. Exactly the same symptons as brought on by her sister's kitten. Doc reckons it's fairly common and there's a good chance she'll be ok after popping the sprog 🙂

Didn't know you were an old woman.

Beat me to it! 😀

But I'm not happy about some middle-aged divorced woman letting her cute little predator free all day to [b]decimate my woodland[/b]

Seriously ?

A few cats are [i]actually[/i] decimating a whole Acre of woodland.

(I think you may be over doing things a bit there to try and make a point ?)

But I'm not happy about some [b]middle-aged divorced woman[/b] letting her cute little predator free all day to decimate my woodland

Would it be better if she was younger or older? Single or married? Male?

If you know exactly whose cat it is, have you trying TALKING to her? Asking her to put bells on the cat's collar, or to cat-proof her garden (so it can still go outside but its limited to its own territory)?

"cat-proof her garden"

you dont have a cat, do you?

What tipped you off?

Would it be better if she was younger or older? Single or married? Male?

It was a sweeping generalisation based on my prejudicial and ignorant assumption that the majority of cats are owned by sad, lonely middle-aged divorced women who need the company of a dumb animal to warm their feet whilst they read 50 Shades of Bollox. They then turf them out of their miniscule maisonettes every morning before driving their Ford Ka to their primary school teaching jobs. Fact.

"cat-proof her garden"

you dont have a cat, do you?

Nope, I have a colleague who has a nice Maine Coon called Mr Fiji though. Mr Fiji and his family were particularly proficient at bringing in prey, so his owner made adjustments to his garden to limit his range. The high fencing tilts inwards towards the top, and as of yet, Mr Fiji has not managed to escape his prison.

Mr Fiji might just be a bit dim though.

It was a sweeping generalisation based on my prejudicial and ignorant assumption that the majority of cats are owned by sad, lonely middle-aged divorced women who need the company of a dumb animal to warm their feet whilst they read 50 Shades of Bollox. They then turf them out of their miniscule maisonettes every morning before driving their Ford Ka to their primary school teaching jobs. Fact.

Fair enough! 😆

We can hardly expect the Bridgette Joneses to modify their fences if they can't even be arsed to keep an eye on where their boyfriend substitutes are during the day...
They're too busy sobbing into their Chablis and filling in their menopause countdown diaries....

Long term cat owner here.

Sad? Not especially.
Lonely? Nope, not remotely.
Middle aged? Yup, got me there.
Divorced? Nope, happily married.
Woman? No, hairy-arsed bloke.

One out of five - well done 😉

Our two moggies (Maine Coon crosses) are ace, they never kill anything because they are, frankly, not bright enough. No idea where they cr*p, it's not in my garden though so don't worry too much about it 😀

But I'm not happy about some middle-aged divorced woman letting her cute little predator free all day to decimate my woodland

Divorced woman + cat = frustrated lady. Go round and deliver some well timed innuendos about her pussy. It wont stop the cats killing birds but wil take your mind off things for a bit.

For the love of god, what happened to this thread!?

W...T...F???

Shib, seriously - what is going on here?

I leave my computer alone for a few hours and come back to this insantity. Are you SERIOUSLY still considering killing tiddles?

Straight facts: You like nature & go to some lengths to encourage it. Key to this though is you are messing with the natural balance as we are in 2012, well intended and no doubt prductive, but you're messing nevertheless...and if you want to strip back the definition of messing with nature, you live in a house, that's disruptive for the trees & habitat that was once there, no?

Cats are nature in the hands of humans, therefore they've got a bit of a disadvantage already, but they are animals FFS. Go and row with the neighbour to the point that is is productive, protect your own little garden/Forest of Dean and as I mentioned earlier, MTFU.

It's a cat. Water, sprinkler etcs. Get some balance on what you can do to help and what you can't manage.

Or really mess with nature and get a gun and shoot somehing, after all that's proved to be nothing but effective at resolving issues.

If I caught anyone harming my cat, anyone else's cat or any other animal I would make sure they had broken bones when we parted company.

Humane trap and return feline to neighbour warn that it will be handed in to RSPCA After the next return.

Of course, the best way to stop other people's cats coming into your garden is to get your own cat....