G***amn Cats!

[DrunkMonkey 0]

How do I get the cats in the neighborhood to quit shitting and pissing in my yard? Apparently my yard is the new Litter Box for all the Fucking cats in the neighborhood. So far I've tried moth balls, lemon scent and cayenne pepper and they still shit and piss. I called animal control and they said they'd give me a cat trap, but there is a 3 week waiting period. I guess I'm not the only one with this problem. Any suggestions?

[cindee 0]

Try a couple of pit bulls.

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"If happy little bluebirds fly above the rainbow, why oh why can't I?"

[DrunkMonkey 0]

So far I'm considering a .22 Rifle or a couple of anti-personnel landmines...

[jose 0]

Yeah.


Pellet gun.
Potato gun.
Paintball gun.

Basically any projectile firing device that wont make a lot of noise. If noise isnt a problem.......12 guage.

[kai2k1 0]

Rat Traps and 9 lives cat food?

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan

[Michele 1]

If you're serious about the feral/stray population in your neighborhood, I will be happy to refer you to a TNR group. PM me with your city and state, and I'll see who I can locate for you.

What's TNR?

Trap/Neuter/Release...they are able to handle cat issues like you have described, inasmuch as they humanely (important) trap, neuter, and either release the cat back to the original area or relocate the entire colony depending upon size and local laws and regulations.

Cats will eliminate in areas they have declared theirs, and some of the smell you experience may in fact not be urine or feces, but instead a tom spraying. That is absolutely stinky, but it lets females know there's a tom in the area. Neutering will prevent the spraying, and handle probably 1/2 of the problem right there.

There are several things you can do other than TNR.

~Cats will use a place they've used as a potty before. Clean everything very thoroughly; use high pressured water if possible. On items that will not be harmed by it's use (vegetation doesn't do well with vinegar), wash with vinegar and water together (this also helps with ants).

~Spray bitter apple scent on the edges of your property. Also use the citrus scented spray as well - and use both liberally (both can be found at a reputable pet store). No spot treatment for your yard...be generous. Mothballs won't help, nor will cayenne pepper. Unless you want to deal with dead cats, which are absolutely nasty, do NOT use rat poison. Dcon is a nasty, nasty death, and tastes like peanut butter (or so I've been told, I've never actually eaten it.), and other animals (like the neighbor's dog) or children (the neighbor's kid) may get into it and eat it. They'll die...and like I said, it's a nasty, vicious, agonizingly painful death.

~Plant some grass and other landscape - they like dirt and sand to use. Eliminate as best you can any rodent attractors - mice, rats, squirrels are all food sources for the ferals, and they will come to eat (happens at my father's house on a regular basis). Be careful what additional landscaping you install - things like Ivy and Iceplant are wonderful natural warrens for rodents.

Lastly, make sure there are no food or water sources open for them to access. They will almost always inhabit a place that has food and water (outside dog dishes, for example, attract both cats and rodents...).

Hope this helps, but like I said, TNR is the best solution.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[brits17 0]

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How do I get the cats who were at one point kittens in the neighborhood to quit shitting and pissing in my yard?

Kill em! ...sorry couldn't resist.

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aerialkinetics.com

[MC208B 0]

.22???

[soilman 0]

The only solution I know of that works is to fence the area where you don't want them, and make sure they can't get over or under the fence: trim or fell any trees or bushes near the fence that they could use to get themselves across the fence, and top off the fence with a polypropylene mesh strip a few inches wide, and perpendicular to the plane of the fence or off at an angle (having about 3/4 inch squares made by the fibers), that would tangle up their feet if they tried to negotiate it, or something smooth and slippery like plastic plumbing tubing, that they would slip on if they tried to negotiate it. You can buy specialty cat-prevention fence toppers but homemade solutions should be cheaper. Seal up any holes under the fence they could squeeze thru.

Cats used to find my newly tilled soil irresistable as a "litter box" . Same for my piles of finished compost. I really hated putting my hand into the soil and coming up with cat feces. Nor did I like it near my root plants or any plants for that matter. Plus cat feces, as is all feces from carnivorous or omnivorous animals, is not suitable for use as plant food -- too many disease-carrying micro-organims and too high in heavy metals. Had to fence in my whole garden and be really meticulous about finding those spots where branches overhung the fence or they could get under.

You could buy your own trap, including live traps, and trap cats, but I think this would be a never-ending job. More cats would come. Same for shooting them. And shooting them would mean maintaining a vigil all night. Nor would I leave out poisoned carcasses because carnivorous wildlife might be killed.

The problem with cats is that there are too many of them. Their population is are out of proportion to a natural food supply. Normally carnivorous animals generally only have a population that is a tiny fraction of the population of animals they prey on. But with cats, people keep re-introducing more of them each time they lose or abandon domestic cats. Also, the problem is not just feral cats, but cat-owners who let their cats roam.

Second to having everyone voluntarily give up animal husbandry, which would be the idea solution, a second-best solution might be to better control cat owndership. Demand that cats be registered, and tagged with their owner's name and address and phone number. If you trap a wandering domestic cat in your yard, better at keeping out more cats, than killing it, would be to be able to take pictures showing where you found it, and then be able to sue the owner for the cost of hiriing someone to trap it, and for cleaning up all the feces it left, and the plants it dug out, and for keeping you up at night.

My feeling if that cats were not constantly re-introduced into the feral population by cat owners, that the feral population would either naturally become very small and not a big problem, or it could be made that way permanently with a few management techniques such as killing, or neutering and reintroducing. Neutering and re-introducing is, in my estimate, useless, if people are going to constantly abandon more domestic cats. Eat all the Doritos you want -- we'll make more. Neuter all the feral cats you want -- people will supply more.

Now y'all know part of what my signature is about.

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Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

[soilman 0]

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Neutering will prevent the spraying, and handle probably 1/2 of the problem right there.

Not if people re-introduce cats faster than other people neuter them. Besides, I don't want to solve the whole cat problem, i just want to keep cats out of my yard. neutering just the cats I found in my yard is like adding a drop of water to the ocean.

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Spray bitter apple scent on the edges of your property. Also use the citrus scented spray as well - and use both liberally

A fence as I describe above would be cheaper and more effective.

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Clean everything very thoroughly;

this is also -- not practical. In my yard, it would mean removing the whole layer of soft topsoil, over a 2000 sq foot area. In other words -- that would mean removing all the garden soil I meticulously cultivated and maintained and improved, over 8 years. Or tamping it down and making it too hard for food-plants to grow in it.

Cat owners are some of the most inconsiderate people around. Not all of them, but a sizable number of them. If we had only a few cat owners it wouldn't be a problem. But by supporting cats in numbers way out of proportion to the numbers that the environment would naturally support, people damage the environment, kill endangered wildlife, and make problems for their neighbors. Cats are some of the smelliest creatures around. If we can't stop the cultural phenomenum of lots of people owning cats, or can't expect people to voluntarily keep their cats out of other people's gardens, then we have to register cats, license cat owners, and fine them and sue them every time an identifiable cat causes a problem. Assure them that abandon an unidentifiable cats we will either euthanize it or try to find the owner and sue it.

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Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

[Michele 1]

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Not if people re-introduce cats faster than other people neuter them. Besides, I don't want to solve the whole cat problem, i just want to keep cats out of my yard. neutering just the cats I found in my yard is like adding a drop of water to the ocean.

Really? Consider this.

A cat can have 3 litters of kittens, sometimes as many as 7 per litter, in a year. That's 21 new additional cats which did NOT have to be born should someone bother to speuter. 21 cats in your yard, in ONE year. Do the math. Exponentially, the numbers become staggaring. Thankfully, most feral cats do not have 7 babies per litter (although I recently placed a 7-kit litter). They have 2, 3, or 4...but still...that's a whole lot of cats in any given time frame that will, unless fixed, continue to breed and have litter after litter.

Also consider this...if you speuter, you will only have the original few who live there (and again, there are relocation folks available to move the colony). And the spraying problem will be gone, and no additional cats will come to the scent to breed.

You may only be concerned for your yard...but I look at a larger picture.

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Spray bitter apple scent on the edges of your property. Also use the citrus scented spray as well - and use both liberally

A fence as I describe above would be cheaper and more effective.

The sprays I have described are far more inexpensive than building a fence...and more effective. I've done it, I've seen it work...and I've seen cats climb pretty much anything they choose. That's what they do. Further, if you cannot get onto your neighbor's property to remove their trees - and in most areas you cannot do that without the permission of the owner - the cats will climb and drop over. Fences are not really effective with cats...

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this is also -- not practical. In my yard, it would mean removing the whole layer of soft topsoil, over a 2000 sq foot area. In other words -- that would mean removing all the garden soil I meticulously cultivated and maintained and improved, over 8 years. Or tamping it down and making it too hard for food-plants to grow in it.

Not really. A solid watering will weaken the scents...and done repeatedly, will remove the scents almost completely. Combined that with the sprays, and you've neatly handled the issues.

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Cat owners are some of the most inconsiderate people around. Not all of them, but a sizable number of them.

You and I agree on that - most owners don't speuter, and will turn a cat out of the home for easily corrected behaviors. Each of my cats have come from "the great outdoors", all have been speutered, and all remain inside with me.

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If we had only a few cat owners it wouldn't be a problem. But by supporting cats in numbers way out of proportion to the numbers that the environment would naturally support, people damage the environment, kill endangered wildlife, and make problems for their neighbors.

Well, I can't agree here. If one would only speuter their pets, within a few years, the 100 million homeless pets would dwindle.

Why would you limit those who could own cats, and not, say, dogs, hamsters, rabbits, birds, horses, and so forth? The movement to not adopt out from shelters/foster homes without speutering is something to be involved with...precaution and prevention is the answer.

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Cats are some of the smelliest creatures around.

Nope...not mine, not those who are cared for, and not really even in the "wilds" of the local neighborhood. Unless they are diseased, they usually don't smell. If you are referring to the feces and urine smells, you think that you don't emit a smell when you eliminate? The difference is that your waste goes into water, and is flushed away. Cats don't have that option. Take a good whiff at your local outhouse...you'll see what I mean.

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If we can't stop the cultural phenomenum of lots of people owning cats, or can't expect people to voluntarily keep their cats out of other people's gardens, then we have to register cats, license cat owners, and fine them and sue them every time an identifiable cat causes a problem. Assure them that abandon an unidentifiable cats we will either euthanize it or try to find the owner and sue it.

We are not going to stop owning cats. Ancient Egyptians worshipped them (and cats have never forgotten it...LOL), and it's been with us for many, many centuries. They have a value in society, both as pets and working animals. They aren't going anywhere...but we can control the population. Speuter! Not euthanize.

As to the regulations, there are regulations in every city I know of that limits the number of animals you can own. There are licensing requirements, vaccination controls, and like I said, there is now a generally held rule of thumb to speuter the animal before they go home.

As for keeping them out of your yard, take those steps as outlined above, and you will greatly reduce the number of cats you find there...if not eliminate them totally. Additionally, support your local TNR group; they are the ones who, like me, trap and neuter the animal, thus working on a solution that does not involve mandatory euthanasia (unless they are very ill, and cannot be released), and eventually will curb the problem in your area.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[mattjw916 2]

I really don't see the big deal with a couple of stray cats around... they keep the insect and mouse population in check and they don't bark all night at nothing. If they are caterwauling and making a lot of noise, use the hose to spray 'em down...

If I saw someone trying to shoot a cat with a .22 I would put a round of .223 tracer over their head and see how they liked someone taking "pot-shots" at them...

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

[catfishhunter 2]

~~~~~Sounds like this has become Speakers Corner Thread~~~~

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

[soilman 0]

Michele, you don't have to get onto your neigbor's property to remove any limbs that hang over into your yard, and in most places you don't need to get their permission to do this. The sprays you mentioned will have to be repeated if it rains or you water, and repeated every so often, no matter what.

A watering to weaken cat spray scents in the soil, will also drive nutrients in the soil, including most nutrients you have intentionally added, down and away from the plants you are trying to grow in the soil, exactly the same way it drive the cat scents down. It is not an option if you are trying to grow food plants. Garden plants, esp food plants, need to be watered not too little, and not too much. Too much water does more harm than good. If it drives out the cat scents, it drives out the nutrient. Too much water also adversely affects the tilth of the soil, compacting it, and affects root absorption; if you add new nutrients after your over-water, they won't reach the plants roots properly.

Cat feces and contain a concentration of heavy metals as well as harmful micro-organisms -- that plant-fed animals don't have in their feces in as strong a concentration. Not that composting plants in a bin is not better than composting it in an animals digestive system. The heavy metals are absorbed by food plants, thru their roots.

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Why would you limit those who could own cats, and not, say, dogs, hamsters, rabbits, birds, horses, and so forth?

Dogs are already registered where I live, as they should be. They are required to have id on them at all times, so that if they cause damage, their owners can be identified. So should cats. I would want to limit rabbits, birds, horses, etc, in urban and suburban areas, as well as cats.

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The difference is that your waste goes into water, and is flushed away. Cats don't have that option

Exactly. That's the problem. We go thru all this trouble to get our feces and urine safely out of our way, but we let dogs and cats dump all over the place. It shouldn't be allowed. Plus the amount of feces produces by the number of animals that live in some housholds, is more than the humans produce. We are already suffering from inadequte direction of our human waste. Adding cats and dogs to this only makes the problem worse.

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Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

[soilman 0]

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I really don't see the big deal with a couple of stray cats around...

It wouldn't be a big deal, if there were 5 or 10 stray cats for every 200 people. But in my neighborhood, it seems like there are 5 or 6 stray cats for every 10 people, and 3 or 4 domestic cats per person -- about 1/2 of which their owners let roam around unleased or unfenced in.

It is bad enough that we wreck our environment by putting in more people and septic tanks than the environment can support -- but we are humans -- we have to have a place to live. We don't have to raise and keep so many unproductive animals in addition. I would think that rabbits should outnumber the cats maybe a thousandfold. Prey animals should always hugely outnumber the animals that prey on them. But it seems like in my neighborhood there are 100 cat for every rabbit. Plus the rabbits -- whose feces does not wreck a vegetable garden the way cat feces does -- should not live in constant fear of cats as well as humans -- while cats walk around fearlessly. It is terribly out of balance. It seems to me that all the cute little bunny rabbits have been driven into hiding by monsterous numbers of monsterous dogs and cats. I'd like to see some bunny rabbits. But I never do. And I think its mostly dogs and cats that keep them away, not humans. Few people here hunt them.

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they keep the insect and mouse population in check

I think they attract insects, not keep them in check. They kill more endangered song birds than mice. Not that mice are a problem in my area. There are no house-mice. Field mice are few and far between and are I have no problem with them even if there were more of them. The occaisional field mouse that sneaks into a house can be be easily trapped and euthanized. tho I suppose yo are going to tell me its mean of me to kill a mouse, but it's perfectly nice of the cat if a cat kills a mouse. In any case, where I live, the problem with mice is miniscule, the problem with cats is big. And the problem with mice isn't miniscule because of all the cats. It would be miniscule anyway. You don't leave doors open and food lying around and garbage all over -- and you don't have mice. But you do have feral cats, by the way, turning over (covered) garbage cans, removing the covers, and spreading garbage around. Mice can't remove the covers.

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Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

[PLFXpert 0]

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Michele, you don't have to get onto your neigbor's property to remove any limbs that hang over into your yard,

Actually she may want to--law states that if your neighbor's tree falls onto your property, it becomes your tree/your problem. Thus, any property damage it causes will come from your pocket, not your neighbor's.

But, wait, I think we're talking about cats...save the felines!

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[turtlespeed 226]

Cat nip, Nine lives, and a dangling mouse.

A shovel, a pick, a machete, a hammer and some bamboo

Dig holes with Shovela and Pick, Beat bamboo into holes with hammer, cut bamboo at very sharp angle - Voila - Bungi Sticks.

Bait with cat nip and 9 Lives.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun