keeping nieghbours cats out of my garden

[deggers316]

hello i have put down an anti cat product for a few months on the areas the cats use but seem now to ignore it as there using my garden again as a toilet is there any real detterent i can buy with out harming the cats

[Mograt]

As a former veternianry nurse this question was asked a lot. Orange peel, bottles of water, hosepipe (to imitate snakes) have all been tried. None of these worked on my cats. One of them actually ate the orange peel!

The one thing that will work is that the territory is already claimed by another cat. SO two alternatives - pretend a huge cat lives there by putting down lion dung or get a cat of your own.

I do believe that the lion dung is available in some areas. Try an internet search.

[missjef]

quite a few people have asked this and i remember someone said there was a type of plant that cats didnt like, i cant remember what it was though, you could try ask in a garden centre, or try searching on here for the question.
sorry its not much help.

[Catso]

The times this gets asked!

I recommend a water pistol (a good one) for immediate deterrence and an ultrasonic cat-scarer for back-ground deterrence.

[deggers316]

thanks for all your help

[e beswick]

orrage peel and plastic snakes and it works well

[wolf63]

sonic deterrants are seemingly good.

or you could lie in wait in the bushes and shoot it with a water pistol when it comes around.

My money is on the cats.

[CrazyWolfman]

As Mograt says, get some manure from a big cat and bung that on the garden. Your best bet for getting that is 'Zoo-Poo' which contains a mixture of nutrient rich poo and tiger / lion poo (which contains almost no nutrients as their digestive system is so efficient) - the best of both worlds.

Another thing which I once tried was a technique which I have also found to be good with moles (providing you have understanding neighbours who don't object to you owning a singing lawn). Get a musical birthday or Christmas card and take out the musical bit. Set off the mechanism, bung it in a tube and stick it all in the garden. It seems to work well on the cats but eventually I got so sick of hearing the garden singing 'Happy Birthday' that the plan was scrapped. Anyhoo, if perhaps you are somewhat more resilient to that kind of thing perhaps that would be worth a try. (Personally I would go with the zoo-poo, but perhaps I'm a bit biased, being a zookeeper myself). By the way, if ever you do use the music thing on moles be prepared to have to keep reburying them, the moles keep chucking them out of their holes for the first week or so.

As a final note, bear in mind that most of these cards will last for absolutely ages. If you've buried the things they just won't shut up soon enough.

[Catso]

Someone posted on one of the earlier versions of this Q that the zoo-poo attracted cats to his garden.

[kwicky]

Have you tried tiger poo. You can get it from your local zoo.

[CrazyWolfman]

Perhaps the zoo-poo only works for a short while. Some years back farmers used to use coloured tape, dipped in smelly chemicals to keep wolves away from their land. It worked for a bit as the wolves recognised the smell as that of rival pack's scent markings. However once they realised that there was no howling or scats to back it up they crossed it without hesitation.

Possibly the tiger who produced the feline component of the zoo-poo was in heat, so every tomcat with a desire for something rare and exotic came running.

[Rozeeboy]

I back the lion/tiger poo thing. Our cats were using the neighbours garden as a toilet and it was quite embarassing. We used a pelletted "big cat poo" from Colchester Zoo and it did the job. So much so that our cat now lives next door and uses our garden as the bog!!! ;-)