Is there a safe and natural way to keep cats from using my nice never walked
on garden beds as a litter box ? I have tried hot pepper flakes and ammonia
without success. This is becoming a large problem. Especially when your yard
begins to smell of cat urine and feces. It is a small yard in suburban Long
Island. Any help would be appreciated as I would like the cats to never be
in my yard ... Thanks in advance ...

In article , Jimmy Egan wrote:
Is there a safe and natural way to keep cats from using my nice never walked
on garden beds as a litter box ? I have tried hot pepper flakes and ammonia
without success. This is becoming a large problem. Especially when your yard
begins to smell of cat urine and feces. It is a small yard in suburban Long
Island. Any help would be appreciated as I would like the cats to never be
in my yard ... Thanks in advance ...

Victor #4 traps on eBay. Or a simple snare. Around here they would be eaten
by coyotes and I'm only about forty miles north of Long Island.

Victor #4 traps on eBay. Or a simple snare. Around here they would be eaten
by coyotes and I'm only about forty miles north of Long Island.

And this act would buy you a limo trip with a Police Officer chauffeur with the
addition of some very nice silver bracelets, in my town. If this is the choice
someone makes they need to make sure it's a legal choice, here it is theft of
personnel property.
Colleen
zone 5 CT

I can see that a snare might be considered with a dim view but
mousetraps in the bushes? please.

GrampysGurl wrote:

Victor #4 traps on eBay. Or a simple snare. Around here they would be eaten
by coyotes and I'm only about forty miles north of Long Island.


And this act would buy you a limo trip with a Police Officer chauffeur with the
addition of some very nice silver bracelets, in my town. If this is the choice
someone makes they need to make sure it's a legal choice, here it is theft of
personnel property.
Colleen
zone 5 CT

Victor #4 traps on eBay.

here it is theft of
personnel property.


Not at all - only if you keep the cat. You have a legal right to stop a
trespass.

Killing/eating/hurting etc. the cat will contravene various laws; taking them
to the SPCA will not.

On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 12:00:44 GMT, Robert Chambers
wrote:

I can see that a snare might be considered with a dim view but
mousetraps in the bushes? please.

GrampysGurl wrote:

Victor #4 traps on eBay.

These aren't mousetraps. They are leg hold traps designed for animals
much larger than a cat. They would likely kill or severely injure a
cat.

deg

Jimmy Egan quoth:
Is there a safe and natural way to keep cats from using my nice never walked
on garden beds as a litter box ? I have tried hot pepper flakes and ammonia
without success. This is becoming a large problem. Especially when your yard
begins to smell of cat urine and feces. It is a small yard in suburban Long
Island. Any help would be appreciated as I would like the cats to never be
in my yard ... Thanks in advance ...

Gardeners' Supply sells a gizmo that you can put on the dirt among your
plants. It's a grid of hard plastic spikes sticking up. You buy lots of
them ($$) or move their placement around. It doesn't hurt the cats, but
it does make the area inhospitable to them, and the idea is that
eventually they become habituated to disliking the area and then stay
away.

I cannot testify to its efficacy, since I don't mind cats in my garden and
even feed and provide shelter for local ferals (whom I've TNRed).

Priscilla

Priscilla H Ballou wrote:


Gardeners' Supply sells a gizmo that you can put on the dirt among your
plants. It's a grid of hard plastic spikes sticking up. You buy lots of
them ($$) or move their placement around. It doesn't hurt the cats, but
it does make the area inhospitable to them, and the idea is that
eventually they become habituated to disliking the area and then stay
away.

I cannot testify to its efficacy, since I don't mind cats in my garden and
even feed and provide shelter for local ferals (whom I've TNRed).

Priscilla

Who told you about this? Elvis?

In article , wrote:

Priscilla H Ballou wrote:


Gardeners' Supply sells a gizmo that you can put on the dirt among your
plants. It's a grid of hard plastic spikes sticking up. You buy lots of
them ($$) or move their placement around. It doesn't hurt the cats, but
it does make the area inhospitable to them, and the idea is that
eventually they become habituated to disliking the area and then stay
away.

I cannot testify to its efficacy, since I don't mind cats in my garden and
even feed and provide shelter for local ferals (whom I've TNRed).

Priscilla

Who told you about this? Elvis?

While wasting money on plastic spikes seems more than a bit silly, & would
look tacky as all heck, & would take a two or three hundred of 'em to
cover a smallish garden, the same general principle can be achieved by
planting groundcovers.

Even soft short groundcovers deter cats, but if one wanted to deter both
cats & dogs from digging or squatting, go for a slightly taller & cruelly
spiky selection of groundcovers, like dwarf euphorbia crown-of-thorns,
groundcover creeping roses or dwarf shrub roses, crimson pygmy barberry,
vining raspberries or small creeping rubra cultivars, smilex or greenbrier
(sometimes called "cat briar" because of its usefulness in stopping cats
from shitting in the garden).

If you already have large roses, when pruning those, foot-long lengths of
thorny branches (fungus-inviting leaves removed) can be included in
topcoating surface mulches so cats can't dig easily.

But vengeful groundcovers aren't essential. Cats want to dig a hole for
their poops in loose unplanted soil. Any groundcover will discourage them.

Cat poo could also just be trowled to the compost pile & be regarded as
free soil enrichment & just stop being so crabby about cats. At last count
I'm visited by four neighbor's cats. It annoys me they get some birds but
their poo is way too trivial to go get ****y about.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

paghat wrote:

Cat poo could also just be trowled to the compost pile & be regarded as
free soil enrichment & just stop being so crabby about cats. At last count
I'm visited by four neighbor's cats. It annoys me they get some birds but
their poo is way too trivial to go get ****y about.

-paghat the ratgirl

Cat shit is not trivial, perhaps you should eat more of it!

The fatal feline leukemia virus, feline infectious perionitis and feline
immunodeficiency virus are spread from cat to cat through saliva, urine and
fecal matter. A cat who is suffering from intestinal parasites, such as
roundworms or tapeworms, can pass the eggs of these parasites in his feces.
Should another animal come in contact with the infected cat's feces, he is
immediately at risk of contracting the parasites. And take note, some worms
can be passed from animals to humans. Every year about 10,000 children
annually, for example, are infected with roundworms.


Another parasite that can spread from cats to people is the organism that
causes toxoplasmosis. Symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, shortness of
breath and neurological problems. If a mother-to-be contracts the disesase
in her first trimester, it can produce cysts in the brain of the fetus.
This can lead to developmental abnormalities or even miscarriage. The
organism that casuses toxoplasmosis is common in raw meat and gardening
soil, and can also sometimes be found in cat feces.

"Bill" wrote in message
news:z7had.157514$wV.28747@attbi_s54...

The fatal feline leukemia virus, feline infectious perionitis and feline
immunodeficiency virus are spread from cat to cat through saliva, urine
and
fecal matter. A cat who is suffering from intestinal parasites, such as
roundworms or tapeworms, can pass the eggs of these parasites in his
feces.
Should another animal come in contact with the infected cat's feces, he is
immediately at risk of contracting the parasites. And take note, some
worms
can be passed from animals to humans. Every year about 10,000 children
annually, for example, are infected with roundworms.


Another parasite that can spread from cats to people is the organism that
causes toxoplasmosis. Symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, shortness
of
breath and neurological problems. If a mother-to-be contracts the disesase
in her first trimester, it can produce cysts in the brain of the fetus.
This can lead to developmental abnormalities or even miscarriage. The
organism that casuses toxoplasmosis is common in raw meat and gardening
soil, and can also sometimes be found in cat feces.


Wow! Who knew? It's a miracle the human race survied to this day.

Bill wrote:

Cat shit is not trivial, perhaps you should eat more of it!

The fatal feline leukemia virus, feline infectious perionitis and
feline
immunodeficiency virus are spread from cat to cat through saliva,
urine and
fecal matter. A cat who is suffering from intestinal parasites, such
as
roundworms or tapeworms, can pass the eggs of these parasites in his
feces.
Should another animal come in contact with the infected cat's feces,
snip

Okay. That's interesting. Trivial, but interesting.

But we're not talking about finding a way to keep cats from shitting. We
were originally talking about getting them to shit someplace else. And
in that someplace else, the risks of parasites and disease are the same.

But if you want to veer off onto the subject of composting the cat
waste, similar tirades could be made about any animal waste. You
wouldn't want your pregnant wife playing with cow shit, either. A major
source of contamination that makes ground water non-potable is farm
animal shit, yet we still use composted manures on our gardens.

Soil itself harbors plenty of parasites. Perhaps we should find a way to
stop all animals from shitting, and then pave everything over so we
don't come in contact with the soil, either.

Let's not get fanatic, tossing around statistics like "Every year about
10,000 children annually, for example, are infected with roundworms."
That's nothing but trivia unless you put it into context. Is that
worldwide, or a particular region? What is the method of contraction?
And how does that compare with other infections, such as the flu? Ten
thousand by itself sounds like a big number, but in context, it could be
hardly worth the blink of an eye. (That's assuming it's an accurate
number to begin with.)

If the cats are shitting someplace where the kids are playing, that's a
problem. If the cat shit smells too much, that's a problem. If there's
so much cat shit that it fills up the compost bin, that's a problem,
too. But rattling-off some meaningless stats about parasites in cat shit
is nothing but trivial pursuit fodder.

And it doesn't contribute to a solution, either. The discussion is about
how to deal with the shit that happens. I think we can all stipulate
that fresh shit is icky, but that doesn't get us anyplace closer to a
workable solution.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
Blatant Plug: Fahrenheit 9/11 ships 10/5. Order your copy now:
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/911.html

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:28:31 GMT, "Warren"
wrote:

Okay. That's interesting. Trivial, but interesting.

But we're not talking about finding a way to keep cats from shitting. We
were originally talking about getting them to shit someplace else. And
in that someplace else, the risks of parasites and disease are the same.

The risk to my house cats who are let out on leashes per many city
statutes ARE at risk

But if you want to veer off onto the subject of composting the cat
waste, similar tirades could be made about any animal waste. You
wouldn't want your pregnant wife playing with cow shit, either. A major
source of contamination that makes ground water non-potable is farm
animal shit, yet we still use composted manures on our gardens.

I don't want to compost your cats shit and I don't often have cows in
my yard!

Soil itself harbors plenty of parasites. Perhaps we should find a way to
stop all animals from shitting, and then pave everything over so we
don't come in contact with the soil, either.

None have been identified to infect my animals


And it doesn't contribute to a solution, either. The discussion is about
how to deal with the shit that happens. I think we can all stipulate
that fresh shit is icky, but that doesn't get us anyplace closer to a
workable solution.

Send the ******* cats to a no kill shelter with a spay neuter
donation.

--
Warren H.

==========

StanB wrote:


"Bill" wrote in message
news:z7had.157514$wV.28747@attbi_s54...

The fatal feline leukemia virus, feline infectious perionitis and feline
immunodeficiency virus are spread from cat to cat through saliva, urine
and
fecal matter. A cat who is suffering from intestinal parasites, such as
roundworms or tapeworms, can pass the eggs of these parasites in his
feces.
Should another animal come in contact with the infected cat's feces, he
is immediately at risk of contracting the parasites. And take note, some
worms
can be passed from animals to humans. Every year about 10,000 children
annually, for example, are infected with roundworms.


Another parasite that can spread from cats to people is the organism that
causes toxoplasmosis. Symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, shortness
of
breath and neurological problems. If a mother-to-be contracts the
disesase in her first trimester, it can produce cysts in the brain of the
fetus. This can lead to developmental abnormalities or even miscarriage.
The organism that casuses toxoplasmosis is common in raw meat and
gardening soil, and can also sometimes be found in cat feces.


Wow! Who knew? It's a miracle the human race survied to this day.

Right Stan, disease has killed millions of people throughout history, if we
didn't take sanitary percautions, we wouldn't be around, on that you are
quite correct.

If I have cats that use my garden area as a bathroom, that's my problem, but
if neighbors have cats that run free and dig and shit in my garden area
then it becomes a legal issue, at least in my part of the world.

There is a lease law for cats here, owners for the most part ignore it, and
they are too lazy to provide an area in their own yard for the cats to use.
It would be easy for them to dig a small area and fill it in with sand, but
no, that's too much work for them.

The way that I have found to keep the cats out is to keep the topsoil moist
by spraying it with a hose everyday.

The nitwits that live next to me have five cats.

Bill
--
The Hawke

"Bill" wrote
*snipped for clarity*
| Right Stan, disease has killed millions of people throughout history, if
we
| didn't take sanitary percautions, we wouldn't be around, on that you are
| quite correct.

Well, we have to thin out the population SOMEHOW!
*ducking*


|
| If I have cats that use my garden area as a bathroom, that's my problem,
but
| if neighbors have cats that run free and dig and shit in my garden area
| then it becomes a legal issue, at least in my part of the world.
|
| There is a lease law for cats here, owners for the most part ignore it,
and
| they are too lazy to provide an area in their own yard for the cats to
use.
| It would be easy for them to dig a small area and fill it in with sand,
but
| no, that's too much work for them.
|
| The way that I have found to keep the cats out is to keep the topsoil
moist
| by spraying it with a hose everyday.
|
| The nitwits that live next to me have five cats.
|
| Bill
| --
| The Hawke