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How do you keep cats out of your raised garden bed?

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by burritos, Dec 30, 2008.

  1. taggart

    taggart Member

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    Here in south central Texas, the pound currently isn't taking any. They're not sure when, if ever, they will again. Makes it a tough decision on what method to use.
     
  2. Freedom

    Freedom Active Member

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    Sadly, not all areas have a leash law for cats. We don't.

    Trapping a feral cat is NOT for the inexperienced. And a feral, taken to the pound, will be PTS. Trapping someone's pet, well, cats are seldom reunited with their owners. ID tags, collars, microchips, are seldom used by cat owners. Finally, as pointed out above, due to the economy most shelters are full of cats and not accepting at this time. :(

    Deterrent is probably easiest, safest, best choice.

    I notice NO ONE has comments on the method I use, which works! :)
     
  3. Celtic Blue

    Celtic Blue New Member

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    Feral cats (or dogs or hogs) should be put down since they will be killing anything and everything for food and to reproduce. (Housecats often like to hunt too, but should be neutered and will primarily hunt casually for sport so their impact is much less.) If you catch one that is clearly feral, kill it. I've only had to do so once and checked with the neighbors before I caught and killed it. It was beating the hell out of our cat on a regular basis inside the garage. I finally caught it in the garage and whacked it with a rake or broom handle, one swing, one kill. Might sound impressive until you realize that I had missed it a few days before in the driveway with a pistol (out in the sticks, and I rarely miss.) I swear that animal could change directions in mid-air, mid-stride, Matrix-style--a worthy opponent. After that episode I saw it several times moving across the yard from inside the house, but it would run as it now recognized the sound of the slide being pulled back, and I never got another shot at it. It was no dummy...but it was too greedy for its own good. So I resorted to the ultra-low tech (dumb luck, grabbing the closest thing when I saw it) and that worked.
     
  4. cheeper

    cheeper Member

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    I LOVE scallions and will be trying your method! :D I live in the country, have a neighbor across the road, told me she's down to 6 cats! :eek:
     
  5. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    I've complained about the cats in San Diego. Not just the feral ones (of which we do have a problem) but people that just let their cats roam without a collar, using yards as litter boxes, singing love songs on the fences at night and having a plethora of litters. I've complained that they cost money and why aren't they required to have a license like dogs are. I was told that even pet house cats are feral and so exempt, or they're just not going to do anything.

    Personally, I think it's a rip off. Dog owners are more responsible because there is at least some accountability. If they find your dog out without a license, you get fined. A cat? Well, nothing much happens. Unless they're a risk (like obviously rabid or something) animal control doesn't do anything.

    And they won't do anything about the feral cats living on the jetty or having litters in vacant lots or under abandoned houses. There is an organization that humanely catches them and spay/neuters them....but then they let them go again!

    Thank God for the coyotes.
     
  6. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    As a responsible cat owner of two neutered and microchipped cats, who are *never* allowed outside, I also have a problem with most cat owners letting the things run wild

    I too also feel that feral animals should be put down at once. They are a disease vector. In rural areas, feral dogs will kill/injure sheep and cattle.

    If a person no longer wants a dog/cat, instead of just dumping them somewhere, why don't they just euthanize the pet? That sounds cruel, but in the end how is having a stray/feral dog or cat roaming around any better?
     
  7. johnford

    johnford Old Junior Member

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    I solved the problem with a store bought "Super Soaker" battery operated water machine gun. Of course you gotta be there when the offense occurs. But since the offending beasts belonged to us, it was the most humane and fun way I could think of to make them go somewhere else. Eventually they did and stopped digging in the strawberry patch.... jf :rockon:
     
  8. Celtic Blue

    Celtic Blue New Member

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    Hmmm...perhaps one could do the same for any animal with a motion sensor that activated a sprinkler positioned over the bed...and one wouldn't have to be watching to make the system work. ;)
     
  9. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    Great idea, I wonder if you could have a laser triggered slug gun(air riffle)? :p
     
  10. MarinJohn

    MarinJohn Senior Member

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    Greenhouse. Around here we have many raccoons and they seem to keep the cats in check. Certainly disease vectors need to be destroyed, but destroy too many cats and you'll be fighting rats and mice, we're all interconnected. Give your neighborhood kids dogs for xmas.
     
  11. cheeper

    cheeper Member

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    I have more problems with chipmunks, I encourage the cats.
     
  12. CarolinaJim

    CarolinaJim New Member

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    I agree with Shawn and Jayman.
     
  13. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    The one thing I have seen that removes all free roaming night cats from an area are coyotes. Here in the most densely populated county in Florida, there are coyotes roaming around at night, with a very large (and shrinking) food source (including the neighbor's free roaming night cat).

    Feral cats, dogs, and rabid racoons should be treated the same, they should be put to sleep. This keeps the pets (of caring pet owners) alive and disease free.
     
  14. Chuck.

    Chuck. Former Honda Enzyte Driver

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    Seriously, call a local rescue to Trap-Neuter-Return....it's not only more human but lowers the feral cat population. San Diego tried it and the roaming ferals has been cut in half (www.feralcat.com) Also check out www.alleycat.org

    It's a more effective and elightened tact than "What Would Michael Vick do?"


     
  15. Celtic Blue

    Celtic Blue New Member

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    The Vick comparison is over the top. :rolleyes:

    Enlightened???
    What idiot would trap-neuter-return a problem feral animal that was attempting to kill your pets? I was a meager student in a rural area where the only solution appeared to involve the end of said feral cat. I've not noticed very late neutered males to be particularly docile either. A feral cat, neutered or not, suppresses the native species population, so your idea is right out as far as I'm concerned.

    Whether I killed it instantly with a sharp rap to the base of the skull or a pound euthanized it after a traumatic capture, trip, caging, etc., what is the difference? There was no torture and in fact the result was far more humane than what you would have sentenced it to. The animal was going to be put down.

    I grew up on a farm and putting down injured/dangerous pets, livestock, and wildlife was part of life. I had to put a barn cat down on my birthday once and really hated that, but it was in agony. Rather than passing stuff off to others I take responsibility for it up front. The a**holes from town that dumped their pets along our road really irritated me for that very reason.

    I've saved many an animal as well: cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels, calves (including a 3 legged one...side benefit was that he ended up being delicious when the time came), pigs, chickens, birds, etc.

    Folks get a bit too far removed from where their food comes from and what the actual end results are of their actions. Returning feral domestic species to the wild seems a bizarre idea.

    I don't like seeing anything suffer and even give fish a coup-de-grace before I clean them.

    p.s. I don't catch-and-release or neuter mice either.
     
  16. Chuck.

    Chuck. Former Honda Enzyte Driver

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    Shawn Clark,

    Have you bothered to check out www.feralcat.com and www.alleycat.org?

    Your reply strongly suggests no.

    Trap-neuter-release reduces the feral cat population much more effectively than extermination, again San Diego did this and HALFED their feral population - something that putting them down utterly failed to do. I still get the feeling you are ignoring this and discrediting me, can we reexamine how to deal with this problem please?

    It's a bit late for me to Google that British "survey" that domesticated cats are exterminating the songbird population, but if you took that survey literally, there would be no birds in the UK...cats find mice a much easier catch....please Google that study...it's about as credible as Art Spinella's Dust to Dust - seriously.
     
  17. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    I live in San Diego. I doubt the "trap-neuter-return" halved the population. The coyotes halved the population. What we need is the population eliminated. Feral cats are still a problem. Feral dogs they shoot or capture and put down. Feral cats they just let loose. Dogs have to have a license and be on a leash or in a fenced yard and their owners are responsible. Cats can just run around with no consequences to their owners.
     
  18. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    Friend of mine who has frogs in his front yard, which has a high wall around it has done better than half the population of feral cats. (Feral being any cat on his property) He catches them and euthanizes them and in doing this has reduced the feral population to zero. If there is a failure and the population increases further trapping fixes the temporary over-population.

    The best thing a cat lover can do for their pet cat is contain it on their premises. Once it is wandering at large it is a wild feral animal. Cats killing small native animals is a real problem here and across Australia. I suspect it is the same in the USA.
     
  19. Celtic Blue

    Celtic Blue New Member

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    I'm not buying that for a second as it makes no sense. If you put them back out there, they don't stop others from breeding, it just doesn't work that way. So if you put down the ones that are trapped you reduce the population.

    People pointing to "vacant ecological niches" for non-native species (as in your links) need to reconsider their reasoning as they are dead wrong to start out. Where I grew up bobcats and mountain lions were slowly returning for example. No need to fill the niche with feral cats or dogs.
    And whatever the feral types are eating, it is something that native species would otherwise use a as a food source.

    Well, I can tell you what I've seen cats carrying where I've lived and it was almost never a mouse. Birds, lizards, snakes, sometimes a young squirrel. I have seen one female that was carrrying a full grown rabbit it had taken down. The barn cats controlled the rodent population there, but there was far more on the menu (despite being well fed.)

    My well-fed, neutered cat in town didn't kill much and didn't wander much, but it did like to hunt and play. It brought things into the house that it found in the yard and wanted to play with. I recall at least two indicidents with live lizards that it brought in, at least one/possibly two live snakes, and two live birds--I couldn't save one of the latter.
     
  20. Chuck.

    Chuck. Former Honda Enzyte Driver

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    Then you are telling us the reports that San Diego halfed their feral cat population about ten years ago is a bald lie and nobody in the media has bothered to expose this? Counterintutive, but fact.

    I'm accustiomed to this mindset - if you don't agree with it deny it...like climate change, peak oil, etc. If I did not know better, I'd say you would avoided getting a hybrid, because that's a new concept as well.

    I could have been more diplomatic last night, but exterminating feral cats can't keep up with their breeding...why spend more taxpayedr money for animal control when there are better ways of keeping the population down? And your efforts on saving farm animals is definitely commendable.

    Here is DOMESTIC CATS - WILDLIFE ENEMY NUMBER ONE OR CONVENIENT SCAPEGOATS? (also http://www.austinferalcats.org/birds.htm) ... it reminds me of a work done by Art Spinella. ;)

    No, there should NOT be a gut of feral cats - it's cause by irresponsible people that let their pets breed. Some of them go around in gas guzzlers, too.