• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Excuse me moggy, my bean planter isn't actually a toilet!

R

Rob

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Rather than hijack Bob's fruit cage thread, I thought I'll start afresh. There is no forum for feline excrement problems so here I am!

I'm pondering what to do with our moggy latrine problem. My moggy is in fact not my moggy. It's a stray that has adopted me because I made the mistake of taking pity on it and feeding it the odd tidbit and it started coming over more and more until eventually when it was staring through my French windows a few winters back at minus 8 outside I took pity and built it a house on the patio. It now lives outside our French windows permanently. It's been either mistreated or its just a feral farm cat because despite countless hours of "training" it still wont let me stroke it. It's fear of humans is so deep, it cant overcome them even though it will run to me whenever it sees me and happily wind in an out of my legs before rolling on the ground and getting all un-necessary. The moment I reach out to tickle it behind the ears, it just slinks back. It will eat out of my hand but again, move the hands away from its mouth and again it just ducks out the way.

Anyway, she's a beauty and no mistake and since I've ben feeding her properly her coat is like velvet and all glossy. Problem is the patio is shared with a number of planters I've made over the years for various edible and aesthetic goodies. Beans and tomatoes are but two of those. My bean planter is enormous and can house about 16 canes in wigwam format.

Her majesty has decided that's her litter tray. If I use netting I cant really plant beans in it. Is there any kind of spray or dust or I dunno something cats don't like the smell of that can be sprayed on the outside of the planter? Obviously I cant use the sonic thing that Bob describes as that would remove her majesty from my patio as well as the planter.

I'm not really a cat person so know squat about them...I just got accidentally hooked up with black beauty and now I'm stuck with her mess!
 
How about placing some large pebbles around the planter (borrow from the beach if local) or any of the other decorative stone mulches available from the garden centres eg slate chips or recycled glass chips (the recycling rounds over the sharp edges)

Then make a small sand pit with a roof so that it keeps dry and hopefully the cat will use that instead.
 
Interesting. Would I have to clean the sand pit now and then (typed with a due sense of dread knowing what the answer will be)
 
Yep 'fraid, so with the added inconvenience that you cannot stop other cats using it ether.

In my experience cats always seem to want to use the neighbours garden rather than you own. You could just try to make the planters as uninviting as possible and hope he/she will "go" elsewhere. If she is getting fed she won't go far.
 
.22 ?

Cats are the Spawn of Satan in my book :evil:
 
I knew a chap at work that used an air rifle pellet press to make salt pellets. He reckoned that at garden range the pellet would break the skin and hurt like hell but do no lasting damage.
 
You may be on the verge of missing the point...this is my (stray) cat!!!

I'm not about to shoot it up the sixpence am I??

Mind you, my air rifle does have a scope....no...stop thinking about it.
 
Rob,
sorry.

In my own experience the only defence is to make the area as unattractive as possible. Cats are clean and will want to scratch, dig and bury their business so rocks, pebbles, stones etc will make that impossible. He or she will need to sh1t somewhere so you can only hope that somewhere is not a nuisance to you.
 
Yes, I'm thinking the unattractive mulch option is the way to go. I know where she'll go...straight for the kids raised beds! The boys will be wiping cat excrement all over the kitchen about 30 minutes after I solve the bean planter problem :-)
 
Removable netting panels?

Our planter was covered with netting but it was all stapled to thin softwood frames. I'd hinged the ones we needed to remove for access but could just be panels on push in stakes.

All you need to do is make it inconvenient for the cats. doesn't have to be assault/ jump over proof. cats are lazy. if it's not easy they will go somewhere else.
 
Andyp":2878pof7 said:
In my experience cats always seem to want to use the neighbours garden rather than you own.
Click to expand...

If you own a dog and take it for a walk you are now expected to collect your dog's sh1t, take it home and dispose of it. The reason is that i) it is unpleasant for others to find their shoes caked in stinking dog mess and ii) it can be infected with some sort of worm which will blind kids if it they get it on themselves - so it is for good reason. As a former dog owner this is what I used to do.

But my neighbour's cat can, and regularly does, come into my garden and sh1t all over it. It is not clean, it does not bury it, it just sh1ts all over my garden. So I'm all for shot guns, poisoned meat left out or capturing and disembowelling. After all, how would cat owners feel if every morning I got up and took my dog* into their garden to sh1t all over it?!?

So, IMHO, do nothing to discourage the cat from using the bean planter, and plant the beans elsewhere. Otherwise the cat may start sh1tting in your neighbours' gardens.

Terry.

* would require me to give in to my daughter's pleading for a new dog as the last ones are no longer with us.
 
Funny you should say that Terry but about 30 years ago my brother contracted a condition called toxoplasmosis (sp?) which he Doc's reckoned he picked up from cat poo in his garden in Enfield. He was ill for the best part of a year. After that he bought a giant super soaker and used to blast the cats with water whenever he saw them. So there is apparently a real medical risk associated with cat mess.
 
Just wiki'd it and just as I said.....

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii.[1] The parasite infects most genera of warm-blooded animals, including humans, but the primary host is the felid (cat) family. Infection occurs: 1.) By eating infected meat, particularly swine products. 2.) By ingesting water, soil, or food that has come into contact with infected animals' fecal matter. This is most commonly spread in faeces by household cats
 
Rob":jg67hnns said:
By ingesting water, soil, or food that has come into contact with infected animals' fecal matter. This is most commonly spread in faeces by household cats
Click to expand...

So having a cat using the planters you are growing beans in would be a very bad idea then. Even if you mulch (love that word) surely when the beans start growing they will disturb the mulch and it will be hard to get more in and around them, but then my efforts at growing beans were so bad, what do I know.

Terry.
 
I'm resigned to completely changing out the soil in the bean planter Terry which is a bummer because it's enormous!
 
Rob":45u67g4t said:
I'm resigned to completely changing out the soil in the bean planter Terry which is a bummer because it's enormous!
Click to expand...


I seem to recall gardeners tales of burying a dead sheep or similar in the bottom of bean trenches. Maybe after scaring your moggy well and truly sh1tless, you could use it in a similar way under the fresh soil thus removing the chance of a repeat problem?

Bob
 
The way I feel right now Bob.......don't tempt me! I'm back in friggin A&E with the most accident prone child in the history of the universe! Just the 3 hours so far and yet to see the doctor
 
Rob":384hrq1r said:
The way I feel right now Bob.......don't tempt me! I'm back in friggin A&E with the most accident prone child in the history of the universe! Just the 3 hours so far and yet to see the doctor
Click to expand...

Ooops! Sorry to hear that Rob. I hope you get seen soon and importantly before the Saturday night low life turn up. Not something for a youngster to experience.

Best of luck

Bob
 
Rob":2w3zvt17 said:
The way I feel right now Bob.......don't tempt me! I'm back in friggin A&E with the most accident prone child in the history of the universe! Just the 3 hours so far and yet to see the doctor
Click to expand...

Hope all OK Rob.

Terry.
 
I can relate to taking a child to A&E, he is now 36 but as a young boy he had a run of needing stitches in the top of his head, then his hand. Managed to trip getting off the bus and split his head open and of course that required an X-ray to check nothing was cracked. Some of you have met Joe, stands a good couple of inches taller than me, even when I have my clogs on, he is a dab hand on the barbecue and worked both of the bashes at my place.
I hope you are seen soon.
 
Thanks guys

Just been discharged :-) Bone not broken, x rays all good and they seem to have calmed down re any infection. Keep a close eye for signs for next few days but basically good news. Thank f.... for that!
 
I to have had this problem, not only wrecking the soil but destroying all bird life just for fun. The beasts don't eat the slugs or anything useful.
My remedy an electric cattle wire around the property just below the top of the fence on your side, they only get zapped once. Where there could be access sprinkle chilly powder there and on the bean patch, been using it for years and the crops aren't tainted.
In my experience every anti mog device on the market is a waste of your money. They get used to them.

Now wheres the chilly bean jokes then?
Richard
 
Excellent......in fact we could plant rice and peppers in the same planter, then just harvest the contents straight into the crockpot at the end to save time :-)
 
Morning all

wrecking the soil What do they sh1t round your way? Nuclear waste? :D

The beasts don't eat the slugs or anything useful.

We once had one that killed squirrels. In fact, he seemed ready to have a go at anything. I have the vet's bills to prove it. Once all the squirrels were eaten (yes, really), he started on magpies. I don't think the smaller stuff was enough of a challenge for him.

Never seen one eat a slug, but the cat from next door just crossed my garden with a brown rat in it's mouth. Good boy.

The best deterrent I have heard of is manuring the ground with lion sh1t, obtainable from your local zoo. The smell, allegedly, is strong enough to frighten off the average moggy. Sounds reasonable, but I'd like to see proof. :D

Cheers

Dave
 
I had heard the lion dung story but for deer scaring (which makes food chain sense if you think about it).

We tried it, got the dung from a friend who worked at one of the zoos and I think the deer used it as an hors d'oeuvre before they moved swiftly on to my roses :-)

But I like the idea of cats eating the grey American bar-stewards and magpies which once ate a baby blue tit chick right in front of my horror struck kids faces!! It was a like live horror film!
 
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