We live in Frederick, MD--a small town, semi suburb of Washington DC. We live in downtown Frederick, in the city area, and we are being OVERTAKEN by feral, outdoor cats. We have no cats of our own, nor do we--unfortunately--own a dog. The cats are strays and are definitely fed and certainly "loved" by our row of neighbors.
The only problem is they are definitely using our garden and driveway area as their own personal litter box. You would think I am exaggerating, but every day we pick up six or seven separate "deposits".
We are very discouraged! We want so much to have a functional, organic garden, but we are worried about eating food that comes from soil that has been steeped in cat feces all fall and winter--and however many seasons before we bought the house. We bought the house, but it had been used as a rental for many years prior to us, and the cats were certainly used to being able to poop wherever they wanted because, for the most part, the college kids that lived there didn't really care. The gravel driveway area had a pile of leaves and trash that was the cat's favorite spot and when we bought the house and cleaned up that area, they just started going everywhere else!
Last summer we cleared out a garden area, put in all new organic soil and new food plants, spent hundreds of dollars and still worried, every meal, that we were going to get sick from the cat poop! This summer we really have a lot of big plans in mind--we want to extend the garden from a little plot into one whole side of our backyard to make more room for food, but we are both so hesitant to do so because there doesn't seem to be a way to keep the cats out. We don't want to put in all the money and time only to go out there every day and find several deposits swarming with flies right on top of the delicate arms of what is supposed to be bell peppers! The flies, in and of themselves, are totally out of control in the summer because of all the cat poop that we can't stay on top of!
Here's what we have tried:
1. A pepper spray that you can get from Lowe's. It is to keep away cats and other critters but it costs a lot of we found ourselves overwhelmed with keeping up with all the spots where the cats make deposits.
2. Stakes in the areas where they go--especially around the food. They seem to levitate their bodies! We have found delicately placed piles right in the middle of the wooden stakes. I've even seen a cat perched on the edge of our tall wooden fence with it's bottom hanging over onto our side, pooping from above! It's like we've done something wrong in a past life!
3. Calling the Frederick Animal Control. They want us to drive out to them, rent traps, take them back to our house and then to drive the cat (although the chances are high that it could be a raccoon or opossum) back over to the animal rescue, drop it off, and start all over again. We both have full time jobs! Rounding up all these cats would be like trying to find, drive and drop off every person with blue eyes in the city! These cats are completely unchecked--they have litter after litter after litter. Apparently, the local ASPCA neutered and tagged one litter, but that's just one of the many litters. Already we are seeing new baby kittens in the yard next door. The city animal control have told us, very condescendingly, "that's just part of owning a house," but I am not so sure it is--where does their jurisdiction end and ours begin?
4. We have tried all varieties of ground cover to dissuade them from sensing a litter box environment: rocks, cedar chips, gravel, screen mesh and even chicken wire. They will either go right on top, or just go right on the cement of our back porch area, or right in the grass of our well trimmed and tiny yard. None of these ground covers stopped them, and not even the frozen, snow and ice packed yard of our recent snowstorm stopped them!
We moved to Frederick from DC over a year ago and last summer had a total blast making all the first mistakes and, yet, enjoying a case full of hot peppers a handful of bell peppers and some wonderful tomatoes. Neither of us are well versed in gardening, but we were still out there every day in the sun and gnats digging in the dirt and enjoying ourselves immensely. We really want to move forward in our gardening and enjoying organic home grown food, but doubt that cat feces counts as organic fodder (although I did check, HOPING against all hope that maybe cat poop was like cow poop. It most pointedly is not...)
Oh, any advice would be so well appreciated. We are both young, college professors and are hoping to spend our Spring Break out in the yard and gravel driveway really doing some beautiful things and are just heartbroken by these circumstances that we can't seem to get ourselves out of!
Thanks so much for reading.
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accidental_farmer
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- Location: Frederick MD
Have you tried one of the motion sensors that emits a noise above the range of human hearing? There are also motion sensors that turn on a sprinkler system. The latter would work well in the summer months, but in the winter, you'd probably have to use something like the high frequency sound systems.
Other than that, the most effective solutions I know of are free "catch, neuter and release" programs, but those require more active involvement on the part of the local residents.
"Catch, neuter and release" programs usually operate once or twice a year. Volunteers trap feral cats, bring them to the designated location to be neutered, and then take them back to the point of origin and release them. Neutering the animals prevents them from reproducing, of course, and releasing them back where they were caught stabilizes the population, discouraging new strays from moving into the area.
Other than that, the most effective solutions I know of are free "catch, neuter and release" programs, but those require more active involvement on the part of the local residents.
"Catch, neuter and release" programs usually operate once or twice a year. Volunteers trap feral cats, bring them to the designated location to be neutered, and then take them back to the point of origin and release them. Neutering the animals prevents them from reproducing, of course, and releasing them back where they were caught stabilizes the population, discouraging new strays from moving into the area.
Someone *must* be feeding this feral colony of cats. And that *someone* needs to be brought up to date on Trap / Neuter / Return. The fact that you're seeing KITTENS tells me that the colony-feeder isn't doing TNR.
There are two well-organized feral cat groups, and I think they're both headquartered in DC and Maryland. I looked up Alley Cat Allies (Bethesda, MD) and did a search on the key word "garden." They had suggestions, with links to other pages at their website, on ways the colony-keeper can discourage colony cats from using other people's gardens (that would be your garden...):
https://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=221&txtSearch=garden
Alley Cat Rescue (https://www.saveacat.org) is headquartered in Silver Spring, MD. They also have excellent guidelines on TNR, but their site doesn't seem to have a Search function, so I couldn't look for cat vs. garden advice.
We've also had discussions here at THG in the past about invasive cats, but since you're in Maryland, I thought these national organizations might be a good place to start.
I hope you find the colony keeper; that person needs support from one of these groups most definitely. KITTENS
SPAY / NEUTER for sure.
In the meantime, has anyone suggested laying down chicken wire where you have plants?
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
There are two well-organized feral cat groups, and I think they're both headquartered in DC and Maryland. I looked up Alley Cat Allies (Bethesda, MD) and did a search on the key word "garden." They had suggestions, with links to other pages at their website, on ways the colony-keeper can discourage colony cats from using other people's gardens (that would be your garden...):
https://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=221&txtSearch=garden
Alley Cat Rescue (https://www.saveacat.org) is headquartered in Silver Spring, MD. They also have excellent guidelines on TNR, but their site doesn't seem to have a Search function, so I couldn't look for cat vs. garden advice.
We've also had discussions here at THG in the past about invasive cats, but since you're in Maryland, I thought these national organizations might be a good place to start.
I hope you find the colony keeper; that person needs support from one of these groups most definitely. KITTENS
SPAY / NEUTER for sure.In the meantime, has anyone suggested laying down chicken wire where you have plants?
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
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rainbowgardener
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It's a good article cynthia linked. I thought I'd post some of the suggestions from it, since you have to go a few clicks in to find them:
Scatter fresh orange and lemon peels or spray with citrus-scented fragrances. Coffee grounds, pipe tobacco, or oil of lavendar, lemongrass, citronella, or eucalyptus also deter cats.
Plant the herb rue to repel cats, or sprinkle dried rue over the garden.
Use plastic carpet runners spike-side up, covered lightly in soil. They can be found at local hardware or office supply stores. Or, set chicken wire firmly into the dirt with sharp edges rolled under.
Artfully arrange branches in a lattice-type pattern or wooden or plastic lattice fencing material over soil. You can disguise these by planting flowers and seeds in the openings. You can also try embedding wooden chopsticks, pinecones, or sticks with dull points deep into the soil with the tops exposed eight inches apart.
Obtain Cat Scatâ„¢, a nonchemical cat and wildlife repellent consisting of plastic mats that are cut into smaller pieces and pressed into the soil. Each mat has flexible plastic spikes that are harmless to cats and other animals, but discourage digging. Available at www.gardeners.com.
Cover exposed ground in flower beds with large, attractive river rocks to prevent cats from digging. (They have the added benefit of deterring weeds.)
Establish a litter box by tilling the soil or placing sand in an out-of-the-way spot in your yard. Keep it clean and free of deposits.
Use an aromatic spray product, such as Dog and Cat Repellent, available at www.gardeners.com.
https://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=375
If you garden in raised beds, you can always fence in the individual beds. I do that to keep raccoons and ground hogs out of them. Put stakes all around the bed and wrap deer netting around the stakes.
Get to know your neighbors and see if you can't all cooperate on the spay/neuter program....
Make friends with some of the cats? We have three outdoor (feral but tame) cats that we do feed every day. They don't make messes in the garden (having I guess learned what areas are ok and which aren't) and being territorial, they defend our yard against outsiders. So despite having cat food out every day, we have the same three all the time and never have more or new ones. If an intruder comes on the property, they drive them off (and of course they are all spay/neutered, so they aren't going to give us kittens). It's a lot easier to get them spay/ neutered once they are tame; you don't have to worry about trying to trap them.
Scatter fresh orange and lemon peels or spray with citrus-scented fragrances. Coffee grounds, pipe tobacco, or oil of lavendar, lemongrass, citronella, or eucalyptus also deter cats.
Plant the herb rue to repel cats, or sprinkle dried rue over the garden.
Use plastic carpet runners spike-side up, covered lightly in soil. They can be found at local hardware or office supply stores. Or, set chicken wire firmly into the dirt with sharp edges rolled under.
Artfully arrange branches in a lattice-type pattern or wooden or plastic lattice fencing material over soil. You can disguise these by planting flowers and seeds in the openings. You can also try embedding wooden chopsticks, pinecones, or sticks with dull points deep into the soil with the tops exposed eight inches apart.
Obtain Cat Scatâ„¢, a nonchemical cat and wildlife repellent consisting of plastic mats that are cut into smaller pieces and pressed into the soil. Each mat has flexible plastic spikes that are harmless to cats and other animals, but discourage digging. Available at www.gardeners.com.
Cover exposed ground in flower beds with large, attractive river rocks to prevent cats from digging. (They have the added benefit of deterring weeds.)
Establish a litter box by tilling the soil or placing sand in an out-of-the-way spot in your yard. Keep it clean and free of deposits.
Use an aromatic spray product, such as Dog and Cat Repellent, available at www.gardeners.com.
https://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=375
If you garden in raised beds, you can always fence in the individual beds. I do that to keep raccoons and ground hogs out of them. Put stakes all around the bed and wrap deer netting around the stakes.
Get to know your neighbors and see if you can't all cooperate on the spay/neuter program....
Make friends with some of the cats? We have three outdoor (feral but tame) cats that we do feed every day. They don't make messes in the garden (having I guess learned what areas are ok and which aren't) and being territorial, they defend our yard against outsiders. So despite having cat food out every day, we have the same three all the time and never have more or new ones. If an intruder comes on the property, they drive them off (and of course they are all spay/neutered, so they aren't going to give us kittens). It's a lot easier to get them spay/ neutered once they are tame; you don't have to worry about trying to trap them.
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applestar
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Local feral cats AND pet cats used to cross our yard and leave deposits. Over the last three years, I've done several things that may have helped. I guess there were only 2 or 3 instances in the last year, including finding a set of cat tracks after the big snow storm last month. I don't have unneutered neighborhood feral colony problem though, thanks to two neighborhood ladies who really became involved in cat rescues and did a lot of trapping, etc. work.
#1 PHYSICAL BARRIER -- installed 5'H Vinyl picket fencing all around the back yard/garden. Restricting them to crawling under a few gaps under the fence, which I systematically blocked. It's harder for them to clamber over the vinyl picket than wooden fences, obviously, though a few big toms still managed.
#2 ANTI-NEIGHBORS' CATS CAMPAIGN --
(1) I visited and spoke with the neighbors who feed cats and whose own pet cats have been seen using our garden. Emphasis on food garden, in my case, small children, briefly touching on danger to pregnant women and fetus and flirting with possibility of near future pregnancy.
(2) Whenever I caught them in the act and I KNEW the neighbors were within earshot, I LOUDLY scolded the cats and actually chased them out of the garden. My kids were given permission to do the same, though they do know very well not to chase cats for no reason. I also gathered up the poop in baggies and deposited them on the neighbor's Welcome mat, or when I was feeling put upon, simply tossed them over the fence into their yard.
(3) After warning the neighbors that I am forced to take stronger measures. I started deploying ground cayenne peppers wherever I found poop.
#3 UN-SCENT MARKING THE AREA --
(1) When I found places that had been used as their potty -- I picked up the poop as mentioned above, then covered the area with a scoop of compost to neutralize the bacteria and hopefully compete with any other organisms, as well to neutralize the scent, then sprinkled ground cayenne pepper in a big circle over the area.
(2) On solid and pavement surfaces where sometimes the toms sprayed, I used an organic pet odor neutralizer (I believe I bought it from Gardens Alive) which turned out to have a smell too unpleasant to use inside (I do have two strictly indoor cats -- for any indoor issues with them I use Nature's Miracle enzyme spray -- a tad too perfumery but better than the other one. When I had the money, I used to use Bio-Kleen Bac-out.)
Finally, although this was not used for cat deterrent but to keep groundHOGs away from my apple tree, I bought a small battery operated two-wire electric fence system for about $70. It is supposed to apply a small jolt, no more. The way I set it up, I had a 28"H Rabbit wire fence, then the electric wire about 6" outside of that, so that an animal would usually touch it while trying to figure out what to do about the 28"H fence. (Squirrels stealing apples have been a problem in the past, but they left the apples alone so it must have worked on them as well, BTW.) Perhaps you could dissuade the cats from using "hot spots" while you continue to biologically treat the area. If you move the system around, it'll keep them guessing and they' may soon realize that your property is no longer the safe-haven they thought it was and, really, completely unsuitable for their bathroom/social gathering.
#1 PHYSICAL BARRIER -- installed 5'H Vinyl picket fencing all around the back yard/garden. Restricting them to crawling under a few gaps under the fence, which I systematically blocked. It's harder for them to clamber over the vinyl picket than wooden fences, obviously, though a few big toms still managed.
#2 ANTI-NEIGHBORS' CATS CAMPAIGN --
(1) I visited and spoke with the neighbors who feed cats and whose own pet cats have been seen using our garden. Emphasis on food garden, in my case, small children, briefly touching on danger to pregnant women and fetus and flirting with possibility of near future pregnancy.
(2) Whenever I caught them in the act and I KNEW the neighbors were within earshot, I LOUDLY scolded the cats and actually chased them out of the garden. My kids were given permission to do the same, though they do know very well not to chase cats for no reason. I also gathered up the poop in baggies and deposited them on the neighbor's Welcome mat, or when I was feeling put upon, simply tossed them over the fence into their yard.
(3) After warning the neighbors that I am forced to take stronger measures. I started deploying ground cayenne peppers wherever I found poop.
#3 UN-SCENT MARKING THE AREA --
(1) When I found places that had been used as their potty -- I picked up the poop as mentioned above, then covered the area with a scoop of compost to neutralize the bacteria and hopefully compete with any other organisms, as well to neutralize the scent, then sprinkled ground cayenne pepper in a big circle over the area.
(2) On solid and pavement surfaces where sometimes the toms sprayed, I used an organic pet odor neutralizer (I believe I bought it from Gardens Alive) which turned out to have a smell too unpleasant to use inside (I do have two strictly indoor cats -- for any indoor issues with them I use Nature's Miracle enzyme spray -- a tad too perfumery but better than the other one. When I had the money, I used to use Bio-Kleen Bac-out.)
Finally, although this was not used for cat deterrent but to keep groundHOGs away from my apple tree, I bought a small battery operated two-wire electric fence system for about $70. It is supposed to apply a small jolt, no more. The way I set it up, I had a 28"H Rabbit wire fence, then the electric wire about 6" outside of that, so that an animal would usually touch it while trying to figure out what to do about the 28"H fence. (Squirrels stealing apples have been a problem in the past, but they left the apples alone so it must have worked on them as well, BTW.) Perhaps you could dissuade the cats from using "hot spots" while you continue to biologically treat the area. If you move the system around, it'll keep them guessing and they' may soon realize that your property is no longer the safe-haven they thought it was and, really, completely unsuitable for their bathroom/social gathering.
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purple flowers
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I have had the same issue with cats in the past and I really wish I had seen this post back then! I kept cats out of my garden as best I could with a few things.....making sure all "sandy" area were picked up or I planted grass. I used the motion sprinklers in the summer....This helped famously. I got it online...I'm sure you can find them anyplace....I also used (and still do) an electric fence....Even tho they can jump over most. The one I have is a 2 fence system....Best thing I ever bought.....Anyway.....I do have to say the one thing that really worked was adding a dog to the family...lol Good luck...I feel for you!
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StorageSmart2
- Cool Member
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This isn't necessarily the most desirable route for stoping feral cats from using your garden as a litter box, but a friend of mine built them one. Basically, she set out a 2ftX2ft wooden box and filled it 1/3 full with sand. When she discovered deposits in her garden she would put them in the box for a few days.
It took awhile, but the cats (there were two or three of them) eventually learned to use the box. Her garden is feces free now, but she has to "scoop" the box every couple of days. She says she doesn't mind, because she likes cats and sometimes they hang out and she pets them and stuff, but I personally am not so fond of cats that I would change the litter for a bunch of cats that don't belong to me.
It took awhile, but the cats (there were two or three of them) eventually learned to use the box. Her garden is feces free now, but she has to "scoop" the box every couple of days. She says she doesn't mind, because she likes cats and sometimes they hang out and she pets them and stuff, but I personally am not so fond of cats that I would change the litter for a bunch of cats that don't belong to me.
Having a dog can help.
[img]https://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6194/chewtoy.jpg[/img]
BTW I doubt the cat in that photo was harmed. I suspect that they were buddies playing.
I had a dog so well-trained that she knew to chase cats out of the yard but she knew to stop at the property line even where there was no fence. When the neighbors cats were in our yard the dog would chase the cats out, however when we went over to visit the neighbors the dog didn't chase the cats and the cats did not flee from the dog. It was amazing that the dog and the cats seemed to know that the rules were different depending on what property they were on. It was amazing that the dog and the cats new where the property line was. When I first got the dog I walked the perimeter of the yard before I even took her in the house, I did that too give her a chance to go the bathroom and mark her territory and to know where her territory boundaries were. Anytime she left her territory without permission or escort, she was scolded.
I also had her trained to chase squirrels. But I noticed that often when she thought I wasn't looking; I caught her several times goofing off and watching cats and squirrels in our backyard, she promptly started chasing them once she realized that I was watching.
[img]https://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6194/chewtoy.jpg[/img]
BTW I doubt the cat in that photo was harmed. I suspect that they were buddies playing.
I had a dog so well-trained that she knew to chase cats out of the yard but she knew to stop at the property line even where there was no fence. When the neighbors cats were in our yard the dog would chase the cats out, however when we went over to visit the neighbors the dog didn't chase the cats and the cats did not flee from the dog. It was amazing that the dog and the cats seemed to know that the rules were different depending on what property they were on. It was amazing that the dog and the cats new where the property line was. When I first got the dog I walked the perimeter of the yard before I even took her in the house, I did that too give her a chance to go the bathroom and mark her territory and to know where her territory boundaries were. Anytime she left her territory without permission or escort, she was scolded.
I also had her trained to chase squirrels. But I noticed that often when she thought I wasn't looking; I caught her several times goofing off and watching cats and squirrels in our backyard, she promptly started chasing them once she realized that I was watching.
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