Bloody cat

[tazzie]

Hi all

Help I need some ideas on how to stop a cat from using my raise bed for it's toilet, I've tried cat repellant and almost all the off the shelf products you can buy, I've even soaked it with the hose pipe and the bloody cat came back the next day.

All ideas will be welcome...

Tazzie

[Dannyj]

today iv sliced up 3 big oranges and scattered it all over the veg plot, tomorrow i plan to make some sort of scarecrow that will move in the wind - no idea how yet,

a friend told me to leave out some food in the veg plot for the cats as he said they will associate it with feeding ground rather than a toilet

[Nicola_D]

we've ending up building a frame over ours and covering it with rigid netting to keep them off (though one side of our bed is against a wall so the frame wasn't too hard to erect. I can't keep them off my freshly dug border though :-( at least I've only sowed flower seeds in there.

I did read about a plant you can buy which cats can't stant the smell of

google "scardy cat plant" or "cat off plant" or "Coleus Canina"

however it's our own cats that are the problem so I'm not sure how much we want to scare them off!

[golden14]

I use a battery powered sonic detterent which works very well, it has a PIR sensor that senses the movement of the cat. They can't stand this and indeed mine has proved effective in keeping them out of the whole garden. You can buy them in B&Q, around £20 I think but well worth it, or go down the more expensive route and buy a Jack Russell, I have found him very effective at killing pigeons as well....thankfully my 2 year old daughter has yet to see the dogs talent..
But seriously buy one of the sonic car scarers - be aware though that they need two pp9 batteries, and they will need changing around once a month.

[Nicola_D]

we have two of the sonic deterrants in our (small) garden and they don't keep our cats away! they do stop them using the immediate area as a toilet though, but they've worked out where to walk to avoid setting the sensors off, they also didn't keep the tom cats away when our kitten first came into season. We bought our neighbour one too to keep our cats out of their garden and they still go in their garden anyway. (maybe all three of my cats have hearing problems!)

[gibson1314]

Some cats will go back to the same spot if you are lucky, then you could leave a little area where the cat will go undisturbed. They are fussy creatures so that might not work.

The only way I have kept my cats off is with netting. They are very clever creatures and I don't think any deterrents work they just learn to get around them.

[airconednightmare]

saw these being used to stop cats from digging up dormant cyrpripedium orchids...doesn't stop them walking over though.

i don't like the sonic things because the deter lots of other animals as well, and i like to see wildlife in the garden.

never tried the coleus to keep them off the veg, however i seriously doubt it's going to work seeing as one of my cats will happily eat coleus when it's grown as a house plant

netting is the only way to stop them and even then it better be secure. i have a collection of nets and fleece etc that i use to keep them off until the plants are a decent size

[tazzie]

Hi
Thanks everyone for your advice on my little problem, I've decided to buy some netting and canes to stop the ginger felion from using my raised bed for a toilet.
I'm also looking in to keeping chickens in the future and I know that I would have to net the bed off then.

Thanks Taz.

[klloyd]

Hi, I have sprinkled extra hot chilli powder in my flower beds to scare the cat away(I had lots of it unused and old in the kitchen shelf), which did keep the cat away at least for a month. I also used tandoori masala powder and white pepper powder successfully to scare the cat away. As I thought it might do, it didn't give much pungent smells too much though, except when I went too near to weed.

Good luck.

[teacherbird]

I have a lot of large cocktail sticks poking out of my raised bed to stop my neighbour's cat. (I did ask his permission too!) Its done the job so far :-)

[GMB27]

Cut up lemons in half and squeeze them out. Then throw the peels on the area it uses. The cats hate the citrus and will stay away, seriously! Try it, you may need a few lemons depending on the size of the area!