Animal intruders in the garden

[bertiedog]

I would tend towards saying it is not just cats, they are the obvious contender, but foxes do not rampage through gardens, in general they are quite quiet, and do leave a lot of mess as do badgers and hedgehogs. Foxes calls may be a give away that they are in the area, but when scavenging they are very quiet indeed, till they go for rubbish bins and bags.

 

Tidy up and the activity will break the habits they have, and check that no nearby garden owners are leaving out food that is getting attention from wild animals. On the whole cats bury the mess, and it is rendered harmless in the soil.

 

The overgrowth clearance will help as will having areas of cleared dug soil, which would attract the cats to do it in there, not all over.

 

A garden that is out of use is an attraction, and anywhere they feel safe will give them the excuse to hang around.

 

A dog in your property may help, it would discourage the cats.

 

Do not get involved with airguns, cross bows, or catapults, the law is clear these days, and such action could end up in court. The RSPCA will help in extreme cases of nuisance, and issue advice, but you must remember the cats are generally other peoples pets and you can take only very limited action against them.  However the RSPCA can take action against strays and feral wild cats, usually trapping and removal.

 

The main thing is to get the garden going, with human presence all the time, checking late at night, and trying to identify any neighbours cat that is a regular, and them approaching the owner with evidence of the inconvenience that the cat causes.

 

Lastly and do not take this the wrong way, or consider it attacking the standards you have, but do get the overgrown area checked very carefully indeed for rats and mice. These may be around in any garden, old, or new property and the cats are natural hunters and will gather there to hunt, or observe the garden as a potential hunting ground.

 

Again clearance and use of the garden will remove mammals from the garden, they will go else where for food. even bird tables should be ceased with these problems, as scattered food attracts squirrels, rats, mice, hedgehogs, and the cats as well.

 

Most other deterrents are a bit suspect, strong smells may work, but the electronic types and gadget ones are to say the least a bit suspect. Also make sure that plants that attract cats are not there, like catnip, or mint in general.

 

It is a real nuisance when this starts, but I suspect it will become a dim memory as the garden and railway are put into use.

 

Stephen

Edited May 14, 2017 by bertiedog

[Jongudmund]

Hi Stephen/Bertie. No worries I'm not going down the shooting cats route.

 

As I've explained the garden is very enclosed and the most likely contender for the droppings are the many cats in the area.

 

I do think the burying is a myth put out by cat lovers. It certainly doesn't happen in my mainly paved back yard. Also I don't see why I should have to provide an exterior sandbox for my neighbours' cats. That's what annoys me most about this. People just let their cats out with no thought or care of the damage they do.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Jongudmund

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I had OO in the garden very successfully at my previous house, in an enclosed rear garden, bordered by other rear gardens. You have to accept that bird droppings will once in a while land on it, such is life. Didn't have a cat problem with the railway, just the usual one of them randomly crapping everywhere and anywhere; in respect of which all cat owners are in total denial, drives my wife  - an enthusiast gardener - up the wall. (Really should be as now established with dogs, owner responsible for picking it all up. I don't care how difficult that is, why should you inflict your lifestyle choice resltant unpleasantness on others?)

 

Present garden location backs into ancient oak woodland. Plentiful wildlife, and they would not  leave the track alone. Corvids, squirrels, badgers, the known culprits, actually ripped the rail out of the track base. Gave up on the idea of going outdoors again, as I had a good indoor space available. But recently while in a Mole Valley Farmer's store, I noticed that control fence gear is now relatively cheap. A simple switch to 'electrifry' the outdoor rails with such a supply when not operating (all stock parked in an isolated indoor store) should be a good deterrent. I am a little overcommitted at present with the elderly of the family's health problems, so not about to try this myself, but offer it as a thought.

 

It has certainly revived the idea of the OO outdoors for me as a future possibility, as it was great fun the first time around, and the kit to support it is much better now.

[vjoneslong]

Although you can train cats to some extent, I wish you could train them to do their business in my own garden rather than anyone else. But you can't, and they wonder off for hours on end, crossing roads where they get hit by inconsiderate louts speeding at 35 MPH in a 30. I wish my next door neighbor would stop their dog barking although the night but they can't/won't. I wish he would also give up smoking as I am fed up of his smoke wafting into my garden, and taking his radio outside while gardening so I have to listen to his endless lack of taste in the music department. But it's his garden and he can do what he likes.

[Ian Hargrave]

I would tend towards saying it is not just cats, they are the obvious contender, but foxes do not rampage through gardens, in general they are quite quiet, and do leave a lot of mess as do badgers and hedgehogs. Foxes calls may be a give away that they are in the area, but when scavenging they are very quiet indeed, till they go for rubbish bins and bags.

 

Tidy up and the activity will break the habits they have, and check that no nearby garden owners are leaving out food that is getting attention from wild animals. On the whole cats bury the mess, and it is rendered harmless in the soil.

 

The overgrowth clearance will help as will having areas of cleared dug soil, which would attract the cats to do it in there, not all over.

 

A garden that is out of use is an attraction, and anywhere they feel safe will give them the excuse to hang around.

 

A dog in your property may help, it would discourage the cats.

 

Do not get involved with airguns, cross bows, or catapults, the law is clear these days, and such action could end up in court. The RSPCA will help in extreme cases of nuisance, and issue advice, but you must remember the cats are generally other peoples pets and you can take only very limited action against them.  However the RSPCA can take action against strays and feral wild cats, usually trapping and removal.

 

The main thing is to get the garden going, with human presence all the time, checking late at night, and trying to identify any neighbours cat that is a regular, and them approaching the owner with evidence of the inconvenience that the cat causes.

 

Lastly and do not take this the wrong way, or consider it attacking the standards you have, but do get the overgrown area checked very carefully indeed for rats and mice. These may be around in any garden, old, or new property and the cats are natural hunters and will gather there to hunt, or observe the garden as a potential hunting ground.

 

Again clearance and use of the garden will remove mammals from the garden, they will go else where for food. even bird tables should be ceased with these problems, as scattered food attracts squirrels, rats, mice, hedgehogs, and the cats as well.

 

Most other deterrents are a bit suspect, strong smells may work, but the electronic types and gadget ones are to say the least a bit suspect. Also make sure that plants that attract cats are not there, like catnip, or mint in general.

 

It is a real nuisance when this starts, but I suspect it will become a dim memory as the garden and railway are put into use.

 

Stephen

 In the main I agree with you,Stephen but foxes are scavengers and will resort to excavating your garden if they sense food is buried somewhere.They will dig for mice for instance and if you do have them in your vicinity exercise caution in planting anything using fish blood and bone meal as a fertiliser...the scent drives them into ecstasies of excavation. I used to plant out dahlias at just about now ( I've given up on those ) and well remember the hits my setting of the tubers used to take from renard.My secret formula for an effective deterrent was to keep an old plastic jug to hand ,pee in it and lace the base of the plant with its contents. Apparently man scent is unacceptable to them and keeps them away.All I do know is that it works.

 

Incidentally if a fox is in residence nearby,you will know about it.Vixen's urine will discolour and temporarily kill off the grass on your lawn and boy do they stink.There is an unmistakable stench if a fox's refuge/den is close by.

 

I have a large garden on the edge of open countryside and yes I do keep it tidy. All of that is to little avail if others around do not.Two of the bordering properties are unoccupied and untended though I have not seen any trace of a fox for a good while.A mild winter may soon change that because a hard cold one naturally regulates their survival rate.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Ian Hargrave

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

 I broke off midflow in my previous posting as I had a fairly tortuous and extended phone call to deal with...

 

I was particularly thinking of DCC and much improved OO mechanism design as the better kit for outdoor OO.

 

DCC for all of its higher track voltage, permanently full power and alternating waveform, the stay alive augmentation, and options in compact walk about control handsets. Outside for the kind of mainline operation that interests me  - long trains able to perform as protoype - the usual traction will be fairly large, and thus present little obstacle to fitting some 'stay alive' to keep the thing moving smoothly when there's a little railhead dirt that causes interuption to pick up. Better developed as available product in my view than present alternatives involving R/C and on board rechargeable supply for partial or complete dead rail operation.

 

Superior mechanism design goes without saying, I had the then new Bachmann class 45 with its heavy centre motor drive mechanism in 1993 for the last six months of my outdoors OO, and it was the best RTR OO item in service, matching my own adaptions of US HO centre motor drives (of essentially the same design. And now we have a goodly selection of OO RTR - both centre motor diesels and decently heavy steam locos - that will work reliably for traction outdoors with twelve coaches or sixty wagons. (I have done some tests on damp rails.)

 

 

Although you can train cats to some extent, I wish you could train them to do their business in my own garden rather than anyone else...

 That is a spectacularly generous offer, however the 100 miles to Nottingham probably preclude it from being effective for the cat shit I would like alternatively located. But thanks for the thought.

[D854_Tiger]

Cats tend not to **** in their own backyard because they equate the home, they're fed in, with the food store they would maintain if wild, that's also why they tend to bring home anything they kill.

 

On which subject, an untended garden is a huge attraction to rats so cats hanging about may be a sign you have a rodent problem, in which case the cats are doing you a favour.

 

Being surrounded by fields and with neighbours that like to feed the birds (and boy does that ever attract rats) we started to see rather too many rats hanging around until other neighbours acquired a few cats.

 

Have to say the rat problem largely disappeared after that, the local farmers swear by them, which is why there is always a ready supply of kittens for the local kids to be tempted by.

 

Spare a thought for a former colleague in New South Wales, his English wife (not versed in the local wildlife) started feeding the birds, this attracted the mice and that attracted a brown snake.

 

An Eastern Brown snake, a big one, was living under their house and they are the second most venomous snake in the world, one bite from one of those is enough to take out half a cavalry.

[Donw]

It is no myth that cats like to bury their poo. If you don't believe it try digging over and raking to a fine tilth a small patch the cats will soon use it. Apparently you have a garden which is part concrete part jungle. There is nowhere for them to bury it! I doubt whether any cat wants to use a bramble patch as a toilet. I assume they use your concrete as a toilet because all the surrounding gardens have dogs/ feral children/ owners packing water pistols etc. while you garden is probably nice an quiet. Oh yes the other place that is as good as a nice dug over patch as far as a cat is concerned is the sandpit you have made for the children.

 

Cats are quite good for dealing with mice. Mice often pack up and go when a cat comes into the house. Rats can be more trouble as father in law found when their cat brought a rat indoors and released it in the bedroom so he could have fun trying to catch it ( the cat was going to have the fun. FiL didn't think it at all fun).

 

Reclaim your garden and build the railway you will probably sort out the rest as you progress.

 

Don