Menace of Cats

Please appreciate,the solution should be such that in no way it should cause any cruelty to animal like physical injury,death due to poisoning etc.

you could put doors and screens on the house.

Otherwise if you don't want them around but wont kill them off either your going to be stuck with them! Cats know where they can go without getting bothered and will keep coming back.

Perhaps there is a device which emits a frequency that cats detest?

Try a Garden Supply retailer. They sell animal specific repellents, usually a glob attached to a twist tie that can be placed anywhere. Keep away from children.

Cats are also good stir fried, with Oyster sauce.

nvmani, How are you Sir? Are you in overseas or back in India.? What about your teaching dreams ?

* I could appreciate your compassion about doing no harm to the nuisance cats. Good deal of JEEVAKARUNYAM.

* Cats are nocturnal animals and be more active during nights. To me there is something attractive to the cats, which is used to them as a regular habitat.

* The other factor is ,the present house you are occupying should have been unoccupied before your entry for quite sometime- Cats haunt unmanned houses.

* just find out what is attractive to the cats in your campus and try to avoid that.

* As others had rightly suggested you can block the entry via improved closing of entry points.

*The other simple idea is to go for a temporary rented / borrowed dog in your campus [particularly in night hours] for some duration, which will scare the cats and they will simply retreat from entering into your campus. It can be even the artificial barking noise which can repeat periodically.

I hope the idea will qualify to your condition of not harming the cats.

A frank request and diversified forum from the routine Engineering sessions. Regards.

I have a cousin who lives on a farm. She was able to train her border collie to heard all the cats into a corner anytime she was outside cooking. She actually didn't do anything to train the dog directly. The dog observed her shooing the cats away from the outdoor kitchen area and then took over the task quite efficiently. As soon as the cooking was over, the dog let the cats go.

Hello All,

I can attest to the effectiveness of owning Border Collies and having them round up the neighborhood kitties that wander into our yard. Presently. I have 5 Border Collies and a Welsh Pembrooke Corgi. All are terrific herders and are exceptionally bright and hard workers. Heck, my wife says they're smarter than the average Grad Student! LOL

They're also great a detecting mice and giving chase! Just this last week as the outside temps dropped down to 10 degrees F overnight the mice became more active entering the house.....Three nights in a row the Border Collies have actually caught some Field Mice...5 all told!

I'll never again go without owning a Border Collie because they're worth their weight in Gold for their intelligence, loyalty, friendship and hard working traits. Even my Alpha Male Border Collie, Ryan at 8 years age, is my constant companion and goes wherever I go and loves to ride in the vehicles. I swear IF I ever handed over the car keys to him he'd start up the car and drive off! Also, when my wife and I are talking about going somewhere for the day or evening and don't want to bring any dogs, we usually have to talk Pig Latin or backwards to confuse the dang dogs, especially Ryan...yeah they figure out very quickly what you're talking about no matter what!! Smartest dogs I've have ever known and I've had many many different breeds since I was a wee kiddie!

If you have Feral Cats, then obtain a Border Collie to rid yourself of them as well as the mice/rat problem if it exists!!!!!

Have a great sunny day!

Consider a small "house" dog.

Our dachshund Marci (red female standard shorthair 23 pounds) can smell a cat at a distance of 20-30ft. We have several cats that come into our yard from time to time and leave in a hurry when Marci smells them and starts racing around the yard , barking madly. (which satisfies her immensely).

The fences are designed to keep Marci in and the deer out. They are easy for the cats to get over which is good for the cats and probably Marci too. She's fearless and agile and could do a lot of damage to a cat with a bite strength second only to that of a pit bull. She once got a piece of fur out of the rump of a cat that hasn't been back since.

A barrier that will keep her in because of her short legs can easily be stepped over by a fit adult. Dachshunds are easy to train to love people and a bit harder but not impossible to train for general good dog behavior. They will eat just about anything except they tend to prefer a bit of seasoning on raw vegetables and dry popcorn. This suggests limiting their calorie intake to keep them in good cat chasing condition.

Ed Weldon

I suggest a Van de Graf generator. When I was 14 I made one, and it worked quite well.

As to cats, I once started it up while the cat was in a sun spot in the window ledge, The generator was on the dining room table. It accumulated charge and suddenly discharged with a bang to the curtain rod at the top of the window. The cat below was not in the discharge path but was startled in the extreme and exited with a howl with its hair fluffed, probably by hair base muscle contraction.. It would not enter that room from that day on.

Possibly this would work for you as well.

A friend suffered sand and footprints on his car roof while parked in his carport as cats visited. His engineering solution was:- a) Hang many bare thin wires to about 100mm above the car roof all connected together and well insulated. b) Install a pir (passive infra red) sensor to detect the cat's arrival. c) Use the pir to switch on a 800 volt power supply, energising the wires!

The cat never reoffended; it was seen, so survived, but it's rapid departure involved the cat claws so damaging the paint that roof required respraying!

An engineering solution. why not on this forum? I would suggest the pir connect the shock via an ex microwave oven microswitch, from some 10nF at about 1kV fed by a very limited supply. An EHT multiplier from a junk TV or monitor fed from a 110V mains transformer secondary would be safe but shocking.

nvmani

Have you noticed any rats or mice around? If not, that could have a good reason. Treat these animals like you want them to treat you. They are usually very clean and only if poisoned or malnourished will they loose control of there bowls. A healthy cat on the lap can be better than several sick ones in the bush.

Good luck, Ky.

woof, woof, screech.

apply urine of a wolf or hayaena to vicinity of the camp. Cats and goats will flea away.

Never knew about this flea repellent. How does one get this as these are not the usual pets.

I am serious about wolf urine. You can get urine from animal zoo (from wolf cage sand or litter) however, urine from big cats like tigers, leons and leopards can be used. If difficult please solicit only some hair from these species and put arround your camp and it works nice. We have experience we killed a spotted hayoena in north Yemen in accedent we brought its body to the villiage we observe all , donkeys, camels and pets escape away before saw the dead body. People use to put some of its skin to repell pests in the farms like rabbits and monkeys.

We had hyenas on my grand father's farm. I have seen them. But all the farm animals and the smaller ones like rabbits also remained. A few calves did get killed by the hyenas. There was no repellent action that I can recall.

Shake Away 9002020 20oz Cat Repellent Coyote/Fox Urine

from: amazon.com

Human urine sprinkled at the perimeter of the area is an effective cat deterrent.

Orange peel.

Be Careful.....Very Careful.......

Is Del hiding from this post???

My sentiment exactly. where in the heck is Del?

He smelled the urine.

I think dell just used guest,post 29

Go to a hunting supply store, gun shop, camper's world which caters to hunters.

Purchase wolf urine.

Squirt wolf urine on a line, creating a completely closed boundary against the cats.

Wash hands.

Done!

Install a sprinkler head and a irrigation timer just a short intermittent spray of water and they will find another place to hangout.

Our camping supply stores sell LED battery powered lights with and optional red flashing LED. Apparently nocturnal predators don't care for the red flashes and cat's do not up with put either. I suppose the red flashes interfere in their night vision or it's just something they don't understand.

by the way Menace of Cats would be a terrific name for a rock, or pop music band.

They could tour with Cat Power.

My wife is very fond of Cat Power.

This event in your life is likely to be a life changing event, for I suspect you will come to love the cats in spite of yourself.

It happened to me like that.

Your weirdness is showing

I was hiding as I didn't want to exacerbate the problem.....
I wasn't guesting...
Del

By suspending CDs at 5 locations,the cats no more cause problem for the past one week. Finally,it is hoped a solution could be successfully tried out??!!

Strange and unexpected solution well fitted to your conditions. Good finding. Flashing may be a day time affair, how about night hours.? You must be having compound or street lights. Is it? Inspirations from hunter's search flash light mesmerism. Good idea and should be of use to many.

This holds good for night hours also. As rightly observed by you,there are compound and street lights around my house.

I've heard of this being done by gardeners - it keeps birds away from crop vegetables. An excellent way to find use for something that would otherwise be junk. I suspect that cats might gradually become used to it, though only time will tell. It would make for a very interesting thread discssion in it's own right - "Ways to use old CD's". My gut instinct is that there are probably other ingenious uses for the things.

Thank you for your observation,which states:

"I suspect that cats might gradually become used to it, though only time will tell".

In my opinion,the main reason of cats entering the house compound for defecating could be due to their routine habit formation.

I strongly feel that if this habit is broken for few days,cats,out of dire necessity to answer nature's call,will get forced to find alternative locations and form new habit!!

I wish to come back on this subject and report to CR4 forum the experience say after 1 month. Until then,wish me good luck.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year wishes to all.

It will be good to hear feedback, and I indeed wish you well with this.

Have a marvelous (cat-free*) time over the festive period

*Sorry Del, but you know what I mean

Hi nvami,

I hope you don't mind, but I have asked a general question inspired by your excellent suggestion ; http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/47983/Use-for-old-CD-s

Your solution here is effective, and is an admirable way of using something that might otherwise be regarded as 'waste'. Much respect to you for solving two problems in one !

Kris

Hi Kris,

Thank you for suggesting topic for new thread of discussion,which relates to safe e-waste disposal,the the most relevant topic of today.

E-waste disposal industry as with any industry has the potential to be profitable. Disposal of e-waste is also an economic activity, but this needs to be regulated and the workers and the environment protected.

However, as long as it is at the cost of the environment and the workers, it could well prove to be an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

We will meet in the new thread of discussion.

N.V.Mani

Thanks to you, nvami, for prompting my thoughts on the topic. Just recently I was reading a report of illegal waste disposal from the UK. As an example, young kids in places like Brazil (who live off what they can scavenge in rubbish dumps) burn television sets in order to collect the metal components. Needless to say, they inhale the toxic products from burning plastic. Shameful to the West, and a tragedy for the poor.

A grim note to leave on at Christmas, but I don't think it harms any of us to try to bear in mind the needy as we celebrate. The fact that we here can all access CR4 puts us in a privileged position. It's not possible to solve all the worlds ill's at once, so we must be comfortable with mixing enjoyment and doing what we can to address such issues.

I hope everybody has a fantastic Christmas, and we can all emerge invigorated for the challenges of the New Year. Big smiles and best wishes to all.

Kris

I wondered who'd crack first and start dolling out Kristmas wishes...you'll be round singing bloody carols soon I expect...Pass me the Humbugs
Del

PS. Best wishes everyone, have a good 'un.

ROPMFLA ! Oh, you cynical kitty !! Go sit on the naughty step for a 1/2 hour. Tiny Tim will be along soon to give you a right good kicking

Ding, dong, dell,
Pussy's in the well.

Who put him in?
Little Nutkin.

Who pulled him out?
No bugger.

Here is a nice cat story. The female lions seems tame, so I suspect they are in a protected spot.

I generally am for limited or minimal government regulations (please note that I did not say NO government regulation). While coming to such an opinion I had a difficult time thinking about how to handle certain environmental aspects (mainly dealing with pollution and handling unnecessary waste). One idea that came to mind was to require manufacturers to take back the waste from what they produce. In many cases this may not be practical, but others would not be difficult.

For instance, I go to the store and purchase some toy for my kid. It is packaged in a nice attractive, clear, theft-proof plastic container. I give it to my kid who hands it back to me to open....4 hours later I hand him the toy and then have to throw away (or put in the recycle bin) the plastic container. If those making the product and packaging were responsible for disposing of it, then they may come up with a more environmentally friendly package. I can decide not to purchase it based on the packaging which I have done in a few cases, especially if there are similar alternatives available.

My idea would be that retail stores could handle the collection/returning of the waste (packaging in the above example). If you purchased a monitor, used it until ready to dispose of it, then return it to a store which sells similar products who would then return it to the supplier who would then return it to the manufacturer. They would be responsible to return the components to a state of minimal harm (remove toxic substances, etc).

At this point in time, I do not know what impact such a scheme would have on the economies or the environment. It's still a work in progress. But Kris' mention of unknown danger to ignorant individuals trying to make a living gave me an urge to put the thoughts here.

I realize there are may be reasons why it may be more efficient to handle recycling the way it's typically been done, but I'm not convinced the results have been very impressive.

I use aluminum pie plates, on a 2 foot string attached to a steel post. The banging and twirling seems to deter most critters.