How to keep neighborhood feral cats from pooping in my compost and garden?

We have a whole lot of half-feral cats that waltz through our yard.

They've even made a cat path. Think deer path, but cats. There's a permanently depressed area in our grass where they walk every day. They poop in our lawn (near where I'd dig more garden). They poop in my raised beds. They poop on my kitchen scrap compost piles. They even--brazenly--poop on my leaf piles--so it's not just bare dirt that's attractive. Basically, I can't control where they poop.

I REALLY don't want to expose my family to toxic cat poo bacterias and parasites. I have little kids, too. So... what to do?

I have a small 10 x 20 or so chain link enclosure where I normal throw my compost bits. I took the door off the front to make it easier to access, but I could put it back on and garden in their. It's right underneath a walnut tree, however. Allelopathy, bleh. But I can try.

I can... put electric polynet around my garden where I would have put it anyway? But then I have to but polynet.

Erm... makeshift greenhouse that I don't really need?

Uh... thin the herd of cats? (Distasteful but...?)

Spread urine everywhere and hope they dislike it enough to stay away?

What have you done? Or what would you do?

Well, I like cats, but I also understand cats. They respect The Big Cat and nothing else. Fawning humans are their playthings.

My starting point would be to mark my territory as The Big Cat. This means going to an ethnic grocery and grabbing big, cheap bags of cayenne pepper. Not the weenie stuff in the supermarket aisle. The genuine stuff is bear spray in a bag. Sprinkle a good layer on the cat path and anywhere else you want to break the habit. Do not inhale, and do not rub your eyes either.

The first thought that came to mind was "free compost!" I'm all for the free poop and pee. However your health concern sounds quite reasonable, and I wouldn't want them in certain areas of my garden or yard either.

Do y'all have, or have y'all considered having, a dog? My neighbor has quite literally a heard of cats, and they hardly ever cross over to our property even though my dog is hardly out. They've seen him a few times, and he pees on quite a few areas close to the property line because, presumably, he likes marking his territory. I second Douglas' thought--a deterrent may go a long way to discouraging them from being near your property.

R West wrote:Uh... thin the herd of cats? (Distasteful but...?)

I have a friend who's a naturalist and professional bird photographer*. He would totally vote for live trapping and handing them over to the authorities. They kill huge numbers of song birds which are in huge decline due to loss of habitat, food supply, environmental toxins and diseases like bird flu.

It would be interesting to know how many of those female feral cats have been neutered? If the answer is "none of the them", it makes control a more pressing issue. Simply chasing them off your property, won't solve the overall pressure.


*http://www.naturalimagescanada.ca/  - warning, gorgeous bird pictures that will suck you in...

Jay Angler wrote:

R West wrote:Uh... thin the herd of cats? (Distasteful but...?)

I have a friend who's a naturalist and professional bird photographer*. He would totally vote for live trapping and handing them over to the authorities. They kill huge numbers of song birds which are in huge decline due to loss of habitat, food supply, environmental toxins and diseases like bird flu.

It would be interesting to know how many of those female feral cats have been neutered? If the answer is "none of the them", it makes control a more pressing issue. Simply chasing them off your property, won't solve the overall pressure.


*http://www.naturalimagescanada.ca/  - warning, gorgeous bird pictures that will suck you in...

Second this! I love my two indoor cats, but outside cats roaming the neighborhood are an invasive species. I spoke with my city's animal services a while back and they said they would come pick up a cat if I trapped it for them first. They then make sure the cat is spayed/neutered and make the owner pay a fee or adopt them out to a new person. I might have more hesitation if my city had to euthanize unadopted pets, but that's a separate issue.

If you have that many cats visiting, and you haven't deliberately made a cat oasis, there's got to be reasons they choose your place. And if you remove the current group and don't change what's keeping them around, you'll draw another group.

How's your rodent population? Mice, rats, voles, chipmunks, etc. Do you keep bird feeders? Is the only reliable source of nearby water in your garden? Does your place have the only cat-appropriate cover around? Do all the neighbors have dogs and you don't?

Ammonia is supposed to be a great deterrent.   Spray it around the garden. Cyan works too, that's what I use to keep squirrels out of my garden.  It doesn't seem to have any affect on the soil, or plants.  If I had little ones I would probably go with the ammonia. It would be quite painful if one of your kiddos ended up with pepper in there eyes.
My work sells, I think it's a deer denaturant. It's a sprinkler that has a motion sensor.  I think this would teach the cats to steer clear of your yard.
If you have access to a cat trap (may be able to borrow on for your local SPA). I would probably start getting rid of them.  I love cats. I can't stand irresponsible pet owners! It made me quite sad, but I have had to deal with this problem in the past. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
Sorry for your troubles. Good luck.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:My work sells, I think it's a deer denaturant. It's a sprinkler that has a motion sensor.  I think this would teach the cats to steer clear of your yard.

Wow, thanks Jen! Years ago I saw these in the Lee Valley Tools catalogue. Brilliant concept! Then they disappeared. I had no idea they are still available.

Thanks for all the ideas! And for seconding some of my thoughts.

Yeah, if I could think of a way to consistently compost cat poop and actually be sure I'd get rid of the bad stuff, I'd do it. I do lots of worm composting and I LOVE using waste to fuel my plants, but I just can't think of a way to make it happen consistently and safely in this situation.

During the busy growing seasons I work at a friend's farm off/on when I can, and there was a woman who used to work there who gardened elsewhere in her spare time as well. Too many cats pooped in her other garden and she ended up getting some kind of (something, forget the details, but probably toxoplasmosis) in her eyes while she worked. She had partial blindness/blurred vision for a month or two after that. Ick.

We have an abandoned property just behind us where the feral cats probably shelter (and breed). Saw some kittens this last year. We're also pretty sure the elderly neighbor lady nearby feeds them. In-laws have a couple live traps they've used for rats and groundhogs and such that we could probably borrow.

We'll start with deterrents (try a few of your suggestions, thanks!) and then try to trap them over time as well, at the very least get them spayed/neutered. We do like cats, but like any animal, when they start breeding indiscriminately and taking over, the population needs some control.

(On that note: The saddest deer I ever saw lived on Jamestown Island, the historical site, where there's no hunting allowed. They were the skinniest, mangiest deer I ever saw, with fur coming out in patches and bones showing through--all because there's absolutely no hunting on the island. No population control at all, and no natural predators. And those animals suffered because of it.)

R West wrote:We'll start with deterrents (try a few of your suggestions, thanks!) and then try to trap them over time as well, at the very least get them spayed/neutered. We do like cats, but like any animal, when they start breeding indiscriminately and taking over, the population needs some control.

I personally think you are on the right track. Feral cats are, to be blunt, human introduced and in some contexts an invasive and destructive species. We did this, and when it gets out of hand I think we are responsible for cleaning up our own mess. None of this is pleasant, I must admit.

R West wrote:Yeah, if I could think of a way to consistently compost cat poop and actually be sure I'd get rid of the bad stuff, I'd do it. I do lots of worm composting and I LOVE using waste to fuel my plants, but I just can't think of a way to make it happen consistently and safely in this situation.

To what ends are you willing to go??? Use an outdoor cooking stove and get a sturdy second hand pot and label it "cat shit only." Find out the temp and time to kill the viruses and intestinal parasites (some of those have very resistant covers on them during certain stages of growth if I'm recalling correctly). Gather up the shit and make a pot of stew that you can add to your compost now that it's safely sterilized. Go the mile and get a used pressure cooker. If we get a coon invasion (people are known to drop trap savvy coons off in our area, and they don't know the food sources and see our chickens as low-hanging fruit - we can legally cull them as we sell eggs as a farm product. I pressure cook them and feed them to the chickens!)

and wrote:

On that note: The saddest deer I ever saw lived on Jamestown Island, the historical site, where there's no hunting allowed. They were the skinniest, mangiest deer I ever saw, with fur coming out in patches and bones showing through--all because there's absolutely no hunting on the island. No population control at all, and no natural predators. And those animals suffered because of it.)

Then they get diseased and spread the disease to humans or animals that can spread it off the island - yep - we've got that situation on an island near us, and some people were up in arms about the planned culls to deal with them and save the island ecosystem. So far it looks like the environmentalists along with the Indigenous people and Federal Parks people have won that battle - the cull will happen, they will "help" the plant life recover with judicious assistance, and the native deer will eventually repopulate because deer swim fairly well and Mother Nature abhors a vacuum. The island used to be the local Indigenous Pharmacy, and they'd really like to see that aspect recover. The cull is being done as humanely as possible, but nothing's perfect. I agree with what Douglas says - we created this - (in our case by humans culling cougars and introducing a non-native deer), and we need to fix it.

Perhaps because of being a lifelong farmer, perhaps just being a realist.

Animals that have been domesticated, deserve some human care and comfort. We acculturated them, they have become our human responsibility. Animals, that have been born and raised "wild", are also sentient beings who also deserve respect. But also deserve our treating them as they are. Groundhogs, rabbits, possums, raccoons, rats that come into our gardens are generally not welcome and we deal with them. Hawks that take off our chickens are often delt with in various ways. "Wild" cats and "wild" dogs are the same. They are not pets. They are not any cuter than any other "wild" animal. They are just what they are, predators. And oft times, very nasty predators. Wild felines are just wild, with little difference between lions and smaller cats. Wild canines are just wild, with little difference between dingoes, wolves and dogs. And, when necessary, I would treat any of them accordingly.

Jay Angler wrote:

R West wrote:Yeah, if I could think of a way to consistently compost cat poop and actually be sure I'd get rid of the bad stuff, I'd do it. I do lots of worm composting and I LOVE using waste to fuel my plants, but I just can't think of a way to make it happen consistently and safely in this situation.

To what ends are you willing to go??? Use an outdoor cooking stove and get a sturdy second hand pot and label it "cat shit only." Find out the temp and time to kill the viruses and intestinal parasites (some of those have very resistant covers on them during certain stages of growth if I'm recalling correctly). Gather up the shit and make a pot of stew that you can add to your compost now that it's safely sterilized. Go the mile and get a used pressure cooker. If we get a coon invasion (people are known to drop trap savvy coons off in our area, and they don't know the food sources and see our chickens as low-hanging fruit - we can legally cull them as we sell eggs as a farm product. I pressure cook them and feed them to the chickens!)

I'll definitely keep that in mind for permie ways to deal with indoor cat poop! I hadn't found any methods I was completely happy with yet, but that'll go in the toolbox in the back of my brain.

In this case, since they're feral outdoor cats, I'm not willing to go that far. Their population needs some control anyway... and I'd rather get to the point where I don't have to keep maintaining the status quo with lots of extra time. (I'm also pretty pragmatic about animals, though I'm careful what I say around people I don't know.)

Besides, my toddlers are running around in the yard, and they're not quite old enough to get the concept of "look where you step."

I have similar situation. The fowl smell of cat  **** while you're picking beautiful tomatoes to eat is a horrible experience that happened to me a couple times last year.

I've been worried about the parasites myself and I honestly have kind of given up. It's their turf and they're out there much more than I can be. My neighbor scares them away, but it doesn't work at all. They'll just come right back when he's not around. There's a high cat population from all the people feeding them and where do we expect them to poop? I knew old timers who would just kill them and it definitely solves the problem, but I'm not interested in that solution. The problems caused by that mentality, of going to war with nature, is what brought many of us to permaculture. Ideally we wouldn't be feeding so many, but I can't control that.

Spraying or laying down smelly stuff isn't a great solution because it washes away in the rain. Laying chicken wire on the ground stops them from digging but they'll poop right on it.

1. Make it suck to poop where you don't want them to go, your beds and compost. Use physical barriers and fill the space up with plants or things in the way, thorny things, brush piles.

2. Make it amazing to poop where you want them to go. If our neighbors are going to keep feeding them and we're not going to kill them, then they have to poop somewhere. A crazy but real solution I believe would work is to give them a fantastic alternative to the beds/compost you made annoying to poop in. Make an outdoor litter box and keep it clean. Use sand or something primo for them. I refuse to pickup cat poop but I believe this would work. The people who feed the cats should be the ones to do this as they cause the problem for their neighbors.

One of my neighbors has motion sensor alarms to keep them away because their nextdoor rowhouse neighbor feeds them. It's so annoying to listen to but I bet the cats hate it even more than I do since they like to be stealthy.

Please DM me if you find a low input effective solution. I know I'm moving to more land soon, so I'm not losing sleep over it.

If you have a second compost pile that you only use for flowers and other non-food items,  you should be able to mix it right in there.

Perhaps a fence, a good dog house, and a dog?
Even a smaller active dog will keep the cats moving along.
Low tech, high empathy, traditional, biologically based solution.
You can easily train the dog to poop where you can pick up that poop.
There's lots of dogs in your local shelters that would be happy to help.