Neighbours cat is killing all the garden birds

erdd2

clangnuts wrote: »

That is a very cruel thing to suggest. Do you even realise what happens to an animal when it's poisoned with anti-freeze. It suffers a terribly painful death.

Yes I agree and whilst I did not feel the need to state I would never do such, I also did not feel th need to state that I value a childs rights more than a cats and cat lovers and I will always disagree but unlike cat lovers I do not feel the need to go on the attack todefend my beliefs

erdd2

tankgirl1 wrote: »

ha - learn some 'grammar' before having a go on the interwebs at others!

Antifreeze post reported btw

Order, attack, am telling on you...wow tank and girl as so apt

erdd2

If cat lovers treated people the way they treat their cats, the world would be a better place

tankgirl1

erdd2 wrote: »

Order, attack, am telling on you...wow tank and girl as so apt

Please go and troll another board.... We are all fed up of you

sashadesade

My neighbour's cat was a real pain last year because it kept doing this. It used a gap under the hedge at the bottom of the garden as a hidey hole to stalk birds, then it would kill them and leave bits strewn around my garden. The smell of decay was awful and I happen to be very fond of my garden birds so didn't appreciate them being killed.
As for effective methods of deterring them, I found sonic cat repellent devices useless as the cat started coming in the garden a different way. The powder you can buy from garden centres that's supposed to deter them also failed to have any effect. There are only three things that seemed to work for me, those are:
1 - Every morning I'd go out to the patch where the cat likes to sit and thoroughly soak it with water. The cat didn't seem so keen on sitting in a puddle.
2 - Just for good measure, I'd fill a two litre bottle with water and sit it under the hedge where the cat likes to sit. I read somewhere that this deters them, and sure enough it seems to help somehow.
3 - I bought a supersoaker and everytime I spot the cat loitering in the garden I'll go out and give it a squirt to assert that it's not welcome here.
So far this year I've barely seen the cat, I hope it got fed up of being squirted and decided to find a new place to frequent. There have been no dead birds in my garden, so whatever the reason for its absence I'm happy!

There_Goes_Trouble

Let your neigbour who owns the cat know, that you can get quick release safety collars for cats, so if ever they do get caught on a tree the collar snaps open and falls off. If that happens you will probably lose the collar (my boy has lost tonnes but my girl has only lost one in 8 years!) but the cat is safe, and can then wear a bell or two.

Mallotum_X

erdd2 wrote: »

"WE" from one speaks volumes, please get off my case little girl

Oh dear, another sad little man... but as they say what goes around comes around.

Anyway, back to the cat problem, the waterpistol or hose trick can work really well.

There would also be things you can do with in the garden to make it harder for the cat to attack. For instance a feeding table raised well off the ground, working out where he approaches in the garden and consider planting something with thorns in that area. if it comes over the fences then adding some trelis with climbers on it may make it harder for him to get in.

Do you have nesting boxes for them raised up in places the cat cant get to?

Encouraging the neighbour to leave him some food out may also help - not meat based food as that will attract flies etc but dry food by his own back door may well mean he goes back to eat rather than hunt. But some cats just kill things for fun, unfortunately thats going to be hard to stop.

Good luck!

jaqui59

Thanks everyone for your suggestions ... My hosepipe is now on standby, and I will probably try leaving bottles of water in its favourite ambush places, although I think I will probably fail with trying to get my neighbour to fit a collar and bell ...

I dont leave any food out for the ground feeding birds, and my bird feeders are way up high and in the open, plus the nest boxes also, so hopefully im helping to reduce the cats chances of a kill.

YorkiePud_3

It's a really hard situation to be in .... on the one hand, it is heartbreaking to have to keep clearing up the bloody innards/feathers of dead birds from your garden on a regular basis, on the other, you have to keep the peace with your neighbour ...

There's a cat living in my street who is a regular hunter. I once saw him take down 6 starlings in my garden in one day. Some, he part-ate, others he just carried away into the hedge.

I spend a LOT of money feeding the birds in my garden, so it was really upsetting. (The bird table, feeding arches etc are all as cat-safe as possible, all out in the open and not near hedges. I've even been known to grease the stakes with vaseline to make it slippery for cats to climb up). Sometimes the mess he left behind caused me to retch .. and I can imagine how someone with kids would feel if their little ones saw that sight on a regular basis.

BUT, before anyone says anything, I DO LOVE CATS .... !!
I have three indoor cats I have rescued over the years and would never hurt one ... I've called this ginger sod every name under the sun, I'll be honest, but I would never do anything to cause him harm.

I tried all kinds of things ... throwing stones to land where it made a bang (not near him, but on a corrugated shed roof) to try and scare him out of the garden. Bottles filled with water ... that plant called scaredy cat which is supposed to be so abhorrent to them that they steer clear, spraying with water. Nope, nothing worked.

I spoke to his owner, explained it was really getting a bit much having to clean his mess up at least 4 times a week from my lawn and said whilst I knew it was a natural hunting instinct, I really needed to dissuade him from coming into the garden.

Having heard all kinds of horror stories about cats being hung by their own collars, there was no way I would ask her to put one on him ... as I say, there were days I could happily have said I detested him, but I didn't want to see him hurt.

A friend online said, "Why not just yell at him ... ?" I thought she'd gone mad ... but, I had a word with his owner and said if it was okay by her, when he did come into the garden I was going to rush out, shout, scream, wail etc to try and scare him so that he felt my garden wasn't a good place to be!

I did talk to my other neighbours too, explaining if they heard someone screaming like a banshee, not to call the police and that it was only me! They all thought I was crackers (and the first few times I went racing out at him, shouting and making growly noises, I thought I had lost the plot myself!) ... but it has worked!

It only took a few times doing it ... and I didn't get close to him, but I went running out as though I was going to, whilst giving it full blast. I must have put the fear of God into him because we are about a year on now and he NEVER comes into my garden!
I'm home all day and have security lights outside that come on at night if they detect movement and he hasn't set them off, so I think I can say it's done the trick!

In fact ... LOL ... if I am walking down the street and he is walking towards me on the same side, he will actually cross the road, hunker down and wait for me to pass before moving on. I never shout at him though, just to reinforce that it's okay with me for him to be there, just not in my garden!!

Since then, I have had one more cat taking birds from my garden and I tried my banshee act on that one too ... he came twice more and hasn't been back again although he does walk past the driveway but he carries on and doesn't come in so it looks like it's done the trick there, too!!

When ginger was coming in the garden, the birds stopped coming as much but they're back now in plentiful numbers from dawn to about 8pm at night, feeding. They all brought their babies in to feed again this year and it is lovely to hear them singing again, so it's worth a shot!