The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Wildlife => Topic started by: ruralliving on May 04, 2012, 09:02:41 am
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Our neighbours have recently acquired two cats and they have taken to fouling in our hay.
We have several problems with this, firstly I'm pregnant and my husband works long hours so I have to hay the animals myself and despite wearing gloves I constantly feel at risk. I worry that everything I touch is contaminated.
Secondly it's costing us a fortune in hay, it's £4 a bale around here and we've had to throw lord knows how many out as a result of the fouling.
Thirdly we have to get by now on what hay we have till the next crop, it was going to be tight with this recent spell of wet weather as it is, without the loss of multiple bales.
And lastly, frankly, it's disgusting. Clearing up after your own animals is one thing, having to clean up after someone elses isn't high on my agenda right now!
It's going to cost an arm and a leg to seal the barn, and I'm worried about the effect it will have on the hay, especially when we get newly cut hay to store later in the year. Does anyone have any suggestions or any advice on what we can do? We have asked them to provide an outside litter tray, but they have the 'it's not our problem' attitude to the whole thing.
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Sorry you are having this trouble - not sure what you can do about the neighbours...but it's something Ive been worrying about for next year, having just got a cat and going into lambing for the first time next year. I had planned to put a tarp (you know the cheap lightweight ones) or two over the top and weigh down with tyres. Hopefully it will still be able to 'breath', but horizontal surfaces covered. I'm sure there will still be a vulnerable shelf, but the majority will be rendered unatractive to cats hopefully? I'm sure someone with more cat experience will be able to tell us a smell or plant that cats hate? Good luck, Fi
Neighbours sound grumpy, but also I think it might quite hard to change a cats pooing habits re 'wild pooing' to litter tray? Our rescue cat came with a litter tray habit which I am keen to change to an area in our garden but been told that is not likely.
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Can you put something that really smells cytrus in the barn or around the hay. If ever my cat hated anything it was the smell of lemons or oranges or strong lemon cleaners when i washed the floor
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You are right to worry. If they were your cats you could keep them well wormed, but it sounds as if your neighbours are not the sort to make sure their cats are not a danger to others, including your unborn child, from toxoplasmosis. Of course the contaminated hay is also a danger to your animals, but the main concern here is you and your baby.
Is it possible that your husband could catch the cats and worm them? That would be the first step. He, or someone else, needs to help with decontaminating the barn so you are not exposed to cat faeces.
Once you are down to uncontaminated hay you can cover the stack with a tarpaulin - if it was going to sweat it would have done it by now.
Next you need to deter the cats from thinking your barn is an ideal place to hang out and to use as a toilet. I am a great believer in the water pistol - it doesn't hurt the cat but they hate being splashed, but it does mean you need to lurk around the barn for a few days armed with the water pistol.
Legally, I think cats are exempt from a duty of control so your neighbours' attitude, whilst unpleasant and irresponsible, is within the law. However, I'm not a lawyer, so it could be worth seeing if you could at least compel them to keep the cats regularly wormed.
For your peace of mind, it might be worth taking a sample of the cat faeces to a vet to see if they are carriers of toxoplasmosis, and if they do have worms - this would be fuel to use in your discussions with your neighbours.
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Cats also hate pepper , cats can be made to dissappear, let the neighbours know that you have rat poison down that is harmful to cats and you will not be held responsible for their deaths, learn to use a catapult,
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As i understand the legal side of things cats are not the respossability of the owner once they leave the house so you will struggle to have recompence with them. This also works in your favour as well though. You are entitled to trap and dispose of the cats as you see fit! I am not suggesting whole sale slaughter but the cats protection charities will come and collect them. You are also allowed to shoot them on your land, I'm sure you don't want to do this do your neigh bours know that? These are very drastic measures and would not endear you to your neighbours one little bit but you don't have to read much about toxoplasmosis and you'll see that is a small price to pay. Perhaps they should read up on it as well.
As I recall toxo can be inhaled as well as ingested so wear a mask and at your next midwife visit explain the situation to them because they will certainally test you for problems if you want. as for feeding the hay to stock. No problems what all so long as the stock is not pregnant at the time of feeding,
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Toxo is so unfunny that I think you should tell the neighbours that the health of your unborn child has to come in before the interests of their rambling cats. I would tell them, though.
Then I'd take pretty drastic steps. This is a serious win-lose situation which you cannot lose.
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The tarpaulin is a good idea as is the one about worming them, and the one about actually testing the cat faeces for toxo is even better. After all, if they are carriers then you then have a reasonable argument to tell your neighbours that it would be neighbourly of them to keep the cats in until at least after the baby is born.
If the cats arent carrying it, then that will lift a weight off your shoulders in respect of disease at least.
You clearly should not take some of the more extreme advice on here shooting or poisoniing the cats. One it would be cruel, and two, cats are covered by the law and their owners might sue you.
On the upside, if you have the cats you are less likely to have rats and mice spreading their own diseases or worse, chewing through electrical cables etc....but once you have the evidence re the specific toxo risk, the neighbours will really have to act if the test is positive.
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A cheap deterrent is garlic, fresh cloves, break them into separate cloves and scatter over the hay, add fresh every few days, that should put them off, and won't harm the hay or you, hope this helps.
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Cats faeces is also dangerous to pregnant ewes if they are carrying toxo, I did research it once and am pretty sure it's young cats that are a problem not old,?
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Borrow a couple of Terriers or Whippets, they'll frighten the cats away :o Tell your neighbours that you have them and can't be held responsible for damage caused etc.
Truly, the well being of your baby is paramount and you must not be nervous about keeping the cats away by any means.
We have a large ammount of feral cats around our holding and the presence of dogs seems to keep them away. So, don't be diffident about this, tell the neighbours to keep their cats within bounds, explain why and let them know that you will do whatever is neccesary to protect your child!! (If I were nearer I'd come with you :))
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Cats faeces is also dangerous to pregnant ewes if they are carrying toxo, I did research it once and am pretty sure it's young cats that are a problem not old,?
Thats right, if the cats are young they are much higher risk of being carriers. If these cats are older they are unlikely tho not impossible to have it as they build up immunity. And yes the toxo can cause abortion in sheep if they are fed contaminated forage.
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I would trap them and send them on a long long journey no messing with irresponsible owners.
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Try not to worry too much and speak to your midwife/health visitor if you are worried as a test can detect if you are already immune to toxo.
The cat protection have a good leaflet as does the nhs about cats and pregnancy after a surge apps z20 yr ago when pregnant owners of cats where wrongly advised to have them euthanised.
A cat with toxo will only pass the carrier oocysts in faeces for a short while. The faeces needs to be between 24hrs and a few days old to be contagious so cleaning a litter tray daily should not hold any risk.
The highest risk of toxo is from raw meat so wear gloves for handling it and cook thoroughly. Wash veg with soil on thoroughly as there is a risk with this. Also unpasturised milks and cheese which is why it is advised not to eat it during pregnancy.
In my job we handle ill cats daily and treat I'll cats so pregnancy assessments are carried out thoroughly ad our company are very strict on following h&s rules. While pregnant I was advised gloves as a precaution for litter trays but the risks were still seen as very low.
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We lost two lambs and nearly the ewe last year to toxo. Not nice
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I'm just thinking, I'm sure there is a product to keep cats off the garden available from vets. It's called something like "grass-off". I remember a nurse using it to keep her own cats off veg patch but she moved area so unable to ask. May be worth a phone call to vet if still stuck with hay problem.
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Thank you very much for all the replies.
We have in the short term sorted and covered the hay with a tarpaulin which seems at the moment to be keeping them at bay. They are so persistent it's not true. We do have a dog, but he's more of a house pet and they are overnighting in the barn when he's safely tucked up by the fire.
We are going to attempt to chicken wire what parts we can to allow airflow but prevent the cats from getting in. We are also going to speak to the neighbours about this again. No one wants to be at war with their neighbours but you are utterly right, our unborn child is the priority and I am unwilling to take any risks, especially when they are imposed upon us by other peoples animals on our property.
They are both young cats, they were adopted as kittens from a rescue and kept in for the first few months, so it's only now they are allowed out and getting bolder that we are having problems. We have a huge range of nesting tits, finches, sparrows and robins too, which I adore and feed, so I'm dreading the day they start picking of the wildlife. They aren't quite there yet confidence wise.
Why on earth does anyone have cats? I guess because they crap in and ruin neighbours property and not the owners!
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Why on earth does anyone have cats? I guess because they crap in and ruin neighbours property and not the owners!
I have cats to keep on top of the vermin that comes from having livestock, so that I don't have to use poisons or chemicals round the animals or kids :-\ Please believe me when I say I am, have always been and will always be a dog person - but cats do have their own charm and appeal - honest ;)
BUT, before the riot starts I can totally see where you're coming from - baby has to come first so I definitely don't think you're being unreasonable in that respect, but I'd say that to try and keep a cat from going where it wants to is neigh on impossible - if they can get their head in, they're in :o
This will sound totally mad, but lion poo is a good thing to put down to stop cats coming near. If you don't have a local zoo or safari park, you can buy it in dried and pelleted form to put down. The theory is that the cats smell another bigger and more dominant cat and don't come close - we tried it (in the days pre-cats) and it seemed to work (but hiding and squirting with water pistols is far more effective and you feel like you're getting a bit of payback without hurting the cats ;) ;D)
Hope you manage to sort it with your neighbours and good luck for babies arrival - is it your first & do you have long to go ?
Karen :wave:
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Thats a good point HH and is the reason we have stable cats. Just as dangerous for a wee one to find some rat bait as the risks now re toxo.
Im not sure the rescue orgs test for toxo, they do for a few things but dont mention that on the CPL site.
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When our resident owl got killed by a lorry there was an explosion in the rat and mouse population so we keep a couple of ferals which do a fair job but at the expense of some fledglings. It's a tricky balance
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We are still having problems with the cats. After a detailed investigation of the law it seems that the cats have a legal right to crap and roam where ever they like, and that removing, trapping or shooting them is totally illegal.
It seems we have only a few options.
1. Just keep going accepting ruined hay, lost money, lost hours of work clearing the mess (I found they'd got under the tarp this morning and messed everywhere, that's another 3 bales wasted and another 2-3 hours work sorting and clearing it up for my husband) and hope that I don't get ill, we will sue to the hilt if anything happens to me or our child.
2. Spend a fortune sealing the barns, we are using one barn at the moment, but later in the year we will need to use 4 to house the whole winters hay and I will still be pregnant, so that's 4 x barns to seal, which is going to cost us about £6000 we estimate (on top of purchasing all the things we require for our first baby!). Even when I am no longer pregnant under no circumstances do I want my child rolling around in cat crapped hay!
3. Get a big mean nasty tom cat in the vague hope that it doesn't crap in our hay and beats up the others therefore keeping them off.
4. Get a yard dog (another dog with a baby on the way, especially an aggressive outside one isn't high on the agenda).
Any other legal suggestions? I have tried encouraging our dog to chase the cats, but he's not quick enough, sharp enough or motivated enough to do it!
We have also looked into all sorts of sonic devices, 'get-off's', lion poo, etc, all of them by accounts are a waste of money as they don't work well or consistently. We don't want to have to spend a fortune on things that don't work before giving in and sealing the barns. Someone suggested covering the hay in chilli powder, which apparently cat's hate, until I pointed out that our animals would hardly eat it covered in chilli either!
It seems the law is only on my side if something terrible happens to me or our baby, regardless of our financial loss, or time/worry spent over the problem. I'm frankly disgusted. If our dog was doing to their property what their cats are doing to ours, even without the health risk, we'd have the dog warden and the council on our backs and we'd have fines and we'd have to keep picking him up from the council pound until such time as they got fed up and just took him away!
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Did you try my garlic suggestion? Cheap and effective. Or get a jack Russell! Personally I'd rather the garlic!
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Garlic is no good. We have one animal who is very allergic to garlic, we've had to go to great lengths to find a suitable feed free from it (they seem to put it into everything) and two who hate it, so covering the hay is it isn't going to work too well if we actually want to use it!
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I do not know how to keep the cats of but I bought hay from a different place a few years ago
and ended up with ewes aborting lambs.
I had the ewes blood tested and found they had anti-bodies to toxo (cant spell) the ewes were
fine the next year but it cost me in lambs.
But your health and the health of your children is more important.
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Getting your own Tom cat could work - it should definately help if your territory is 'defended' by a resident cat ;) The cat's protection league usually have ferel cats available for re-homing if you didn't want a 'pet' as such.
The only other thing I can think which might help would be to make them a litter area somewhere ???
It wouldn't solve the problem of the mess as such, but hopefully it would encourage them to go where you want them too, rather than on your hay. You could just make a square frame (old bits of timber ?) Fill half with dirt or sand and half with some of the soiled hay.
Good luck,
Karen :wave:
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I am just amazed at their attitude. Yes, cats are different in the eyes of the law but I would be mortified if my cat did anything like that!
How about one of thos sonic devices which scare cats away? My mum had a cat going through her garden and crapping and it stopped that.
This is definitely not what you want to be dealing with now.
Helen
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As someone who never liked small dogs I wasn't that keen on OH getting a Jack Russell X from the Blue Cross. I've changed my mind, and noticed several local farmers also have one. As an all-round companion and vermin controller he's great.
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Bit of an update for you all. We went away last weekend for a family wedding, we got back to find out that one of the cats had been run over on the road, the other has gone missing. Luckily for us both were seen after we left and were gone before we got back! So we've skipped being accused of being in anyway involved. We are so soft we can't even bring ourselves to shoot the rabbits eating our grazing, so it would have felt rather insulting I think to be accused of deliberately harming the cats, but as we had complained several times I think we would probably would have been. I am sorry they have lost pets, but I am also relieved that we haven't got to battle with cat mess everywhere, at least not for a bit anyway! I'm sure they will eventually be replaced!
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It's sad but good for you :thumbsup: If they replace the cats then start scaring them off the very first time they try to set foot over the boundary - as kittens they will soon learn :) :cat: The water pistol I suggested really does work and causes no harm to the cats (I love cats)
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If the problem arises again you might want to try something like this.
http://www.primrose.co.uk/spray-repeller-p-1907.html?cPath=24_312&src=cat_box (http://www.primrose.co.uk/spray-repeller-p-1907.html?cPath=24_312&src=cat_box)
I used to have something similar to scare herons away from my pond. It worked well. The only problem I found was that I used to forget it was switched on and get soaked myself when I went into the garden ;D
Sally
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Lemons and pepper usually work. Sorry to hear of your troubles. You mention the lasidasical owners approach?
Rather than you clearing up their animals mess' - perhaps you could knock on their door everytime it happens and get them to come and clear it up. Might get them to be a little more pro-active? I'd also be charging them for the loss in hay.
If not, a friend tried this and it worked for her http://www.deteracat.co.uk/ (http://www.deteracat.co.uk/)
Hope you get it sorted!
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You say you're soft, which is a good thing in many ways but you need to toughen up if they replace the cats. Who knows why they went missing, well one of them, perhaps you weren't the only one who had a problem with them and the other 'victim' took action.
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The thing to do is to exploit the cats' natural hygienic nature. Yes. I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, given the circumstances, but bear with me.
Cats will not foul where they eat. If the missing cat turns up in your hay, start feeding it - in the hay. Leave a bowl of dry food out and move it every few days all around your hay stack. As a bonus, the cat will keep down the rats and mice that you will have in your hay (and you will have them, I'm afraid). The more the cat feeds there, the less it will foul and the more it will hunt.
Mostly, cats pick up the parasite from eating infected rodents. Mice and rats are notorious for their "nibble and dribble" method of eating, so if anything, they are your real problem. Cat faeces are not contagious for two days after they are deposited, so clean up as soon as you see them at the same time as the feeding programme. That way, the cysts will not have had time to develop and become infectious.
This is incredibly concerning for you, I can tell. When you have a small child, toxoplasmosis is a real and present worry. It isn't something that is tested for in rescue centres, for the simple reason that it is a parasite that occurs in most animal's faeces, including human. Astonishingly, it is estimated that 50% of the world's population carry this parasite.
This isn't the cats' fault, honestly. I can understand your frustration and worries, but try and see it from the cat's POV. There is a cold and wet garden or field, or nice, warm and dry place to go to the loo. Which would you choose? Neither they nor their owners are doing this deliberately to annoy you or put your family in danger. It is more a case of impotence, I think, on the part of the owners, and nature on the part of the cats. I'm not trying to downplay your hair-tearing frustration, anger or concern, really I'm not. What I'm trying to do is give you a solution where everyone wins.
It is very difficult to stop cats wandering around. If they are going to come onto your property, and it is almost impossible to stop them, make use of them, work with them. It is worth a couple of boxes of cat food, surely?
Best of luck.
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I see your point, and it has been suggested we put cat food out in the hay, but we were worried about mice/rats eating it before the cat gets there. Will we end up just feeding the mice and rats? I assume they will eat cat biscuits?
Luckily for us the other cat hasn't turned up so we are worry free at the moment. I strongly suspect it's tucked up in front of some generous old ladies fire around the corner whilst she feeds him tinned salmon and scratches his chin!