The sort of garden visitor you want to have...

Long hiatus ... but no developments to report! The Anti-Cat wire has worked solidly throughout the summer, keeping us 'off reserve' for the local cottery of cats. They've stopped trying and the lack of a series of 'fried cats' lying dead next to the fence has assured the previously hysterical neighbour that we're not 'inhumane' (her words not mine ... illiteracy these days?!?).

We did however have a very nice surprise and and giant of a guest. My partner was just popping out to put some washing up when ... she shouted us all through. The following fella, bold as brass, was sitting (crouched?) in the middle of our drive through to the main garden.

My daughter and son were (understandably) delighted! And they all hastened together to get a REALLY good look at the fella.

At which point they all jumped when he hopped closer to get a really good look at them.

He then hopped underneath the bristol sink (ex University, filled with herbs..) as my biologist other half commented "Oh, thats a good place to live, frog!"

So now my daughter is convinced that 'Thatsagoodplacetolive' is the nice but big frog living in the back garden.

Three cheers for the anti-cat!

NB: I'm still not convinced whether he's a big old frog, or a toad ... he could be either... Answers on a postcard!

Victory! Another Victim joins the cause!

Today, a young lady came to the house asking if we had the electric fence in the back garden. She and her finance lives directly across the back to backs and if our garden (prior to the electric fence) was Sarajevo ... her's is the Battle of the Bulge, The Somme and Omaha Beach all rolled into one ... piles of cat excrement outside the back door ... whole areas of deadened and bleached grass.

Horror.

She's a lovely primary school teacher who is being driven to the edge of Felinicide over the piles of catshit!

Brief chat later and my lone campaign against the legion of cat has doubled in membership ...

Watch out cats, the campaign continues!

Evasion Tactics ... back in the garden.

Since the fence was so effective, we decided to do an alternative appointment. This time we agreed to disengage the electric fence and to see how long habit and the 'wire' detterence kept the cats out of the garden alone.

The answer 3-4 weeks. Only just the other day did we find a dropping in the garden. This is now less of an issue as its getting cold here (less gardening and less time in the back garden for my other half. But I found the above results intriguing. Clearly breaking the felines marking pattern has a serious impact, and I'm impressed with the results.

Still, we'll have to reintroduce the neighbourhood cats to the realities of the wire soon enough. After all, it could be something as simple as an unindoctrinated cat.

Cheap Electric Fence!

One thing always struck me in carrying out the 'electric fence' experiment. While this was a viable option for me as my father had a spare Electric Shepard lying around which could do the job ... but they retail at £120 - which ain't cheap.

In my continuing campaign to help you rid your garden of unwarranted night visitors, I've complied the following list:

1) TALK TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR

Have a 'chat' with the neighbour about erecting the 'cat-wire'. Be aware that one side of your property will be owned by your neighbour. This means that you need their permission to attach the cat-wire along the top of the hedge.

If they don't own cats, they may actually want in, but if they're the 'mommy' of an offending moggy, the best thing to do is explain the level of discomfort and damage that their 'pet' and others are causing.

If they don't agree, then you can still install, but you'll need to run the wire along the 'inside' of the fence. This should be nearly as effective, but the problem (which you're trying to avoid - explain to the neighbour) is that by having to install this way you'll unintentionally 'trap' the cat in your garden. Not what you want, or they!

A low voltage electric fence is used for managing poultry. Therefore anti-cat is an ideal usage. Additionally the wire won't hurt birds (as they don't touch the fence itself) and will only affect cats (and other things climbing over the top of the fence in the middle of the night).

2) PURCHASE YOUR SYSTEM

To install an appropriate system you will need:

1. An Energiser (this is the bit that turns the battery power into a static zap), the best priced I've found is at First Stop Solar called the EVC1200 at just £37.99!
2. A electrical wire, recommend enough to go around the circumference of your garden fence. Check here for 100m of wire for just £6.50!
3. Some insulated connectors, see here at just £4.85 for 20 (you'll need at least one per post of your fence).
4. A 6v Battery: for example here at £27.99!
5. A sign saying 'electric fence'.

3) INSTALL SYSTEM

Attahced the 'connectors' into the tops of your posts. The wire runs around the connectors and can be 'taughtened' by back-looping it through the connectors. Tie off the wire at both ends. The Energiser is connected to the wire (usually with a single blue wire) and the red and black wires are connected to the battery, the earth wire (attached to the earth spike) is stuck in the ground. Attach your 'warning' signs.

4) TURN IT ON

Read the manual, and double check and then turn it on. We used it from 'Dusk til Dawn' and had immediate effect of no cat poo. We've been dropping clear for over 12 weeks now and have live frogs in the garden.

Electric Fence in Suburbia ... Starts and Ends here

Well that was interesting ...

I started this blog to vent some steam, understand more about cats and their impact on the environment, develop and reserch cunning ways of keeping them out of my garden ... there's only one problem - I appear to have won.

The electric wire along the top of the fence is easy to install (my father install it in about 30 minutes), easy to manage (walk outside evening and morning, flick switch, walk in, recharge battery every fortnight), and has proven extremely effective.

We haven't had a single 'excrement' in the garden since a wekk after it went up ... we have heard exactly two yowls in the night. All the cats now simply avoid our garden.

Judging by the fact they still walk along the fence (touching the wire) durig the day, they are clearly able to sense the static buildup in the wire (plus I'm sure they can hear the unit soft ping every 1.5 seconds) and aren't terrified of it.

But they aren't brave enough to come in our garden... clearly they are suspicious that this might be a trap ... a trap? Me? With supersoaker and lemon juice? Never!

There's simply no need.

So that answers it ... are cats wild and untrainable - no. I've trained them within 2 weeks and they've stayed out. Am I cruel? No, the cats know not to come on my fence at night. Do I need repeated expensive pellets, sounders and other 'gimmicks' to keep the cats out? No, I will never need to buy any of that ineffective rubbish again.

Electric fence in Suburbia has succeeded!

Lion Bar - Why Lion pee tablets are useless...

Contrary to popular opinion (that of my neighbour), we've actually tried quite a few 'cat-detterrent' devices before finally succumbing to the electric fence. On the list of tried and tested are the 'Lions Roar' product.

Some quick research uncovered that none other than the 'Cat Protection League' recommend this as the 'ultimate weapon' against nuisance cats.

The advice comes from none other than Derek Conway, CEO of the CPL (there's a mouthful!) and his glowing report of Lions Roar could only lead you to the assumption that he's really good mates with the owner...

... because they're rubbish.

Lion's Roar pellets have a cunning logic to them. Cat's are territorial and mark using pee. Therefore get pee from the biggest cat in the world, soak pellets in it, and this'll have the cats shatting themselves (psychologically rather than physically, although the difference is hard to tell) and leaving your garden for good.

The problem is that this 'smell' detterent requires constant care and attention, lots of 'sprinkling' of the smelly pellets. The box claims that the silent roar will work for up to three months. In the African Savana, during the dry season, this may be so. But in the UK, during our near-continual rainy season - you'll be lucky to get a week!

The pellets ARE reasonably costed at approximately £10 a box, the box is reasonably generous... but they don't work.

The problem is that either the domestic cat takes one wiff of the pellet and craps in simply craps somewhere else in your garden, or (my personal theory) the common in-bred domestic cat has such an addled pretention of its own importance it feels comfortable going pee-to-pee with the King of the beasts!

A further issue is that similar to the 'pee on your own garden' marking trick, its quasi effective and results in my garden smelling of man or lion pee. Or my daughter digging about in my own pee, not ideal...

We have now gone 20 days sans crap thanks to the Electric Fence. This included the 4 day camping holiday ... we haven't heard any "Riowws" from the back garden so we think they've got the message. It take me all of 15 seconds to turn on the 'cat-zapper' as we fondly call it, nothings dead yet (the plethora of zapped dead birds forecast by my soothsayer neighbour hasn't appeared, but maybe she should have paid attention at school) and the only living things zapped so far are:

a) Cats.
b) Me, testing the wire.

And theres a live frog living in my garden (which I might nickname 'the Green Zone')...

Post Weekend report

After a weekend away we've returned an entered the back garden with an air of anticipation. The electric fence has been off all weekend - does this mean 'open season' or has the detterent worked?

On first inspection it looks like the boundary detterent has been a resounding success. We appear to have 'encouraged' the cats to visit elsewhere and stop toiletting in our garden - so far.

Just to highlight, this is a single wire 12V electric fence wired across the top of the fence around the circumfence of the boundary. It give a 'ping' every 1/4 second which is slightly stronger than the ping you receive from one of those 'hair trigger' electrocution games that were popular a few years ago.