Just put a new fish pond in the garden and we have problems with cats and foxes in the night.I don't really want to spoil the look of it with a net over the top and I was wondering if those ultrasonic deterrent things are any good or are they a waste of money. This is the sort of thing I'm looking at
Nodge
Know little about fishkeeping but I knew someone that put trip wires up rund the pond and it stopped the stock being taken by birds.
Nothing will stop cats, but they wont take any significant amount of fish. Cats can occasionally fish but rarely do.
NT
On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:21:10 +0100, snipped-for-privacy@care2.com wrote (in article ):
That depends on the cat.
Magnus, a Maine Coon belonging to us, will happily spend an hour or two digging around in the pond looking for fish. There aren't any, but there are frogs. He lifts them out, without damage, onto the lawn and sits in awe as they hop back into the pond none the worse for wear.
He, on the other hand, ends up stinking of mud and general pond.
Whoever said that cats don't like water.....
Yer average cat ain't that intrerested in fishing - we have four of our own and one or two visitors through the garden and none of them have ever shown the slightest inclination to go fishing. They are, however, quite inquisitive, and often sit and watch the fish. The youngest will dab at the occassional larger fish, but all she gets is a wet face when they turn tail and swim away with a strong flick of the tail. Of course, someone will be along to assert that their cat does fish......
You'll wish you had when Mr Heron comes a visiting. They'll clear a well-stocked pond. I have an artificial underwater island in the middle of my pond, a large piece of plastic about 3ft square supported on bits of plastic pipe - the fish can retreat underneath the island if they feel threatened, and it makes a good place for planting containers.
but don't forget fish can be fairly easily traumatised. 'Never use a hammer to break the ice in winter'.
I use cat repellent spray on boundary fences which seems to help
Neighbour has a cat scarer which worked for a week or so then cat ignored it
Others have used gripper rods on fence tops to inconvenience the pests
I know of several people who having identified the cat have removed all of the crap from their flower beds and returned it to the cats owner for disposal. Does not make for good neighbours however
There are various permanent remedies which involve terminating the cat
All the pets I have had have been contained on my land or on a lead when out
If other people do not control their pets and they harm mine why should I not deal with them accordingly?
However as none of the above deter foxes you may be stuck with the net
Tony
Try laying some 'Silent Roar' around the edges of the pond. WM
I've never heard of cats actually getting in a pond to fish! I've seen them sneak up to the edge and then try and hook a fish out with their paw. My neighbours cat would often come home with a live (well chewed) goldfish and just leave it on the mat.
My problem is really only at night as I work from an office in my garage which is next to the pond during the day. Do herons attack at night? I was hoping someone might have tried these ultrasonic things. I'm just a bit dubious about forking out £25 for something when I can't even tell if it's working or not. I've seen one device which is connected to a hose pipe and uses a movement detector to fire a jet of water at the intruder. Now that one I like (great entertainment value) but it was very expensive.
Nodge
Friend has one and swears by it to stop the blighters crapping in his garden. He does say it eats batteries though (maybe why they appear to stop working after a week) especially if you have kids because his works off a PIR sensor and is constantly on when the kids are in the garden - might be better to look for one that runs off a LV adapter.
Try looking on ebay for 'ultrasonic cat repeller'.
Nodge wrote:
Fantastic, got two one from garden centre years ago and other from Robert Dyas. Do eat batteries if kids are around triggering all the time, but work really well, don't get any cats using my garden as their toilet. Its fun watching a cat stroll acoss the lawn, trigger the device and mearly crap itself as the thing goes off and the cat bolts back to the neighbours.
Catwatch is pretty good
I have two Catwatch devices, a big garden, and three cats. I've found that the best method is to forget the mains adaptor and invest in a decent set of re-chargeable PP3s (e.g.
The newer catwatch has a plastic spike which makes it dead easy to pick up and go and poke in different places in the garden. You might not think that's important to you as your scenario appears to be static, but it can be really useful just moving it a few feet here and there and pointing it slightly up and down. Especially as cats can get used to it being in the same place. As an aside, the plastic spike is incredibly useful and I broke one of mine - emailed Concept Research asking if they sold a replacement, no reply.
A big downside of the catwatch is their lifetime. I reckon they're not nearly as weatherproof as they'd like to make out and you can expect a few years out of one before it packs up - unless it's in a fairly sheltered position. YMMV.
Incidentally not all cats go for fish. I used to keep Koi and I hate nets too. One of our cats, a decrepit cancer-ridden earless beast called Crawford (
Concept do fox deterrents too but I've no experience of them. Foxes, cats and hedgehogs co-exist quite happily in our garden. Well, no they don't. But them happily not co-existing certainly beats telly. The episode Hedgehog and Fox go nose to nose over a pile of sultanas was quite entertaining. The hedgehog won.
I (well, my pond) used to be plagued by cats and I *did* lose a lot of fish to them. Actually I lost frogs too, as cats are natural born killers and seem to just take a swipe at anything that moves - when they are in the mood. I tried cat/vermin repellent (I hear Jeyes fluid works, but never tried it) but in practice I would have had to spray so much of my boundary that it would cost a fortune and affect the wildlife I want to preserve. In my street, pratically every second house has one or more cats so I feel a bit like Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
One thing that has been very successful is a high garden gate, and trellises on the fences. The cats seem to be too fat and/or lazy to jump up to get over. I made the trellis wobbly on purpose (honest!) so when a cat does grab onto it, it shakes. This seems to deter them. As a nice bonus, I now have a crap-free back lawn, though since the frontage of our houses are open-plan, the cats seem to make up for that elsewhere.
Good luck Pete
I'd be tempted to use a couple of PIR motion detectors, a solenoid valve, some hoze and a few spray-heads. Keeps the pond topped-up as well. :-)
Mike
Or for an off the peg solution
Scarecrow:
Forget ultrasonic devices, this is the only cat deterrant I found that works:
"Peter Lynch" wrote
I was looking up solutions to keep cats off our vegetable plot, we have two cats which isn't too bad but our bloody neighbours make very sure they have no clear beds so their sodding moggies come and crap in our garden grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Anyway Renardine was recommended by my dad, but unfortunately it's now banned because, I believe it contained rendered bone oil. I read that Jeyes fluid is effective but as it's not scheduled for use as an animal repellant it is illegal to use. In fact afaik there is no legal chemical repellent for animals. Of course if you were using it do disinfect your fence or flower beds, or maybe deter teenagers - recommended by the police apparently - I can't see how anyone could prosecute.
H
the retribution from actions like this is sometimes quite severe. Would be fair to call it a fools approach.
NT
"Nodge" wrote in news:W25tg.119$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net:
They come for breakfast at sparrers.
How long are your working hours?
mike
I used to work with a bloke who poisoned next door's cat, went round and told them so, and insisted it was illegal and that the police couldn't have him for it.
A series of X-Y infra-red beams linked to a microcontroller and a matrix of pop-up lawn sprinkler heads could prove very entertaining, especially if programemd with a predictive algorith, eg cat moving 4,4 to 5,4 then sprinkler at 6,4 activates.
Owain
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