Deterring Digging Cats in the Garden

First of all, I DO like cats...however I do not like them digging in my gardens and finding every new inch of churned up soil and leaving their surprises!!! I have tried every repellent and barricade available to no avail.

Last winter I came up with this: When I pruned my roses in January I saved all the trimmings and threw them in a wheelbarrow and let the leaves dry up and fall off. The ones with lots of thorns work best. I let them sit for about a week then shake all the leaves off and discard. Then I cut the canes into assorted sizes and sprinkle them around any barren soil and empty spaces. I also make a border of them around my beds until I am ready to plant. After I plant any new plants I make an edging around the new plantings out of these thorny pieces. After the cats step on these just once, they do not return to that spot!!! It has worked fantastically and it is free. As the new plants grow I gradually remove the thorny sticks and save them to use over and over. This has been immensely successful.

I also set aside an out of sight area where the cats ARE free to do their thing. Any droppings I find elsewhere are immediately placed in this cat friendly area. Cat's being "markers of their territory" will gravitate to this area and learn that this is where they are free to relieve themselves without getting hurt. Three minutes every other day to remove the droppings works like a champ. I keep a plastic trash barrell with a lid in that area and dispose of the contents once a week.

Cats are extremely smart and finnicky about their litter area and will not revisit a place where they have been pricked!

The key to making this work is in providing the area where they CAN do their business. This is not cruel and they learn immediately not to dig in the thorny area. I tried putting catmint in the safe zone but that was a huge mistake...all they do is eat it and roll around in the droppings. Hence very foul smelling cats. !!!

If you are a cat lover and hate them digging, try this. I had zero litter problem the remainder of the year after instituting this method.!!!!!

I love cats myself. All of mine are indoors only, spayed/neutered, and vetted.

For the ones outside that don't belong to me, I use a HavAHeart trap. If it is a feral, I call animal control. Our City has leash laws for cats just like they do for dogs so they pick them up for free. If it's a dumped pet or stray cat, I pay a nominal fee and take it to a no-kill animal shelter. I do know the difference between a feral and a stray. I'm really tired of ferals and strays destroying my property and urinating and defecating everywhere and eating my birds and frogs and chipmunks and I don't mean to sound cruel but I'm most certainly not going to provide an area on my property where they can do their business so that the people who don't neuter their cats can let them breed or let their cats roam to avoid purchasing litter. I really have no interest creating thorny areas anywhere here with kids all over the place and aside from that, thorny rose canes aren't all that attractive. Cat proofing my property sort of defies logic for me.

Try making the ground smell yucky to the varmint cat. Maybe use hot pepper on the soil where the varmints are digging?

Hot pepper and similar products are gone the first time it rains so you end up going through tons of money reapplying it and that stuff even in bulk is $9.99. The other deal with hot pepper is that when they groom themselves, they can get it in their eyes and that could possibly ulcerate a cornea. Most feral cats can't be trapped to get them to a vet and most stray cats have owners who don't exactly view vet services as a high priority for a "barn" cat. Joseph, I appreciate your thoughts but I've got the "varmints" under control here by having everything I can trap removed from the property and either humanely destroyed or vetted and made available for adoption at the local animal shelter. Sadly, a few avoid the HavAHart traps and those few most unfortunately seem to end up getting ripped apart and eaten by coyotes, turned into road pancakes by vehicles that zip down these back roads at an easy 65-75mph, or freezing to death. This is a very harsh environment for stray or feral cats and I can't absorb any more into my home. For the first time in a long time, our house is down into the single digits as far as cats go.

After reading the post of how to keep cats out of the garden or anything else for that mattersuch as squirels , rabbits.and so on. I read time and time again about using pepper products. I only wish that the people that use that method on any animal use on themselves first specially their eyes. They would not use it again. Same goes for the glue traps for rats. I hate rats and in the same process I dont want to torture them either. T.this is why they make such wonderful products as rat poison, or if you want to be ecologist all the way get a black snake he will take care of the rats population and move out when they are gone. As far as the rose branches I have use those on the perimeter of my yard to keep my cat from going into the neighboors yard , I dont want to get into fights or bring me flies.

Rat poison is not exactly a humane death for a rat. What hapens to an animal that gets into hot pepper pales by comparison to what happens to an animal that gets into poison. It is my understanding death by ingesting rat poison is extremely painful and prolonged. Prior to dying, poisoned animals often suffer from violent episodes of vomiting, seizures, liver and kidney failure, and a complete collapse of their metabolic systems across the board. Think about what it might be like to die after having ingested a posion designed to kill you. Now, think about the non target species such as a family dog or a hawk that might come across that dying rat and attempt to eat it. Those who poison rats or mice or any other rodent may be inadvertently killing off any critter that preys upon the poisoned animal.

We really need to separate the animal from the behavior. The rat is just out there trying to eek out a living and doing so quite successfully I might add. There is a humane method out there by which one can humanely destroy rats.

http://www.ratzapper.com/

Please take a moment to look at that site. We use these rat zappers and they really do work.

I never heard of ratapper before and then again I never had rats visiting untill this summer, so did many of my neighboors. We have had some new devellopments that involve food close to where we live , in 34 years that I have been in my house I never had seen a rat before, maybe a mouse everynow and then . Those were dealt with a have a heart trap, my cats or cat now do not catch mice or anything else. Cat was caught in the middle of the night once sharing the water bowl with a field mouse. This summer I had rats in my yard and yes I used poison not on the loose but inside of their hole. I never seen another rat after that , Had I been able to find a black snake for rat control ,I would have gone that direction because I dont like to use poison either. Sometimes desperate situations require desperate measures. And what do you thinis inside of cumidan used as ablood thinner . Check it out it is the basic ingredients for rat poison . It thins the blood and increase the function of kidneys and increase the thirst.
Not pleasant I agree... But deseases carried by rats are not pleasant either . If it was not for the desease part I could not care less I have squirrels dont I ? I even built them a house on the tree so they can be confy in the winter...

Yes, the rat zappers are great. I wouldn't be without them now.

I just found this thread tonight.
Know what I did yesterday?
Spread some blackberry branches in the flower garden to deter cats.
We have LOTS of feral cats around here and I'm tired if them digging things up and spraying my steps and bushes. I did this last Spring also and was very pleased with the results.
My dog, Sarah knows to stay out of my gardens. Now the cats do too. Not a one seen today.
Andy P

I didn't know my husband had bought sticky traps for a mouse problem we had about two years ago, he had put them out all over the place...
a day or so later finds Dena crying at the sight of a cute little pest stuck but still alive to a nasty sticky trap.
I asked my hubby how he was going to get rid of it and he said he would toss it in the barrel outside. I told him the mouse would freeze to death or worse starve. Then I made him umm, humanly end the little buggers life quickly.

WE ARE THE PROUD OWNERS OF ZAPPER TRAPS!
They work great, no dead birds, dogs, cats or kids from inadvertant poisining, and no prolonged suffering for the pest your trying to get rid of.

As I mentioned before this was the first time in 34 years that we saw rats. We didnt have any reasons whatsoever about investing for what we didnt need.
We have a have-a-heart trap that was used the grand total of three time for field mice which were released by the creek a mile or so down the road. I dont think that they were going to make their way home at that point to many major highway's to cross.
Not knowing any different we used poison very carefully because there are cats around, thus they dont come in my back yard because of the dog. We found few of the bodies the morning after I baited their holes and nothing since. The holes have filled with soil since then. I will keep the rat zapper in mind for future reference and I hope that I never have to invest in one.

You mention diseases in rats. If you have any spare time, you might want to do a search here at Dave's Garden for feral cats. Here’s one thread that might interest you-
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/540449/

I was going to comment before but it looks as if you may not be aware feral/stray cats can carry diseases beyond our wildest dreams. I have learned that what a rat can carry may pale by comparison to what a cat can carry. We are talking human communicable diseases here not just what a cat can transmit to other cats and/or transmit to true North American Wildlife. I have read much that has been written by parasite experts and have had the opportunity to discuss some communicable diseases with infectious disease specialists. Although I did not understand all that was being relayed to me, I grasped enough to know that I truly don’t want feral or stray cats on my property. I have children, indoor only cats, and dogs that only go out to pee and poop.

If you are a parent, you might find information at this site interesting but if you do a google search using the words cats infectious diseases of children or humans, you’ll probably come up with more detailed information.
http://foodsafety.cas.psu.edu/Communicable%5FDiseases/sld019.htm
http://www.bphc.org/factsheets/content.asp?f=253
http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/animals/cats.htm http://search.centralpets.com/care/pets/mammals/rodents/4064/6/1/petcare.php
“Zoonoses are diseases that are communicable from animals to humans. Zoonoses are most likely to affect young, elderly, or immunocompromised humans. However, some zoonoses like Rabies can affect humans and can be deadly. Parasites are another problem that is communicable between different types of mammals and which humans can contract.

Zoonoses which may be passed from cats to humans include Cat Scratch Disease, Lyme Disease, Toxoplamosis, Ehrlichiosis, Campylobacteriosis, Strep infections, Staph infections, Salmonella, Rabies, and internal and external parasites.”

Additional information on Toxoplasmosis-http://www.metrokc.gov/health/prevcont/toxoplas.htm

Believe it or not, it’s roundworm that feral and stray cats can transmit that really makes me very uncomfortable. Read up on that and you will be horrified at some of the recent research. Cats can pick up all of the following types of roundworm- toxocara canis, toxascasris leonina, and toxocara cati.
http://www.pets.ca/forum/printthread.php?t=1251

“The problem with worms for the pet is that the parasites can absorb nutrition meant for the animal. Some of the symptoms include weight loss, poor hair coat, diarrhea and a potty abdomen. In a severely affected animal, the pet becomes a "poor doer", and the above symptoms may be combined with chronic diseases, or poor healing.

There is a bigger concern to people however. The normal cycle of egg to adult to egg again, is interrupted in the human. We are not considered "natural hosts" to the worm. Larval stages can migrate elsewhere in the body other than the gut.

Children seem to be most affected, often playing in sand boxes into which animals have defected. As the little hands go into their mouths, the round worm infection begins. Migrating larva can, unfortunately, find their way into the child's eye and cause blindness, or encyst in other areas of the body.”
Larva can and have found their way to the brain which is another party of the body.

This says it all for me- http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2293.htm
“Mortality/Morbidity: Toxocariasis is almost always a benign, asymptomatic, and self-limiting disease, although brain involvement can cause severe morbidity. Brain involvement can evoke meningitis, encephalitis, or epilepsy. Ocular involvement may cause loss of visual acuity or unilateral blindness. Pulmonary and hepatic forms can cause protracted symptoms if the patient does not receive treatment.”

I am a pet owner but first and foremost I am a Mom who has children who routinely play outside and we do have a great big sandbox that feral and stray cats use as a litter box. I really do garden a lot and I truly don’t want feral and stray cats urinating or defecating any where on my property. This is truly one of those situations that puts the fear of God in me.

Add to this that which cats can transmit to other cats and NA Wildlife which isn’t even being mentioned here.

Have you ever read Cornell's Pimental Report which appeared in 1999?
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan99/AAAS.Pimentel.hrs.html
Full text-
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan99/species_costs.html

For those who are interested, here is a HavAHart trap for cats. I use the 1050 model which is similar to the model listed below and I believe Home Depot carries both the 1045 and the 1050-
http://www.redhillgeneralstore.com/A27861.htm
Yes, I call animal control on the feral cats I trap and I know they are humanely destroyed. I feel really bad because it isn't the cat's fault. The nice thing about the HavAHart traps is that I can release any skunk, squirrel, or raccoon that gets in them quite easily. Barring the cats impact on the environment, I truly want to minimize the possibility of my children, and myself, ever coming in contact with their feces.

Editing so the second quote shows up properly.

This message was edited Jan 15, 2006 2:49 PM

Equilibrium : I didnt realise that my comment was going to open such a can of worms. No pun's intented. We dont have ferals cats in my neighboorhood , every so often a wandering raccoon, or few possums. My dog is an indoor dog so is my cat. Am I concerned about every deseases that cats, dogs or other creature carry? no . Man carry just as many deseases I am sure of that . I have other things to do with my time other than to do research on cat ,dog, and every other living creatures and about all the deseaes that they carry . Another thing I do not do is take out other people quotes and run off with them this is so rude, I dont appreciate it. Everybody is entitled of their opinions , that I agree with them or not is beside the point I just leave it alone I dont make an issue of it. I raised two children long time ago and they grew up just fine , we were not concerned about everything that hey might catch if by any chance someone else cat came in my yard. 40 years ago people had other concerns , the internet was not available and in some ways it was a blessing..

ORCHIDFANCY I agree with you. People got tooooo far with animal protection and do not know anything about animal control. A lot of people think everything has to be so humane. In this country they try to fight wars that way. I got jumped on by someone on here for using a poison on slugs. and having turtles in my garden he assumed I was poisoning the turtles. I use it inside plastic tubes the slugs and snails go in and that is the end of the story. Well let me just say one other thing. I live rural.I have a real bad gray squirrel problem. I shoot them when they get to bad. Have seen them get into summer homes by chewing through the corners of the walls. I do not wipe the population out. But they are held to low numbers. If you got 4 adults in the spring. Buy June you will have 10 adults. Who will give you 60 adults by fall. The hawks nail some of them but not near enough to control. Not long ago a small gray crewed for an hour on my garge steps. you will not believe the damage he did in that time. If this indictates to you i am not a member of PETA be assured I am not.

OZARKIAN : I live in a residential area outside of Washington D.C. It is close enought of the USDA facilities that we had wild turkeys flying in the neighboorhood. We have a sharpshinned hawk that has bee terrorizing the birds at the feeder. I enjoy my life, I enjoy the birds and last summer the raccoon that had taken residence in the woods behind my house . We have had our share of possum and they are fine by me. We have quite a few squirrels and we also have a lots of oak trees so they live things alone in my yard . They eat their acorns , and leave my bulbs alone. Peaceful coexistence. Every now and then the hawk catch whatever he can in the yard. thats life. If I could have found a black snake ,that would have been my solution to my rat problem , but you are not going to find too many in residential areas LOL. Ergo "Rat Poison" and I am not sorry about it ,I solved the problem . When I made the pest discovery I had three days to find a solution , I was going out of town for three weeks and do you think that I wanted so see them at my return ? not.... I didn't realise that what I said was going to cause such to do, I guess like some people I dont live in germ free, desease free environment , yet I managed to live 61 years and thank you my house is clean and the laundry is and always been caught up even when I had small children. Regarding to the slugs I have not had any for years I think that the possums take care of them. they eat slugs...I found that out when I was doing wildlife reabilitation years ago.... As far as PETA they get a bit carried away sometimes. One must use some common sense for some things . we cannot save everything.

Sorry orchidfancy, when you made these comments above-

I didn't realize you didn't mean what you wrote. It is often difficult on the internet to interpret a person because we don't get the added benefit of tone of voice and body language. My mistake and for that I am truly sorry.

I quote so that people first and foremost, don't think something added in a post is authored by me when it is the intellectual property of another. It's sort of a habit I got into a long time ago. I provide links so that one can go and read at the actual source for him/herself if inteterested in doing so. I truly love the Internet because I have been afforded the luxury of learning so much. Yes, it has its pros and cons.

I am certainly not a member of PETA, but I am an environmentalist and I want you to know that I do my best to try to do what I can to make sure that poisoned varmints don't end up in the belly of a hawk or wolf and I do my best to keep down the varmints so that my kids don't get roundworms ever again from playing in their own sandbox. They were so sick for so long because it went undiagnosed. My mistake, I didn't know roundworms could make a kid so sick for so long.

And ozarkian, I do believe in using a gun. It is quick and over with in an instant. Virtually no stress to the animal at all. I wish I had the guts to be able to pull the trigger myself... but I don't. I believe, the gun is actually more humane in many ways. Squirrels can get out of control just as feral cats and white tailed deer can get out of control causing damage to property as well as wreaking havoc in the environment. I applaud you for being able to pull the trigger, wish I could. Until that day comes, I'll have to use a HavAHart trap and call animal control. I'm really doing the same thing as you... only somebody else is doing my dirty work. Slugs get eaten by frogs and raccoons around here so they are rarely a problem for me.

So in the end we all love our planet the best we know how and do our little parts to keep things right, we try to overlook the little things that might be a problem in the future and attempt to fix it if it goes bad. The thing about it is we all have differing situations calling for remedies that will best suit our problems. I believe education is the key "when in dought find out"
I made a promise to do no harm and I do the best I can to keep it!

I don't think anyone here tries to harm any thing intentionally.
: )

I'm going to stick with the thorny branches.
And stay away from the thorny conversations.
Andy P

So I killed rats with poison , I am not going to apologise about it . If it is the only time that I killed anything so be it. If people cannot go behond that too bad. I have been an environmentalist for most of my 61 years and I am proud of it . I know the impact of poison on the environment , I had to deal with it first hand when I was doing wildlife rescue. (poisoned pigeons) and few other things. So on this subject you are not telling me anything.
Maybe you should consider finding out how your state environment commission handle and control wildlife that is considered an invasive specie or breed. You would be for a rude awakening and there would not be much to do about it . You can lobby against it all you want it is not going to pass....., I know all about that part.
About the roundworms in sand boxes. When my children were small I was not concerned because as soon as they were not playing in the sandbox it was covered. I made the sand box myself out of wood , plastic does not desintegrate. And yes my childrens played in the dirt in the garden, what else I am a gardener . they knew how to wash their hands . I was not concerned , basic handwashing and not put everything in their mouth also helped a great deal.
They could have caught deseases when we were in the woods from ticks, deer ticks , poison ivy and so on . Desease from the river when they went fishing or water skiing . I guess if I had to that concerned we never would have step out of the house and they would not have missed a lots of nice experiences. We watched very little T.V.
Whatever I said I that particular time is what I meant at that time I dont' write my thoughts on any particular subject to be interpreted or be turned into a dissertation. What I said was not that complex and did not need any explanations.
Trying to interpret others thoughts can be a very misleading situation because you dont know the person for one, second, taking things for face value is often a best way to save face because you might have miscontrue something. and offended someone in the process and still have it all wrong..... As far as learning a lot from the net. I have no doubts that you have learned a lot but there is still such thing as books because of a lot on the net is also doubtful a one must really research the sources.
I think that I should consider put my thinking in a book this way you can quote me all you want and interpret things the way you like. In the process I would be published and you would have had to buy my book.
You almost make me feel important ......a book food for thoughts...

I have a large deer herd here as well but they are controllable. I often trim the dogs hair in the yard and since I am rural I can walk out into the yard in the night and squirt here and there. They stay away. The squirrels are something else. This home down the road is a $400k summer home.They got on the top of the window and chewed thru the wall. Made a hole about the size of a baseball. got inside and chewed on some of the furniture and kitchen cabinet drawer edges. There must have been 20 drawers in there had been chewed on. They also chewed a oak railing going up to the upper level. These are gray squirrels. I have never had trouble with the reds. Sometimes it is like a war. You just cannot permit that kind of damage. They are not seeking food I need to add. We are just loaded with large hickory and oak. I think the grays just got to be chewing for some reason.

I'm a little bit more rural. I'm in Illinois where the deer herds are out of control and the heritage biologists for the State are doing their best to get their numbers back down to that which would be more consistent with what would have been present in the early 1900's. Last time I checked, we had 7x that which was present in 1904. They have snipers who go out and do the best they can. I believe this will be the third year they are going out. We've pretty much lost all their predators to habitat destruction and nowadays... hunters (bless them) and the automobile are about all that keeps their numbers from totally exploding. Coyotes do take down fawns every once in a while. I do groom our dogs outside in the driveway and let the hair fly. It's not doing much good around here. There are just too many and all of the herd control is taking place in other counties.

Gray squirrels are a problem around here too but Animal Control won't pick them up and dispatch them for free like they will a feral cat or dog and it is unlawful to discharge a firearm. Squirrels are very destructive around here and although they haven't gotten into my house, they have uprooted thousands of dollars of plants in the fall when they scurry around burying oak and hickory nuts. This goes on until the ground freezes. I don't think much will be done about squirrels until at such point in time as a connection is made between squirrels and oaks. Once we start losing oaks around here and the State is able to document that the gnawing squirrels keeping their teeth in check are in part responsible for tree loss, they'll do their best to control them. Until then, we depend upon raptors. I've left scags in my landscape to provide raptors with a vantage point. It helps tremendously and these birds of prey definitely keep the squirrel population down around here. Unfortunately, the raptors get the endangered/threatened reds too. I had a Red Shouldered Hawk that was particularly adept at plucking off squirrels, pigeons, English House Sparrows, and European Starlings I might add but I haven't seen him around in a while. In his place, we now have a Cooper's Hawk. I haven't seen the Cooper's Hawk get any squirrels but I suppose he is picking up where the other raptor left off. Have you ever seen a raptor get another bird mid air? It's very humbling. Owls around here seem to be getting smaller prey such as frogs and mice. I have pulled apart some of their pellets and that's what I've been finding.

A 400k summer home? Can I have one. I'll take it with squirrel damage.

I have a funny story. Back in our old house our indoor only cats kept getting fleas. Not just in the fall when the field mice try to get inside but year round this was happening. 15-20 years ago, houses had to be bombed for fleas, carpets had to be sprayed, cats had to dipped, and then they had to be dewormed for tape worm. Needless to say it was very expensive repeatedly having to address the flea issue. Add to this that I was going nuts cleaning up my kitchen in the morning for about a year straight. I would come down and upper cabinets would be open and dried goods would be spread over the counter and spilled onto the floor. I was convinced one of my cats was getting on the counter and making messes. We had an old black and white video camera and we finally set it up one night. A momma raccoon was responsible. She was coming down our fireplace chimney and accessing our entire home that way and helping herself to anything we had. This had been going on for so long that our cats were desensitized and could be seen watching the raccoon and her babies. The raccoons didn't bother the cats and the cats didn't bother the raccoons- pathetic. We had glass fireplace doors installed on the fireplace because that was quick and fast until we could get a screen cap added to the top of the chimney by a bricklayer. She forced the glass doors open. We took 2x4's and rammed them up against the glass doors to stop her from getting into the house. That stopped her until several months later when we added the chimney cap. I remember taking a flashlight and looking up the chimeny to try to figure out how the heck she was getting in so easily. The mortar on the outside of the chimney was neat and tidy. The mortar on the inside of the chimney was oozing sort of which created little footholds all the way up and down.

Equilibrium : I see that you are in the country , my property is only a 1/4 of an acre with the nearest house at 16 feet from our property. Nothing like what you experience no doubt. I never had raccoon coming in the house but I had a squirrel falling down the exaust flu of the furnace. I was coming back from a long week end and I couldnt understand why I had acorns in the middle of the rug in the living room. I went into the den and my african violets had been turned over and more acorns on the floor. I went in the sun room an lo and behold suning himself on top of my drapery rod was this squirrel. I started toget it to go outside by opening the door instead he made a beeline for the basement . We looked and could not find him couple days later he was back on his perch in the sunroom . this time I closed the door behind me opened the sliding doors and out he went.
On the Eastern Shore where we have another place we have a problem with the deers so the state had to increase the number of deers that people can hunt in one season in order to control the problem. Mostly a lot of dead deers along the highways, plus a lot of damaged cars no doubts..
You said that you would take a 400k home with squirrel damage , would you take one with vultures on the roof? One of my friends neighboors who has a house on the Bay and was never there had awhole flock of vultures on top of the house , It looked rather unapealling... the house has tenants in it now and the vultures moved away, I guess the vultures could not share the space....

Yes, most of the people around here are on at least an acre but most have a two or three acres. We still have lots of farms around here too with hundreds of acres that is undeveloped and there are several large forest preserves in the area.

We don't get squirrels running around in the house but from time to time we get chipmunks. Herding them out is no fun. We have had to crate our dogs and lock all of our cats up in the basement so we could open up all the doors to the house so the chippies could find their own way out before. I don't think I would have laughed if I would have come home and found a squirrel sunning himself on a drapery rod. That would mean rounding up all my animals to open up the house to get him out. Too much work and it's very cold here right now. I so hate heating the outside. Fortunately, the chippies are hybernating right now and the squirrels aren't that bold to come in the house... so far.

You bet your sweet bippy I would take a house with buzzards on the roof in a heart beat. I'd much prefer them to the pair of Canada Geese I had here a while ago. Long story but the Canada Geese decided to camp out else where before they migrated south... with a little bit of incentive from me. Back to the buzzards, I am the idiot who is always out driving around with a shovel in my trunk on my way to work so I can push road kill off onto the shoulder of the road so that when the Turkey Vultures came to "clean up" they don't get hit by the motorists who take the speed limit and add about 20-30mph. If the road kill is fresh and if I am on my way home from work, I have a draw string bag in my trunk and I scrape it off the road and into my bag so I can take it home to share with my "buddies". I share other things from my freezer with my "buddies" too. I toss everything over on the north side of my home for the TVs and when they're finished with the dinner, the mice use the bones to keep their teeth in check. There's nothing left in no time at all. When ever we do turkey or chicken here we toss the scraps over there too. TVs won't be back until sometime next spring. I hope they come back and visit because I missed them last year. I have to admit that I also stop every time I see a dead opossum now to check to make sure the pouch is empty of babies. I have acquired some odd habits. Neighbors have seen me out on the road in high heels and hose with my shovel and they just wave and whiz by now. I'm convinced they think I have lost it.

Say, do you want to laugh so hard you will cry. Read what this woman wrote about her Titmouse. My incident with the Canada Geese is in there too.

WARNING- this is not a thread for anyone with a weak bladder. Pee first and don't be drinking anything or it will spew forth from your mouth and you will be out buying a new computer keyboard. Wait till you see the photos of this titmouse that she took. Add her comments to the phoots and we're talking one "Depends" moment after the next here. I actually have friends who are not members here at DG with us who instructed me to send them a cut and paste of the entire thread every time there was a new post. I don't think scuttler realized how many people were following her battle with the titmouse.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/548658/

This titmouse is determined.Last year we had a flicker that decided that the side of my house was a good place to peck in order to attract the females . He sounded like a jackhammer from the inside of my house. I went outside clapped my hands he flew off . He did that early in the morning few days in the row and disapeared for few weeks then eventually came back to the suet feeder. Birds do strange things. We used to have some chipmunks but they disappeared. now we have rabbits, who are afraid of too many things . Last spring I let the do out to do his business after i let him I notice a huge rabbit was sunning himself in one of my flower beds , The dog didnt pay attention , the rabbit raised his head look around and went back to sleep. He is the same rabbit that greet my husband every morning at 4 am when my husband get the paper. I think that it is so sweet of you to check the pouch of the possies to find out if they have babies.
My last rescue was a snapping turtle. I was on the road in the Country close to Cambridge on my way to visit a friend and here was this huge turtle in the middle of the road . Any turtle that has lived this long need to live longer . I had a drapery pole in the back of my truck and I tried to get the turtle to grab it .No go. So I lifted his bottom with the pole and he was walking with his front feet as I was helping him along hoping that nobody was going to come down the road flying and get both of us. He was happy to be back in the ditch and I was happy to have saved him. Where I live in College park we dont get much wildlife exitement other than the hawk that use peoples back yard as his hunting ground . Last year one of my neighboor told me about a pair of wild turkeys that had flown in the street and had decided to spend the afternoon in my yard pecking and scratching around the rose bushes.. I found that amusing...

Other than an arrogant heron that was eating me out of house and home by scarfing down all the fish in my ponds, the only psycho birds I have had were those geese and that was my fault for violating the cardinal sin of not feeding wildlife. You'd think I would have learned my lesson hearing all the horror stories of what happens when campers feed wildlife in camp grounds and then the critters come looking for handouts from other campers. The old stimulus response deal. I suppose it takes a long time to break a habit and like people, animals are always going to look for the quick and easy food source. Can't blame em. My husband went camping with the boys last summer to a remote area in Minnesota somewhere and when they entered the camp grounds they were instructed to not leave any food in their tents because there were some bears and raccoons that they were trying to "untrain". The kids scoffed at the suggestion and one of them even told me later that he hid his chips because he figured one little bag in foil wouldn't make a difference. My husband said that after the boys saw the "visitor", their bags of stashed chips and cookies and granola bars magically appeared on the picnic table and they asked him to please lock them up in the truck. There's a photo below of the "visitor". My kids aren't exactly rocket scientists but they made the connection that was a baby and that there was a momma not too far away. I was not amused and felt my husband should have gone through their tents with a fine tooth comb but what do I know.

Snapping turtles I have never rescued but I have run across a few in the road. I let them grab on to the end of my shovel and just drag them across the road in the direction they were heading. Now my neighbors are a different story. I saw the guy next door with a wheel barrel walking in the direction of one of my ponds. He had "rescued" a huge snapping turtle from the road and was whisking it to safety. He dumping it in my pond... literally dumped it by tilting the wheel barrel and letting it slide on out. I watched him from the second floor of my home. Great guy... I'll have to remember to scratch him off the Christmas card list. In all seriousness, I like my neighbor and his heart was in the right place but I wish he would have unloaded that thing in somebody else's pond. I can't believe he didn't lose any body parts getting that turtle in the wheel barrel because it was bigger than the bottom of one of those old fashioned vaporizers. He's a lucky man. Before that we had a neighbor kid dump a little snapper that was about the size of a small tea cup saucer in our little ornamental pond out front. It took me darn near a week to get that thing out and I finally did it by dragging a panty hose leg filled with chicken or maybe it was tuna around the bottom of the pond. He latched on and I yanked him out. The turtle Herman stuck in the natural pond here was way too big to mess around with. Needless to say, we haven't used that pond for anything in over a year. And here is a link to a photo of baby snappers that emerged this past summer by me. You have to admit they are cute. Pardon my dirty fingers, I was playing in the dirt as usual.
http://davesgarden.com/place/t/541667/

Equilibrium: you are absolutly right , by the look of things Mama coul not been too far . Ans as all the wildlife Mama's they are very protective with no sense of humor about their little darling. As far as the baby snapper it was hard to identify. The snapper that I rescued was at least 15 to 18 across and he hissed. I can understand you being upset about someone putting a snapper in your pond, I would be too because they do some serious destruction with the fish population and they do bite... The only thing that I put out is bird seeds in the morning so by the evening it is all cleared up. For some reason the mouning doves have decided that my place was the ideal buffet place. We had a snow (4") a month ago and I counted 35 mourning doves in my fringe tree and my witch hazel. Whatever the birds drop at the feeder they have it cleaned.
Couple years ago we had a pair of juvenile possums coming in the evening to see what was on the menu if anything ,so we put some cat food out for them I had some that the cat did not like. they were entertaining they would come at dusk or little later and my neighboors children would quietly watch them from their porch behind my house . And then they quit coming .... But we still have the rabbits.... surprisinly the rabbits have not made much damage in the vegetable garden that I am aware of anyway. And if they do that is fine too because I always have more than I can handle of certain veggies.
I have a small pond behind my house in Cambridge and being close to the water Iast year I had a heron visiting my pond He would sit on top of my neighboor's garage and shop. I think that he got the bigger fish that I had. The year before we had a pair of mallards that had decided to nest in my back yard under the hydrangeas and use the pond as place to bathe. They never had ducklings I think that they were not mature yet to lay eggs. They were intertaining for a while beside turning the pond in a mudd puddle. We have so much wildlife there that we even have the ducks nesting at the courthouse. But like everywhere things are changing not for the better they are building condo's everywhere. I am so disappointed...picture of my friend in the front of my house with hydrangeas

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who spotted the age of that bear that my husband took a photo of when he was camping with MY sons. I asked him how close he had to get to take that photo and he didn't answer. I suppose he could have used a zoom but that photo was not grainy at all. He snapped about 10 shots of that little bear so that tells me he stood there for quite a while. I'm thinking my beloved husband, father of our children, was well within charging range of Momma. What an idiot.

Yes, the baby snappers were hard to id from those photos as they literally had just emerged from the ground and those photos weren't all that great. They emerged for a few days in a row. I dipped one in the pond water to clean it up and photographed it but I can't find that photo. That photo was probably the best I had and I can't find the darn thing.

I started feeding the birds again here too. I'm mostly concerned about the Blue Jays. They got hit hard by West Niles.

I had a pair of Mallards nest here two years ago. We found their nest quite by accident. I immediately put chicken wire up around the entire area to deter coyotes from getting at the nest or the parents. That helped tremendously. We used to have wood ducks here but the English House Sparrows repeatedly kept destroying their eggs and killing their nestlings so I had to take down the nest boxes in hopes they would find a safer area in which to try to raise their young. The English House Sparrows wiped out my Screech Owls two years in a row too and they annihilated every Blue Bird egg and nestling the same year so I had to shut down all my Blue Bird trails. Depressing.

No, I'm not too happy about Henry "rescuing" that mammoth snapper. Not much you can do other than to hope Mr. Snapper moves on to bluer waters... bluer waters on somebody else's property that is. I'd still like to know exactly how he got it off the road and into his wheel barrel without losing a body part. That blows my mind.

I've never had any juvenile opossums hanging out around here but that would be nice. A few years ago, I was out in my yard and found a huge dead opossum. I walked back in my house to get into the garage to look for a big shovel or something to scoop him up with and get him out of the area where our kids play and dogs run to move him over to where the TVs hung out. When I came back outside I had to stand there for a while trying to figure out where exactly had the dead opossum been laying??? I thought it had been real close to the sandbox. Duh, he wasn't dead. Like my husband said, that's why the term "playin possum" was coined. My husband thought that was too funny and said, "Get it honey, dead possum now go put the rake and shovel back". He had a good laugh at my expense because the big old dead opossum could be seen casually walking away in the far back of the yard and it didn't even glance back once. Nope, I'm not the brightest crayon in the box at times.

I've always wanted a big open air porch like yours. I'd hang a swing for two if I had one. Your hydrangeas are gorgeous. I've got some Nikko Blues that aren't so blue lately because I keep forgetting to amend the soil with Miracid. Better put that on my increasingly long to do list if I ever want them to be blue.

Ok, not much going on in my neck of the woods but I'll leave you with this photo that I took last night and you have to guess what my kids bought at the pet shop yesterday. Now be honest, you're jealous that you don't have these living on your kitchen counter-

Equil!!!
Way to cool!!! Your kids found walking sticks!!!
I AM JEALOUS!
I have some neet bugs in my yard but I don't have those!!!
you are soo lucky! LOL

Dena
are you going to keep them inside?

This message was edited Jan 19, 2006 8:52 PM

We like bugs too. Those are generic laboratory sticks, nothing special. There are 3 in that image. The largest of the three lost two legs. I have no idea how that happened, these sticks were handled so gently but there were legs left behind in the bag when they moved him into his new home. Look closely at the stick down by the lettuce and you will notice he is missing his two front left legs. Needless to say there were a lot of tears last night until we discussed how he would be able to regenerate his legs when he started molting.

We've had praying mantids before and those like to eat, they like to eat a lot. If you run out of a food source, they eat each other and then your kids stand around in front of the habitat with tears streaming down their faces screaming "Mom, so and so is eating so and so". We got to learn all about how those insects will eat each other when PetSmart runs out of crickets. The Sticks on the other hand are docile and they are vegetarians. I think I like the sticks better although the mantids were fascinating until... PetSmart ran out of crickets a few times too many. If you have a choice, get sticks. Added bonus is that they only cost around $2.50 a piece and they don't live much longer than a year or so.

The reason why they wanted stick insects is because they want to create a grow chamber of special plants inside an aquarium that we won't be using for fish any longer. They think it will look cool to have plants with sticks running around inside the grow chamber. I sort of agree. So, in answer to your question- these insects are pets and will never be let go outside.

I can hardly see ...
I need a tissue...
TOO FUNNY!!!
How old are your kids?
Mine are 2, 4, 12, (12)

I refuse to answer that under the grounds that there may be people out there who have this vision that I am only in my late 30 or something. Just teasing, the kids who wanted the sticks were the babies at 8 and 10. I've got an assortment of boys going on up in age to over 20 after that.

I won't buy candy bars but I have no problems buying something like a stick. Backing up to the mantids. I'd suggest you NOT get those until your kids are a little older. We started out with 3 egg cases that hatched over 100 a piece at one or two day intervals. They weren't supposed to hatch for a few weeks but as luck would have it, they surprised us early. My fruit flies weren't in yet so I had to overnight fruit flies from Ed's. That was a nice bill. By the time the fruit flies came, the first mantids that had hatched had eaten all of the mantids that had hatched from the second egg case. Special. Hungry little buggers. Kids were very upset and husband put a pillow case over the habitat so the massacre could continue out of view. All went well for a few weeks until UPS or FedEX went on strike and I didn't receive my flightless fruit fly (yes, they come flightless which is a true blessing) food supply. The first mantids to hatch were considerably stronger (wouldn't you be if you had eaten all of your habitat mates) so they proceeded to eat the hatchlings from the third egg case. Oh joy to the world. We put the pillow case back over the habitat until our flightless fruit flies could be delivered. I think we started with about 300+ mantids and were down to about 100 by then. All went well until there was some sort of a fruit fly disease wiping out fruit fly cultures. Great, time to move on to the more expensive pin head crickets. Well, PetSmart was never too good about keeping their stock up so when a delivery truck got delayed and a whole load of pin heads ended up frying in the truck on a 100 degree day, we went without a food source again and ended up with about 50 mantids. Every time PetSmart had delivery issues, we had issues. After all was said and done, it was early spring and I had about had it with all the trips to PetSmart standing outside the doors in rain sleet and snow to be the first in line to get to the crickets on their delivery day. I announced to the kids that it was time to set them freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! First comment out of one of the older ones was... "but Mom, won't they freeze to death?" followed by "maybe we should wait until June or something". My retort, " No", it's time to let them live their lives on their own". He argued and I mumbled something about how maybe they had antifreeze in their blood. The next morning we let them go on the patio table under the umbrella. Everyone said their good bys and I all but jumped for joy. Next morning one had frozen to death and was stuck to the umbrella in the same position he probably froze to death in. Oops. I told them that the others were probably just fine as they had probably made it to cover away from the frost zone on the patio. Never again will I do praying mantids, never again. I'd take in a gross centipede with all those legs before I'd ever take in any more mantids. We did have a giant Palmetto Bug once. He was fine even after I found out he was some sort of a cock roach on steroids.

All Boys?
Sounds like lots of fun at your house. I have 3 boys and a girl, My daughter is an animal lover and went veggie about a year ago, she wants to be a vet or do field studies on invasives or both it changes a bit from week to week but always has to do with creatures.
She and I have fun in the yard catching critters, although she makes Me catch the snakes, she doesn't care for the way they smell.
My boys don't like bugs, but are in love with the birds. I don't know who I spend more on feeding, people or creatures, sound familiar?
: )
Dena

Yes Dena, it sounds sickeningly familiar. That's why I liked the fact that the sticks only live about a year. The newness of these will wear off soon. I will end up being the primary caretaker. At least I can pick up iceberg and romaine lettuce just about anywhere. No fuss no muss.

The boys have been begging me to go to the animal shelter to get a new cat. I did the math with them and gave them an option. I told them that these cats could easily live in to their upper teens if not early 20's like one we have right now. I told them they could each have a cat if they took it to college with them and planned on taking it with them to set up house when they got married. I think that's fair at this stage in the game. When these two are gone, I don't want anything else here that breathes or eats other than my husband. I will have served my time.

I feel for you with a vegetarian in the household. Are you using this decision of hers as a teachable moment? You know, an opportunity to let her do her own grocery shopping and cooking so you don't have to prepare different entries every night? Did you know that in Mexico they have chocolate covered bugs like crickets and such. Perhaps you could treat her to some of those delicacies. Yum, yum.

Vanessa saving the world one veggie burger at a time...

I thought it was going to be a pain in the *BUTT* in truth it has required her to EAT more of the foods she had turned her nose up at. I always cook a well rounded dinner, so, she eats everything I cook with the exception of the meat group and I just have to not put the gravy on the taters before putting some on a dish for her. Other than that its the coast of the bovine friendly foods she eats that is going to break the bank. I have gone as far as sending the differing companies letters asking for coupons and freebies to help with the coast.

Ha ha ha! Kids are such a riot.

Oh she's very pretty. I always wanted a girl. I hear they are very costly and take a toll on parents though ;) My girlfriends tell me they talk back a lot too when they get older. Tee he, better you than me. Think I'll stick to boys. I'm used to them. They grow on you after a while even if they don't put the toilet seat back down.

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No! they NEVER put the seat down!!!
hahahaha!
so funny that you said that!
The cat fell in last night because my littlest was testing out the toilet, I heard the cat yowl and I came in to see a very wet grumpy cat emerge from the "JOHN" she swiped at me on her way out, I'm laughing and grabbing towels and trying to catch her before she made it to the living room and the sofa!
she is a fluffffy fat cat with a big attitude last night she was a mad, wet cat with a fat belly, and itty bitty leggs and a fluffy head, (ears pinned to her head, eyes as big as coffee mugs)
I think she was going to jump on the toilet and then to the windowsill, but she never made it.
oh and of course it was all my fault. I was nervouse walking up to her with the towels, not only is she fully loaded (still w/claws) but she has double paws, extra ammo! I think she got the idea I was going to help her because she got quiet and let me dry her off, and I have all my fingers.

Polydactyl? I think that's what they call cats with extra toes.

I have one cat that sits on the edge of the tub and falls in about once a year. When that happens, about all I can do is chase it through the house to try to towel it down.

The big question for you is this...
Did your little one flush the toilet after he tinkled? If not, I bet you are running right now to grab the towel that you used to dry your cat last night before one of your other kids uses it accidentally. I get tired of laundry around here as it seems as if I am constantly doing load after load. Consequently, we reuse towels. Not a good idea to reuse a tinkle towel. He he he.

tinkle towel!!!!!!!!!!
lol my stomach hurts,
oh dear, this has been so much fun.
I can asure you my little Aaron flushed, flushed & flushed again...he likes the flushing part...we are working on that but for now I guess thats the best part of potty training, in fact thats his motivation " hey Aaron, wanna go potty? I'll let YOU FLUSH!" works every time.
Vanessa is quick to point out the water usage factor, my husband points out the water bill, and I'm just trying to get him out of diapers (that are quite pricy them selves and take up all kinds of room @ yonder land fill for many many years)
From one mother to another...do we ever win? : )

I have to go to bed, my minions will be up early and so starts another day...

will you be around ?
I've enjoyed our chat, I like talking with you when I'm not being yelled at for thinking about Albezia....
Dena
go to general discussion and find my thanks to everyone, it applies to you.........

This message was edited Jan 20, 2006 12:59 AM

Equilibrium . I have never seen stick bugs before. They are interesting needless to say. My sons when they were small brought a praying mantis sack in the house to see what would happen when they hatch , I didnt know anything about praying mantis reproduction, but I sure found out. The kids were on Easter vacation and we had spent the day at the museum and when we came home the mantis had hatched they were in the dinning room all over the ceiling all over the drapes everywhere. Imagine the sight when my husband came home, I was perched on top of the dining room table catching them as fast as I could and my sons were on various stepladders doing the same thing. It took us few days to get them all, but we got them...... And we have had them in the yard ever since. You were mentioning the loss of the blue jays. We have not had too much of a problem about that . What we have had few years ago was the loss of almost all the songbirds on the eastern shore of Maryland . We were hit by one of the hurricanes and we had a tidal wave in the middle of the night . The birds are in the lower bushes in the woods at night and they were pretty much wipped out. That winter we didnt have hardly any birds at all it was so sad. I contacted some of my friends about what I had noticed and they told me the same thing. Now we are back to normal with a lots of jays , cardinals, titmice,carolina wren, woodpeckers galore, nuthatchs are back . I have not seen too many mockingbirds around here in the past few years either . But the bird that I really miss is the trush , we used to have them here 30 years ago, I have not seen nor heard one for that long . how sad. So much for devellopment ......