Strange poop in my garden making it unsafe for my kids

One thing I've found that works well at keeping the cats out of our garden is garlic oil... like this one, which I've used before.


nikura.com/products/garlic-essential-oil

I do have to warn you, this stuff is strong. Once it was opened I had to put the bottle inside another sealed container because I could still smell it! I also used rubber gloves, because it's difficult to get off your hands.

The cats were coming into our front garden and using it all night long, so I simply dripped about ten drops across the entrance and down the path, and a few more around in the grass where they'd been pooping. For about three days the smell was overwhelming until the rain diluted it... it's not pleasant, but the idea is to break the cats or foxes of the habit of using your garden as a latrine. They don't like the smell of garlic, citronella or citrus... so if you don't like the idea of garlic oil a strong essential orange or grapefruit oil also might work.

I also save up any orange peels or lemon rinds, cut them up and scatter them around too.

Since winter is coming, your children probably won't be out in the garden as much and so this is a good time to start discouraging the animals from coming around. If they are coming over a garden fence, you can drip the oils along the top of the fence or where ever you can tell they've been. I've had problems with cats hiding under our hedges trying to stalk the birds coming to the feeders, so I've also cut holly branches and scattered the leaves under the hedge to make it too uncomfortable to lurk under there.

Let me know how you get on with it... if the garlic oil isn't practical come back and I'll try and recommend something else. good luck!

I'm not really sure, Ian. We had a lot of heavy rain not long after I applied it, but the smell of garlic was really strong up until then. I think it would have lasted more than a week if the weather had been dry. Snowlynx complained he couldn't go out in the front garden because it was so overwhelming, but I may have overdone it a bit.    There's been no fresh cat scat since, though- so that's a result.

He got a car cover for our little Up, (plenum chamber issues... that's another story) and the young fox cubs thought the straps were the best fox toys ever, (they're stretchy). 
They chewed one strap off altogether one night, so he dribbled a bit of that garlic essential oil on the remaining ones and they've not touched them since. 

I actually think most essential oils might have some effect, because they're so concentrated. I got a box of some for Christmas last year, but they weren't good quality so I dripped them on and around the bins to discourage a neighbourhood tom from spraying around them. The oils were the usual 'Christmas' mix of things like Frankincense and Myrrh, and they were pretty awful, (I hate to think what the poor binman thought... the rubbish probably smelled better!) The tom wasn't too impressed either, because he stopped marking.   

I think once they're discouraged from using a certain garden, they go find another one and then it's just a matter of re-doing the oil now and again to keep them from coming back. I have to admit the garlic one is effective but I find it rather awful as well, (and Snowlynx certainly does... and he's got no sense of smell!) It must make the cats' eyes water.

After I use this one up I might try one of the citrus oils and see how that works.

Hello All,

First of all, I am really sorry for the late reply.

Thanks a lot for your reply. I really appreciate that you find time to reply to my problem. I will definitely follow the suggestions.

My worry is, both our neighbours neither have a cat and I never saw a cat in my garden. I have heard the cat poop is smelly but this is not smelly at all. So I am not too sure whether it is a cat or something else - Only animals I saw are squirrels and blackbirds really. Is there a way I can share the picture I have taken?

HI Ian,

Thanks a lot. I am really sorry to share the disgusting photos but this will give you an idea what pain I am going through. Is this really a cat ? or some other creature as it is not smelly. We got a brand new garden this summer and this creature is ruining but leaving the bits here an there. I thought it might be a fox but we got 6ft plus fence and never seen one before. I have to clear the poo almost every day but as you can see below it poo again on top of old ones and some other places too


2 by rafay, on Flickr


thumbnail_image0 by rafay, on Flickr

HI Dave,

Thanks for looking at it too, much appreciated, but definitely not a deer as we live in Greater London with no big parks around and we got big fences and our neighbors too. The parks that have deer are miles away.

Regards

Ahmad

Thanks Ian,

I will check about that too, about time to put some cameras now and see what is going on. 

Thanks All.