WIBU to let my chickens in next doors garden?

[ChickenlessHead]

Seeing as their 3 fucking cats spend their days shitting in my dc’s sandpit and digging up my plants?

I’ve tried everything - squirting with water pistol, sonic cat repellant, covering up sandpit (they just shit on the cover then). I had a little nest of robins in my tree earlier this year and one of the cats knocked the nest over then put a baby bird on dc’s slide.

We have a low wall at the end of our garden that extends along the bottom of next doors garden too. My chickens are free range during the day and have recently been hopping up on this wall. Dh mentioned we should probably put up some kind of fencing to stop them walking along it and going into next doors garden. But next door have no problem with their pets shitting all over my garden and I’m inclined to feel the same about them tbh.

Cats are no threat to the chickens btw, the chickens have seen off the cats many a time (one of the reasons I’m quite fond of them). Next door don’t have a dog either so chickens would be quite safe there.

Can you run a couple of electric fence wires around the wall top?

I had the opposite problem (but dogs vs chickens). My next door neighbours let their chickens roam. My dog joyfully killed one that got into our garden and I took the chicken round and apologised profusely and the neighbours just shrugged and said 'that's the countryside for you' 😯 They did nothing to secure their garden and the chickens continued to come into our garden and got gradually picked off by the dog if he was out when they appeared. Neighbours who do not care sufficiently about their environment or how their animals affect others are both inconsiderate and ignorant.

I would suggest a dog but one with a prey drive like mine would also target the chickens! Rock/hard place.

I'd have thought the geese will be in at night and the cats would be doing their Prime work during that time.

That’s the thing mother, I’m not sure inside is best for cats either. But there is no doubt that they absolutely decimate wildlife if they are allowed to roam. Some people have built sort of aviaries on the side of their house, then cat can go outside but not hurt anything. I’m not sure if having an extra few square foot of area outside is of any benefit to an animal that naturally roams for several miles. But I guess all other pets are forced to live in conditions they wouldn’t otherwise.

As I said earlier I can definitely see the appeal in cats - their cute and fluffy and don’t take too much looking after. I did also spend a year of my life helping to re-establish ground nesting birds in a nature reserve. The next year a new build estate was finished nearby, cats killed all the birds and chicks in their nests within 2 months and my project was completely scrapped.

*they’re cute, sorry.

ilovelamp geese will wake, attack and scare the shit out of any living beast day or night.

My nanna made a diluted Tabasco sauce spray. She sprayed it around the perimeter of her property to deter cats and dogs off her garden. I think it worked. She had her own animals and I guess they stayed away from gardens and perimeter too.

ILoveLamp you've clearly never entered a garden territory of geese at midnight (pissed) 😂 They hear everything even if tucked up for the night & they are scary mofos 😱

I should add that Tabasco sauce might have been just 1 ingredient in a recipe. I've googled it and there are recipes out there to deter cats and dogs. If commercial products don't work sometimes homemade recipes do.

I must get my chicks some geese! I have held off due to noise, bigger poos and small kids being attacked😅 Was thinking of a couple of peacocks next myself.

We had a peahen that took refuge in our garden, she was gorgeous. But noisy as hell 😱 She used to get up on the roof & yoodle at 5am 😑 Very tame tho!

A friend of mine has guard geese, in fairness to them if they know you & you feed them they can be quite tame - her & her mum cuddle the damn things 😂 But if anyone intrudes - especially at night - it's like WW3

Peacocks would be very grand ilove. I’m not sure my garden could carry off peacocks - they like fountains and Elizabethan Knot gardens don’t they?

I’d definitely recommend getting geese if you never want to worry about burglars —and never go into your own garden without full body armour— again.

'And this is the garden, it's very large & spacious, alas we can never use it again.'

Why is this?

'Because the geese have taken over & colonised it the b*ards' 😂😂😂

Not sure exactly why you are moaning about a few cats, if you’ve got an acre of land and presumably chicken shit everywhere anyway?
And some of the suggestions: chuck it over the fence, run electric wiring around it are just plain nasty. It seems like you’ve created a nice little forum to flush out all the cat haters.

I’ve had several cats over the years and like everything else, people, dogs etc, they’re all different. Some like to stay indoors, some have been half in half out and one just wanted to be outside in all weathers, incidentally the last one would come in to use his litter tray and just sit in my garden, never went anywhere else.

Like your neighbours there’s not much you can do about a cat that is shitting in someone else’s garden: have stern words with it ? Keep it in forever? which would be the equivalent of never exercising a dog, so quite cruel. However, I would if requested come round and clean the mess up, chucking it back over the fence is just looking to create animosity. If you feel so strongly about it speak to them again.

And incidentally from rspb site, in a nut shell.

No scientific evidence that cats are causing a decline in bird populations, the birds they catch tend to be weak or sick and so would have died anyway.

It’s the loss of habitat: new housing estates and changing farmland that is their biggest problem.

My best childhood friend had geece at home and I used to jump out of the car, sprint to the door and try to get in before they attacked. Terrifying creatures!

Are peacocks noisy? Damnit! Been wanting a pair for ages:(

Chickens create more and more annoying poo than cats as they poo everywhere.
Get a cover for sand pit though. Thats annoying.

square I’m not going to get into an argument about how cats destroy wildlife but there is a lot of information out there. As stated earlier Canada and Australia are already taking active steps to encourage people to not let cats roam and curling feral cats.

I’ve never said I feel strongly enough to chuck it over the fence either! I get on well with my neighbour, it’s just something I find mildly irritating. I can’t see an issue with electric wiring though, what would the issue with that be? I’m going to be spending my day building a litter bush for the cats next door and I’m still not giving enough respect to the shitting cats.

Square you clearly missed the part where OP said her chickens are contained within a certain part of her garden? Therefore yes she has every right to be PO with random cats shitting all over the rest of her chicken free garden!

I find it amusing that some cat owners are so blasè about just how irritating their pets can be. No i'm not a cat hater, i love cats - but when we had cats we made a conscious effort to keep them within our own garden!

ILoveLamp afraid so! They make a really peculiar noise too depending what they're calling for. Also scares the bajesus out of you if they decide to land on your conservatory with a great bit THUD - honestly used to think the roof was coming in! They have the most adorable babies tho 😃

OP you must be the first pissed off NDN to willingly build the offending cats a personal toilet 😂😂

It’s worth a try! I assume they won’t use it. Then I am justified in feeling more pissed off with the cats and not feeling guilty when they get thoroughly goosed tomorrow.

Why is electric fencing 'nasty'? It's used to keep loads of animals from 'roaming' - cats should be treated as dogs imo, all this 'roaming' is just bollocks. Everything would like to bloody roam, and how pissed off would cat owners be if cow shit covered their lawn?

Nothing wrong with electric fencing. Unless of course you set it high enough to fry the cats...then you might get highly frowned upon

Are peacocks noisy? Hell yes, I almost bought a trio a couple of years ago, but you can hear them for miles (no exaggeration). Their chicks have little crowns too, so sweet.

Catastrophe i'm jealous! As much as our hen was noisy (i say 'our' like we owned her!) she was a pleasure to have about. She would follow us up the drive to the door & wait for dinner 😂 Bit of a celeb where we were, if she went missing for a day or so the neighbours used to put missing posters out for her