How to train cat to go outside instead of litter tray ?

[CocoLady]

Hi my lovely cat is a year old, spent most of his time indoors never went further than our small garden!
He uses a litter tray but is there anyway I can train him to go outside in the garden ?
Thanks

My 2 just ended up doing it by themselves with no input from me. I still have the tray in case of bad weather

Not all cats feel comfortable going outside of a variety of reasons.

You should always keep a litter tray indoors.

A few areas of bare soil in the garden help. Also you can put soil or compost in their litter tray.

Move the litter tray outside for a few days.

Then move the used contents of the tray onto a piece of soil, and take away the tray.

The soil should be loose and easy for the cat to paw it and bury his waste.

The cat will smell his own scent and start using that patch of ground.

After a while he should move further afield by himself.

Please don’t. Your cat probably won’t shit in your garden, he’ll shit in everyone else’s. Other people shouldn’t have to clean up after your pet. You could put a covered litter tray outside under a small shelter so that he still uses that, that’s what friends of ours did with their cat. Stops the neighbours getting pissed off with cat shit in the veg patches etc. but cat can still go outside.

Our cat was a house cat for about 10 months (because we lived in a flat and then moved but kept him inside for 8 weeks after we moved). Then he ventured in the garden only for around a month and continued to use the litter tray. After he started venturing around neighbours gardens he stopped using the litter tray. It was a gradual thing. All the houses in our row have cats and they all roam in one another's gardens so people cant get too miffed that cats are pooping in one another's gardens

Put small areas of used litter around the garden in quiet corners, and put soil in the litter tray inside. I do this from the moment they are let outside. All the cats we have had have much preferred the garden to the litter tray, and it has only taken a week or so for them to transition with a cat flap for easy access to the outside.

Ours goes in our garden. My husband makes sure the is always some turned over earth.

Our two 7 month old kittens were going in their two trays, from when we rehomed them, happily.
They’ve been going out into the garden now, for about a month and the last week have barely used the trays, except for the odd nigh time wee (we keep them in at night).
I’d actually love them to go back to using their trays! Opposite issue to you OP.
I’d like to be able to keep an eye on bowel movements, as well as not pissing off neighbours I really get on with and I’m dreading somebody complaining that they’ve started crapping in their prize dahlias...

One of the girls has crapped in our flower bed once and I said no firmly, showed her the tray, then put little sticks and garlic scat-a-cat powder down, to deter her.
I honey sky don’t mind if they have a little wee now and again, and we’ve kept two areas, close to the house, as bare earth with mulch over it, hoping that would be their spot (if they insist on going outside) but they go anywhere, at random and have progressed from only peeing outside, to also crapping.

They have nice big trays, good depth of litter, lovely litter they always happily used when they were indoor kittens. Nothing else has changed.

I know they are their own masters, but if anyone’s got tips on how to encourage them back to their trays, please pass them on!