Best Way to Keep Cats Out of Your Yard!

Cats roaming freely in your garden is not a sight to behold, even if you are an ardent cat lover. They can create quite a ruckus in any yard if not deterred continuously. You can definitely call the animal control authorities to curb the situation. However, how to keep cats out of your yard without such a dramatic scene? Well, don’t worry! We will elaborate on some easily tested methods in this guide, so you can know how to keep cats out of your yard

Why Should Cats be Kept Out of the Yard?

Cats are feisty and can be mischievous at times. Besides, cat lover or not, having a cat wandering in your garden can be a nuisance. Whether it’s your own, a neighbor’s, a stray, or a feral one, your yard is bound to undergo some damage. And if you are asking why here are some reasons:

• As cats are carnivore creatures, their feces may contain pathogens and parasites. Cats like to bury their poop in the soft ground, which is a health concern for humans if they eat the food grown in such soil. Moreover, due to this specific reason, people do not use dog and cat feces to make manure fertilizers.
• Cats are bad news for birds and small insects hanging out in your garden. Some of these insects are beneficial to your garden and help in pollination. About 140 million birds and small animals become prey to cats each year. That’s heartbreaking news for any bird lover and a powerful reason to keep cats out of the garden.
• As cats like to mark their territory, they do so by urinating in the same place again, like on the garden’s wall and patio furniture. Hence, such a notorious thing will lead to ruining your garden’s fresh atmosphere in the long run.
• If your cat roams around in your neighbor’s garden, it can strain your relationship with your neighbors. So, in order to maintain a friendly relationship in the neighborhood, one must guard and keep an eye out so that their cats won’t jump on others’ yards.

How to Keep Cats Out of your Yard Naturally?

We all know cats are agile creatures capable of climbing and jumping from heights. Therefore, keeping them away from our gardens can be quite challenging. You must know what keeps cats out of your yard? You must know But there are things that felines find repelling and don’t enjoy coming in contact with. So, using such, we can deter kitties from using our yard as their primary or secondary home. Below, we will be discussing how to keep stray cats out of your yard, which, if used in combination or succession. But there are things that felines find repelling and don’t enjoy coming in contact with. So, using such, we can deter kitties from using our yard as their primary or secondary home. Below, we will be discussing how to keep stray cats out of your yard, which, if used in combination or succession.

#1 Create Prickly Conditions

Looking for the best way on how do you keep cats out of your yard? Cats like nothing better than threading their paws on soft and smooth loose soil. They also love to bury their poop in the ground that is smooth. Therefore, by using bristly materials, you can make cats think twice before entering your yard. Speaking about bristly materials, go with the following:

• Mulch your soil with prickly items like pine cone cuttings, eggshells, coffee grounds, twigs, or stone mulch. People can simply line up these items on top of their yard’s soil or can bury a little bit into it.
• Using a carpet runner with nib side up is a good way to recycle an old item while keeping the cats away.
• You can use aluminum foil strips in areas where they usually hang out. Lay the required size strips on the ground and secure them with a few stones or bricks to prevent them from blowing away with the wind. Kitties won’t like the feel and sound of aluminum crinkling when they step on it.
• Laying chicken wire is also a good low-cost option to repel felines from lawns and gardens. You can poke a bigger hole where you plan to plant your saplings.

#2 Shoo Away with Scents

A cat’s nose is 40 times more sensitive than that of a human’s. And there are some scents that felines simply find repelling and would avoid at all costs. Have a glimpse of some of such cat deterrent scented things:

• Do you know how to keep cats away from plants? Some plants like rue, lavender, pennyroyal and Coleus Canina give out odors that kittens can’t stand. Planting these between your regular plants is a good way to keep these fuzz balls away.
• There are some commercial outdoor cat repellent that imitate the smell of predators that cats fear. Sprinkling them on your yard territory or areas where the cats frequent usually is a good non-harmful way to keep them away. Don’t worry. These best cat repellent sprays are not harmful to plants or cats.
• Felines despise citrusy smells. Thus, you can use lemon, grapefruits, and lime peels and spread them in your garden soil. Furthermore, such a strategy becomes the best way to utilize something which, anyways, is a waste.
• Just like citrus peels, cats dislike the smell of certain oils like lavender, geranium, lemongrass, and eucalyptus essential oil. Just a few drops of them around your garden area where they usually hang out is enough to deter them. You need to reapply them as and when you think their smell has faded.

#3 Use Water to your Advantage

Worried about how to get rid of cats? Everybody knows how cats just hate water. So, choose water as the best weapon for how to keep cats out of your yard. Now, using water to do so has some options as follows:

• An effective way is to use motion-activated sprinklers like scarecrow sprinklers to shoot water whenever cats happen to visit your yard.
• Water sprinklers do require a decent investment. However, a cheaper way is to use just a water gun whenever you see felines hanging out in the garden.

#4 Use the Power of Ultrasonic Sounds

Sounds scare any animal. And cats are no exception; thus, another way for you to know how to keep cats out of your yard, use sounds as your solution. Following are some ideas on how to use sounds:

• Various devices available in the market give out high-frequency sound(inaudible to humans), which one can easily install to scare away the cats. They work through infrared technology to detect any movement happening around the area, and whenever any cat comes within their range, they start producing high-frequency sounds, which cats absolutely abhor.
• There is a cheaper way too to use sound to deter the cats. You can simply use wind chimes or empty metal cans filled with a few marbles or pebbles that go into motion whenever cats walk on a fence.

#5 Build a Fence

A physical barrier is one of the best ways to keep cats out of your yard. To do so, go with ideas that will let you make physical barriers around your yard to prevent a feline’s entry. One famous method is:

• You can build a simple wooden fence with pointy edges, which won’t allow cats to hang out on top of them. If you already have a fence with shortboards, you can extend its height with simple chicken wire fencing.

#6 Home Remedies to keep cats out of your yard

Effectiveness of each of the measures discussed above would vary depending on the situation and cats you are struggling with. You need to try them out one by one or in combination to see which one is most useful for your case. Apart from these, you can also make your yard unattractive for cats by weeding out the things which attract them there in the first place. Some of home remedies to keep cats out of your yard are:

• Keep the garden clean of food waste and leftovers. If you are in the habit of feeding your dog and cats out in the garden, you should immediately clean out the leftovers and crumbs, if any. Otherwise, the food smell will attract other animals, including cats.
• In the same way, food waste in your garden area’s dustbin invites them to rummage through your trash and make quite a mess by littering rubbish in your garden. The best way is to secure them tightly or just keep them indoors, like in the garage area.
• If you have mice and other critters in your yard that felines love to chase, they might visit your garden frequently to prey on them. Hence, search for areas that might harbor critters and tidy them up. Also, fill out the holes and spaces in your property that gives them access to your yard.
• Feral and stray kitties also look for places to make their home. So try to board any places that might provide them access to areas under the deck, pieces of furniture not being used, and other places they might seek refuge or hide to give birth.

Conclusion

Another measure you may take is a collaboration with your local authorities to make arrangements for catching stray cats and housing them in shelter homes. If the animal you catch has a tag or collar, you can contact its owner and make proper arrangements with discussion. Whatever approach you choose to use, always ensure it is humane and doesn’t affect the animal in harmful ways. Protecting a yard is essential, but unharming an animal is more important.