Defeating the local cat
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Hi All,
I know this comes up a million times and i have looked through the forum and seemingly tried everything.
The video below shows the cat defeating the baffles (bricks) inside my feedinstation.
The hole in the box is 125mm, I have tried using a tube to get into the box but Hedgely didnt like that. I narrowed the gap of the baffles but hedgely couldn’t get through. It did stop the cat however. I Increased the gap slightly and got defeated by the cat.
Can anyone suggest anything? i feel like i’m on the right lines. Maybe change the layout of the box inside. Essentially there is a brick inside at the entrance meaning whatever goes in has to turn 90 degrees right. Once you have turned right you hit another brick and have to turn 90 degrees left.
Do i need to make it so whatever goes in has to turn back on itself? maybe a brick outside?
I have been trying to defeat this cat all week with various combinations.
any help appreciated
Hi there. I understand exactly what your saying. I live on a street where just about every household has at least 1 or 2 cats. I stopped putting tinned cat/dog food out after observing the feeding stations I had set up with cat food and mr spikes moist biscuits and the hedgehogs went for the moist biscuits first and more often ignored the tinned food. I’ve had up to 5 hedgehogs in my garden at any one time, varying in size and I’ve spent hours watching their antics, pushing each other out the way and huffing and puffing at each other to get to the bowl of food so I decided to spread the food around the garden on the understanding that they forage for their natural foods and although I have a pet feeder that I keep in a place where I can see what comes to eat out of it I also throw handfuls of the biscuits on the lawn around paving stones and log piles and into the flat parts of the flower borders that the hedgehogs use on their way to the feeding stations and the hedgehogs find these clusters and eat everything and it means that each one can eat peacefully without having to fight for it. Cats don’t like eating off the ground. I don’t put the food out until it is just starting to get dark – at the moment around 8.30pm because the small hedgehogs seem to come out at that time.
I also put out a bowl of hedgehog crumble that I buy in a big tub that is full of insects etc. And the little hedgehogs love it but the cats don’t. I have a large bowl of water that I keep in the area as well and freshen up every evening because the birds use it as a bath during the day. It’s an old washing machine portal window. Just the right head night for the hogs whereas I find they are a bit careless with their feet and constantly tipping the water out of shallow bowls.
I’ve tried to make my garden as cat proof as I can with plastic stiff netting on wobbly poles about 3’ higher than the top of the fence so cats can’t jump over and because they can’t sit on top of it they can’t get down the other side and they don’t like feeling insecure so they go a different way and give up. I still have one that has learned to get on my garage and climb down the Rose trellis into my garden but at site of me at the window scarpers quick! I’ve never touched this cat but I have chased it barking like a dog!
I hope this helps. I didn’t want the hedgehogs to give up on foraging for their natural food just because it was made easy for them so this way they are still following their instincts to search for food.
Hi ppabel1
You could try lowering the height in the ‘passage’ area. It doesn’t look as if there’s a lot of height, but hogs can get through a lower height, when there are bends, than cats can. If the cat has to flatten down due to the height, it’s not so easy for it to turn back on itself. You could try using offcuts of wood to raise the floor. I used bricks in mine, but think it was a bit higher in the first place, but the hogs had no problem climbing over them. It really needs to be a fairly long stretch of reduced height, with turns in it. It’s a bit of trial and error, as you found with the width, to get it just right.
Good luck.
I had issues with cats for the first couple of months after setting up my feeding stations, they have such flexible spines it is almost impossible to stop every cat getting in especially if they are young/small/thin etc.
You’re definitely on the right track trying to make them turn a corner with bricks etc but I would also try and persevere with an entrance tunnel as I’m sure the hogs will work out how to get in if the food is always there.
Cats can ‘snake’ around corners if the gap is wide enough and they can curve their spine but find it more difficult to navigate a pronounced right angle which is what an entrance tunnel combined with restricting the entrance does.
In the following video you can see I didn’t close the gap enough at the entrance to the tunnel…
I then narrowed the gap at the front to 10cm (you could probably go even narrower) which now prevents the cats getting in, my resident hog is pretty massive but easily turns the corner into the station every night.
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