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All you highly experienced cat colony folks, we need your opinions. We feed our feral cat on the front porch, but we recently found frogs sitting in her food bowl during the evening time. The frogs are not only making a real mess, but we assume they are also eating her food. How can we humanely stop this?
The birds have also started to frequent her food bowl during the day time. How can we put a humane stop to that?
We thought we had the answer for the birds by only putting out the feral's food at night, but now the frogs are enjoying an all night cat food buffet! Suggestions please...
First off, it is a good thing that the feral cat is well enough fed that there is a surplus of food. I saw a colony of feral cats last night where my truck was being repaired that looked like they would have finished off any food then gone after the frogs for desert. i'm going over today to drop off a few bags of dry for the car repair people to feed them.
it sounds to me like the feral is getting food elsewhere. see what happens if you only offer food when he is on the porch.
First off, it is a good thing that the feral cat is well enough fed that there is a surplus of food. I saw a colony of feral cats last night where my truck was being repaired that looked like they would have finished off any food then gone after the frogs for desert. i'm going over today to drop off a few bags of dry for the car repair people to feed them.
it sounds to me like the feral is getting food elsewhere. see what happens if you only offer food when he is on the porch.
We never know when our feral cat comes by. We've seen her mostly in the evenings, but it's very hit and miss when we lay eyes on her.
What a funny situation. Usually, the problem is keeping other animals out of the bird feeder (:
So, I looked up frog repellent, and they apparently do not like salt: What Is a Frog Repellent? | eHow.com
As for the birds, there seem to be many solutions including scarecrows and netting: Bird Repellents Wild Birds - RachelsRobin
Best of luck. I do not envy you your situation. I can just imagine the look on the feral's face if she were to see all of this stuff around her food bowl ("WTF??!!") And, of course, all of this stuff might end up repelling everything, including the cat.
Birds and squirrels eat the cat food I put out. If there's any left at night the opossum's get. None of this I mind up to a point.
I would try putting out smaller amounts twice a day till you see a decrease in the amt of food feeding other animals. If it comes by and keeps missing out it will get hungry and show up sooner. Try to get your feral on more of a schedule is what I'm saying. Mine are waiting in the morning and know when I get home from work.
Frogs - that's pretty strange. I kind of doubt they are eating the cat food. More enjoying the water bowl. Not sure what to do about that, in a way its sort of neat. Maybe they will leave on their own after they are done traveling around looking for a mate or something? You could try calling a local university biology/herp specialist to see.
Can you put it up on a table or something the cats can jump on?
At this point, we have set the ferals' food and water on a chair so that it's not readily available to the frogs. Yes, oddly enough the frogs do eat the cats' kibble when left on the ground. We have started to put the cat food away in our house during the day because of all the grackels (birds) that the food attracted to avoid the mess they were leaving behind. So, the food goes out at dusk on a chair and is picked up in the morning. Thus far it seems to be working well. We have noticed the cat food being eaten so we think our feral is indeed visiting. We can tell it's a cat that has been eating by the way the food looks in the morning. The food is eaten from the middle and is not thrown every where.
We thought we had the answer for the birds by only putting out the feral's food at night, but now the frogs are enjoying an all night cat food buffet! Suggestions please...
The frogs do not eat cat food. They're after the bugs and insects the dry food draws. As for the birds. There is no humane way to keep them from taking the food. Killing them would be both cruel and illegal.
The frogs do not eat cat food. They're after the bugs and insects the dry food draws. As for the birds. There is no humane way to keep them from taking the food. Killing them would be both cruel and illegal.
Please read my OP...I asked for humane control methods...no where did I say I was killing anything. Also, please try researching frogs eating cat food...yes, it can happen and it is happening here.
The frogs do not eat cat food. They're after the bugs and insects the dry food draws. As for the birds. There is no humane way to keep them from taking the food. Killing them would be both cruel and illegal.
Last edited by Wilson513; 06-07-2010 at 08:52 AM..
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