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Cats and indoor plants - help

Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

As you may have noticed by looking at some of my photos that we have 2 new kittens - Smokey and Bandit who are about 5 months old now. My husbands credit drunch cats adopted from the RSPCA. Unfortunately due to the fact they haven't been castrated (yet........Mutley laugh.......) and not chipped they are house bound and driving me mad. Smokey has developed a taste for my houseplants, particularly my Aloe, Bromeliad Nutans Queens tears, which has all the ends chewed and the flower spikes snapped off, a princess tree which was lush and covered in purple buds and has now been shreaded and even cactus!! I wrote a blog the other day about a Boxing Day visit to the Botanical gardens and I managed to find a cutting from a plant i wanted to propogate, even that was discovered and chewed. Is there anything I can do apart from buy myself and air rifle and really upset my husband that will help me to stop them from eating and shreading my plants.




Answers

 

well while you are there you can train them and when your not you can get pet cages big enough for them,there food,litter tray and bedding

28 Dec, 2008

 

Hi Andrea,
You need to get the kittens castrated as soon as possible.
If you can, place your plants on standa, (not climbable).
Your kittens will get bored easily, get lots of cat toys (ask TT).
My cats always sucked anti macasers. Some of your plants may well be poisonous and it may not be noticeable in the early stages.
A toxic build up within their bodies can prove harmful.
Like the names, best of luck.

28 Dec, 2008

 

Should be the end of Jan before I can take them to the vets to get them castrated, so another month to go. The plants are on top of unclimbable things now and the princess tree has chicken wire around it, unfortunately it doesn't look too great and we don't really have enough room for large cages, I hope once they can go out and get rid of some energy they won't be too bothered about my plants. Thanks for your suggestions

28 Dec, 2008

 

What about a quick spray of animal repellent? I got a can from B&Q and Henry hates it and won't touch anything I spray - it was to stop him chewing stones! It isn't toxic, it just smells awful to animals.

28 Dec, 2008

 

yes i was thinking along the same lines as Spritz, i used to have the same problem when i had 2 kittens a few years ago in a flat, and i used to spray obas oil (not sure if spelt right lol) it smells quite nice to us, but cats hate it. another thing you could try is empty plastic bottles with a small amount of water in, with the top tightly screwed on laying around here and there, near where the plants are, i found this scared them off and gave them something to play with at the same time, they would go over to the plant, tred on the bottle or move it, the water splashes around in side, scaring the life out of them, but they would then be facinated with it for half an hour or so and completely forget about the plant that they were originally aiming for, but only put a small amount of water in, as they could make holes in it with there teeth. i have herd this is also effective in the garden too, once they get out there, but not tried that one myself. good luck.

28 Dec, 2008

 

try crinkled foil around your plants,and you can also tap your kittens with a rolled up newspaper, saying at the same time a very firm "NO".
Some vets will castrate at five months, but it takes about six weeks for the testesterone to kick out,
please don,t put them in a cage.they are not naughty just young and curious.human babies will put everything in their mouths as well,but kittens have teeth and our babies don,t,
you can also try a water pistol

29 Dec, 2008

 

lol i like the water pistol idea, only thing is you would need to be sitting watching them doing it for it to be effective Bren. but you could always try some sort of water squerting object with a sensor on so that as soon as they come near to the plant the water would automatically squirt out at them lol - now this is getting silly lol - bet it would be fun to watch though, i remeber seeing a little plasitc flower that did this at a garden centre last year, would imagine not the easiest thing to find this time of year though.

29 Dec, 2008

 

Thanks Bren, we do have a water pistol in use already, but as Maj says you do have to be there all the time to watch them. I wouldn't consider a cage and our vet won't castrate at 5 months and he wants to chip them at the same time, I guess I'm going to have to be patient :(

29 Dec, 2008

 

i guess you are

29 Dec, 2008

How do I say thanks?

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