Nature is comprised of a bunch of animals and plants together, eating one another, keeping one another in a semblance of balance. My yard is not nature. But in it I try to put the right animals and plants together such that they can live as happily and naturally as possible and I can reap food for the family.
Cats are animals that are cuddly for the kids and fulfill a vital role in reducing the damage to our vegetables and fruit trees from a number of other animals.
Here are highlights of how we keep our cats and how they defend our food garden. Let’s start with who they defend against.
Rats and mice
We currently have two cats. Tiger is the gray tabby and Creeper is the black and white one. There have been a few years in the past when we had no cats. During those years without cats, I would find tomatoes chewed and holes in bags of chicken feed in the garage. I saw rats and mice. I saw their droppings nearby. I trapped and trapped.
In the years with cats, I need to do no trapping. I can even leave grain for the chickens spilled on the garage floor for months and it is never touched. The rats and mice are extinct around here. The cats control these pests completely.
Rabbits
They also completely keep rabbits out of our vegetables. In years without cats, I’ve had to cage broccoli and lettuce plants or put a short fence around the perimeter of all of the vegetable beds. Today I have no fence and no cages and still no rabbit damage.
Birds
Bird control is nowhere near complete, however. Scrub jays continue to peck some at our cherries and apricots and nectarines and apples, although they do so mostly at the tops of the tree canopies since the cats are around. And while mockingbirds continue to steal some blueberries, they do less of it. They know that the cats might be lying in wait.
I haven’t netted the blueberries or any fruit tree for the past few years because the cats keep the bird damage low enough that it’s not worth my time. But I do still net the grapes.
Gophers
Just yesterday I came upon Tiger stalking a gopher as it was poking its head out of a tunnel near a few avocado trees. Watch:
Because the cats don’t catch enough, I still have to trap gophers. But many times I’ve seen a new mound and set a trap only to find that curiously it hasn’t been triggered after a few days. Eventually I remove such traps and surmise that the cats had already caught that one.
Squirrels
I have seen one of our cats with a young squirrel in its mouth, and in general, the squirrels have shown themselves in the yard less during cat years, but I don’t count on the cats to provide much control of squirrels.
Part of the reason for this might be that squirrels are most active during the day, even at noon on a hot summer day, which is when the cats prefer to nap in the shade.
Keeping the cats safe
Cats do some hunting during both the day and night, and so do their main threat: coyotes.
Our cats are strictly outdoor cats, but they have multiple refuges from the coyotes. There are cat doors into our two garages, and our neighbor constructed a box in one of his oak trees that only the cats can fit into, as they hunt frequently in his yard too.
The right cats
I’ve heard of people with cats and rats. In other words, their cats don’t hunt the rats. I don’t know how this can be, except that they might feed their cats too much or they might have the wrong cats.
Ours come from a feral mother and father in the neighborhood, both of whom we still see around from time to time. They have a hardy pedigree.
Downsides of cats in a food garden
You can’t tell the cats what to prey upon and what not to, unfortunately. So they catch lizards. But if the kids see a cat with a lizard, they can sometimes get the cat to release it and allow it to escape.
And they eat some birds. I’d prefer that they only scare the birds, but that’s not their instinct. We have two cats on a little over an acre, and I’ve seen no apparent reduction in the overall population of birds while the cats are around. It seems that this small number of cats is low enough for the property size.
A couple mornings ago I opened the door to find four rabbit feet and entrails on the mat. It’s not always that I can tell so clearly which animals the cats have caught and eaten there overnight, and I don’t appreciate that they sully our doormat, but I do appreciate that they earn their keep.
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My cat brings me lizards and birds, but they usually live. Jays and mockingbirds seem to be smart enough to know what a cat is. Maybe I’ll try growing blueberries again which I tried pre-cat and got nothing. Tiger video is amazing! That gopher maybe should take a hint and mosey on.
We had strays kill some gophers for us, but I’m hesitant to get my own cats. We have so many quail, that roost and breed in every shrub, it seems, and they are easy pickings. Even a greyhound I was fostering caught a few. One, while he was leashed. At night. In the pouring rain.
That darn gopher’s got bottom, tho. Really standing up to tiger. After being in his mouth!
Last year my 2 cats were not able to fully protect my mulberry bush but they did get 4 rats the week my mulberries got eaten.
Sort of related, my all time favorite for watching an animal catch a gopher was a great blue heron. It was hunting in a field along the road, and I stopped to watch it for about 5 minutes. The heron drilled the gopher, dropped it and drilled it again and then swallowed it whole. I would love to have that bird around my yard . . .
Hey Greg,
Any issues with cat feces near fruit trees? We have a few stray cats that have been using our small orchard as their restroom. The feces aren’t directly over the roots but in the general vicinity. It’s likely to deter the rats from the area if left but I don’t want to get anyone sick either. Thanks!
Hi Andie,
The only time I pay attention to where my cats bury their poop is when they do it in a bed that I’ve freshly sown with carrots. They always do that! They love the clear, fluffy dirt that I’ve created there.
Whoa much and where, what, and when do you need your cats. We have outside cats (and coyotes). We’ve been very successful at having places for the cats to get away since 2016. But my husband thinks I feed them too much and I do see them catch squirrels, rabbits, and rats… but there’s always more.
Our main hunter, Magick, was a mangy stray that we started feeding years ago when we lived in Hollywood. We had a tiny rooftop garden that the rats would completely destroy–they’d eat not just the tomatoes but even seedlings right down to the soil. I had no intention of a pet cat and started feeding him in hopes that he would hang around and keep the rats in check but he moved right in, got healthy and became very dear to us. He was a heroic mouser–he would devour his kibble, gorge on stolen table scraps until he could hardly move, sleep it off and then go out and slay mutant city rats all night. When we moved to the suburbs and got a yard I planted it with almost a dozen fruit trees and built gardens in every sunny spot, and he continued to defend the yard. He’s old now and sleeps literally 20 hours a day, rarely seems to hunt anymore, but he still goes outside to poop and I never see mice or rats. A few years ago he was sick and my wife was worried about him and kept him indoors for 5 weeks–huge difference… in that time the mice moved back in and I would catch them rustling in the plants and see droppings everywhere. Once he was back on patrol though they disappeared. We have another younger cat, more of a pet than hunter but just giving her outside access seems to frighten the mice and fruit rats away. They’re no good against racoons, though. The young cat was introduced to the outdoors carefully as she was kitten and is incredibly wary when she’s outdoors.