You can keep cats out of an area with electric wires.
If you want perfect, 100% exclusion you will need three hot wires:
- one about 4" below top of fence, but only 2" out from the face of the fence
- one at roughly top of fence, but 4" out from the face of the fence
- one 2" above the top of the fence, in line with the face.
... which gives you a negative (?) overhang for a climber and the top wire is insurance that they can't somehow reach/slink over the first two.
100% success over 36 months against families of raccoons who were irresistibly attracted to (otherwise) defenseless chickens. Yes, raccoons > cats both physically and mentally.
You must not have trees? The cats in my area don't even need to scale the fence. That's a break glass kind of maneuver for them. One cat in the neighborhood climbs a tree, jumps onto a rooftop, walks along the top of a fence line, jumps to the next house, then uses trees in the new yard.
So again, how does one prevent that? To me, it's really not even worth attempting as it will always be futile. The only thing that has really slowed down the backyard visitors in my yard is by allowing my cats to mark the area as theirs. After a couple of skirmishes, the other cats learn it's not worth it in that area.
Raccoons are incredible. Both the smarts and the agility are off the scale and they are so good in planning ahead that they tend to succeed just because they are able to pull off feats that you only realize in retrospect were within their abilities. They have the cuteness factor but underneath that is a ferocious and cunning little predator that makes a cat look like a bumbling fool. Fortunately we do not have raccoons here so the opposition is manageable.
Comments
You can keep cats out of an area with electric wires.
If you want perfect, 100% exclusion you will need three hot wires:
- one about 4" below top of fence, but only 2" out from the face of the fence
- one at roughly top of fence, but 4" out from the face of the fence
- one 2" above the top of the fence, in line with the face.
... which gives you a negative (?) overhang for a climber and the top wire is insurance that they can't somehow reach/slink over the first two.
100% success over 36 months against families of raccoons who were irresistibly attracted to (otherwise) defenseless chickens. Yes, raccoons > cats both physically and mentally.
You must not have trees? The cats in my area don't even need to scale the fence. That's a break glass kind of maneuver for them. One cat in the neighborhood climbs a tree, jumps onto a rooftop, walks along the top of a fence line, jumps to the next house, then uses trees in the new yard.
So again, how does one prevent that? To me, it's really not even worth attempting as it will always be futile. The only thing that has really slowed down the backyard visitors in my yard is by allowing my cats to mark the area as theirs. After a couple of skirmishes, the other cats learn it's not worth it in that area.
Oh, right…
Yes, our chicken runs are in a quarter acre cleared area.
This would not work with overhanging trees.
Raccoons are incredible. Both the smarts and the agility are off the scale and they are so good in planning ahead that they tend to succeed just because they are able to pull off feats that you only realize in retrospect were within their abilities. They have the cuteness factor but underneath that is a ferocious and cunning little predator that makes a cat look like a bumbling fool. Fortunately we do not have raccoons here so the opposition is manageable.