The location: Tanzania. Summary: Researchers in Tanzania have decided that cat’s urine is potentially a much better rodent deterrent for farmers than the chemical that is currently used in Tanzania namely, zinc phosphate. Zinc phosphate is harmful to the environment and to all animals including animals which are not the target animals such as chickens. The chemical can kill them. It is less precise and less environmentally friendly than cat’s urine.
Research scientists in Tanzania conducted tests to find out how effective cat’s urine is in deterring rodents. The urine of both female and male domestic cats was placed in two different rooms. It was discovered that the urine of female cats was more effective in deterring rodents.
Therefore, on using the urine of female cats in one room in which there was food and water for rodents while simply putting food and water for rodents in another room without urine, they discovered through photographs of these rooms taken in sequence that the urine was 93% effective in preventing rodents entering the area. It may actually be a higher figure than that because during the few times that rodents were present in the room where there was cat’s urine, they were near the door trying to escape.
It is pleasant to know that a substance which people in the West find annoying to deal with after it is deposited in cat litter, has found a useful role thousands of miles away in Tanzania, Africa. I have no idea if similar tests have been conducted in the West and if so whether there is an intention to employ cat pee in crop fields and other areas where rodents are unwanted.
The research was carried out at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). Funding came from COSTECH. The scientist was Prof. Mulungu.
I really would love to soak him down in cat pee and hear him cry like a little girl.
It would cover up his own rancid pee pee smell for sure.
But, it would be so much more fun to soak him in a “rat attract” liquid instead of a “rat repel” one.
You know me, Ruth. I’m always trying to improve the profile of the domestic cat in the eyes of the world because I fear that there are too many people who don’t like the domestic cat because of their distorted ideas about the cat and these false ideas need to be rectified.
Dee do you think pipi de chat would keep Woody away?
roflol
Oh we just have to bottle some and try 😉
Wonderful, this should be publicised far and wide to shut the cat haters up!
We cat lovers have our very own parfum du chat (perfume of the cat) always on tap and now there is ‘pipi de chat’ (cat pee) to keep rodents away.
Our late mother used to say when you have cats in the house you’ll never get rats and see, she was right!
(unless the cats bring them home as presents for us of course lol)
I think it has potential. Why isn’t it used in places where rats are a pest like London 😉 !
I think this is super!
I hope it, eventually, winds up on supermarket shelves in spray bottles.
I always knew cat pee was good stuff. I know that it can repel unwanted guests here and, now, rodents.
I hope more studies are done to determine what other pests are repelled. I’d like to have those snooty people who don’t want cats in their gardens to shut up.