GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

27-03-2003, 10:44 PM

In article ,
says...
mandy thomas wrote:

snips ....

How do you suggest people train their cats to stay out of your garden?

Not really my problem - if an owner can't train it to remain in the
garden, then keep it indoors or in a fenced area in the garden.

I don't have a cat, and I don't like them leaving a mess in my garden but I
just accept them as one of those fairly minor inconveniences that I can't do
anything about.

But I don't consider it a minor inconvenience, especially when they
urinate and defaecate on the veg. And toxoplasma gondii is not a minor
inconvenience to anybody who is pregnant.

I wish people would get themselves straight on this one.

The old wives' tale that once a woman is pregnant she must banish all
cats from her household is simply not true.

T.Gondii infects the vast majority of cats while they are kittens. An
adult cat has thrown out the parasite unless it it immunosuppressed in
some way (cat HIV). The risks to the mother are highest during the first
trimester.

As a precaution pregnant women are advised to avoid all fecal matter
from cats throughout pregnancy. To increase the risk by being accurate
you should say that pregnant women should avoid ingesting fecal matter
of kittens and sick cats for the first half of pregnancy.

Flies, beetles and cockroaches are common carriers of T.Gondii and their
fecal matter can harbour live eggs. The fly and beetle matter is much
more likely to be present in the soil when gardning and a T.Gondii
infection from such a source is overwhelmingly likely to be the source
of an accidental gardening infection (presumably you don't know you've
had your hand on a speck of fly crap and are more likely to e.g. get
that small splinter out with your teeth than if the splinter came after
you'd encountered cat faeces).

A pregnant woman should be gardning in gloves especially for the first
half of the pregnancy since there's lots of nasties in the soil and
T.Gondii is just one of them.

Warwick