Cats and Chickens

We have coyotes. Every once in awhile I hear them go crazy close by....They eat the cats. My coop will need to be super coyote proof.

Coyotes will snatch them in the day time also. My neighbor has trouble with fox getting his chickens during the day. For some reason I have not had that problem but I also have guineas and they are so noisy that maybe the fox can't stand it.

I was surprised by the skunk too. I was thinking I had a weasel or something like that. I'd come across them in the back country and they always just sort of waddle along, minding their own business. I expressed severe doubts down at the feed store when I told them what happened and they said it was a skunk. They just didn't seem to have that kind of energy! Put out a trap and sure enough the skunk came back that night. Apparently the single bite to the head is pretty characteristic of skunk.

Live and learn...
Jay

Seriously, I wish it wasn't a cat, but yes it indeed was. I have to inform you that yes that IS how cats hunt. They chew the head and neck off first and also make the original bite to the neck. One of the offending cats (the last one which was a neighbor's was caught heading to the area, and the feral cat which lived in my barn was never caught in the act, but every time chickens were killed or missing she got fat. I got rid of her and voila, no more dead chickens). There was no way a skunk did it anyway, impossible for a skunk to get up there, coon could of, but a cat was indeed the culprit each and every time a chicken was killed save for a neighbor's dog once. I don't know why everyone is so surprised cats did this.

Well Patch, apparently you are correct.

Two of my chicks were killed by a certain yellow and white cat that lives down the street, months ago.

Yesterday I heard my adult silkie hens making a lot of noise and looked out and that cat was in the yard. I ran it off.

Today, I heard the same noise, looked out and he was there again. Now, one of my chickens is missing and there are feathers around.

Now I don't know what to do.

Ok good news bad news.

The hen is alive and seems ok. She is missing feathers.

So I still have to deal with a cat attacking my chickens.

I'm glad she's OK! Is there anyway to keep the cat out? Sensor - sprinklers set all around the coop just far enough away to not get the chickens if the cat sets if off? lol O the images....

Whos cat is it again? Neighbors? stray?
I have had a couple strays around but they cant get into the run. I can only imagine what they could do. Your poor baby. Do you have animal control?

When my chickens are out during the day I have seen unfarmiliar cats watching them but the chickens chase them away. Could you trap the cat and take it down to your neighbors as evidence? During the day cats could take my chickens but at night in the country the cats become the prey. I can't imagine what the rodent population would be like if the cats weren't around. In my barn the cats and the chickens hang out together, I guess I just got lucky.

Hey Jenks i went by your road today (lipscomb) I was on my way to a dinner and then back and I {{{{WAVED}}}} Did you hear me screaming {{{JENKS!!}}} as i went by.

Thanks for your concern Jenks and others.

My first instinct was.. to get a pellet gun. I wanted to shoot him. The only pellet guns I know of have BB's. That could hurt him, if it embedded under his skin.

I was mad enough to hurt him. I went outside in my pajamas in 16 degree weather. No coat. I'm sure I was a sight, yelling "GET OUT OF HERE" at the top of my lungs. Hope my neighbor didn't peek over the fence. Then I walked around the yard like that looking for my chicken. How embarrassing.

A motion detector, now that's an idea. I guess the most practical solution is (1) electrify the fence or (2) trap the cat.

That one chicken, and I don't know who it is.. but she sounds the alarm. Thank God for her.. both times I've heard her do that, the cat was there.

I thought I heard someone! Where'd you go to eat? We went to eat at Sycamore Grill the other night and it was closed. So we went to that new little sodashop place behind the Blue Willow. Cute. Red walls are kind of hard to sit among, but poodle skirts and saddle shoed people working there were great.

A motion detector that would squirt the cat would be awesome. I used to fantasize about that when I lived in a neighborhood and people would let their dogs pee on my flower beds, or worse poo. I was going to set it to squirt the dog walker, not the dog. Unfortuneatly, I could not figure out how to prevent it from getting the mail person.

First of all, these cats ONLY killed my chickens when it was dark out, never during the day. Cats love to hunt at night. Secondly, if that cat has already made kills, you're not getting rid of it that easily. Is it killing at day or night? What kind of enclosure do you have? I had to do different things for each cat. I was able to catch the feral and relocate it. As for the neighbor's cat they could care less about my chickens. I had to take drastic measures. Those measures worked.

If you are protecting your property on your property then I believe you have the right to do what ever you need to.

I KNOW cats hunt at night but where I live many other animals hunt at night and the cats would be at the bottom of that food chain. Also my coop is pretty heavy duty the only thing that can get in there once it has been closed up is snakes and I found them in there too.

My point is that just because your main predators are not cats does not mean that those are not others main predators. Not meaning to sound rude, but if I said it was cats then it was cats (in my situation). I was not asking you about your coop, rather the person that has been having issues with cats, sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to sound rude.

Patchouli - I don't think anyone thought you rude!

Well maybe if your coop was more secure you wouldn't have problems with cats. When you said you weren't interested in my coop I didn't mean to address you directly. There are other people that read this thread and from the sound of it the majority of us don't have a problem with cats. The beginning of this thread started with Jenks asking about cats and chickens we all gave our own experiences I'm sorry if mine did not jive with yours. This will be my last post on this thread. Merry Christmas

Maybe you shouldn't talk about what you don't know about. Yawn.

Jenks are you still here?

Aye! LOL

Are you warm Harm?

Well this cat was hunting in the day. At night the hens are in their coop. In the day they are free ranging in my backyard which has a six foot wooden fence. The cat is jumping over the back part of it. That's where I saw him leaving when he killed my chicks, and it's where he left from both times recently.

My large dog is out there at night. Of course, she's also often in the garage asleep. At nine years old, she is sleeping more.

This seems to be a large aggressive tom cat. Not sure who it belongs too, but somebody said it is a neighbor cat, that lives a block away.

He was definitely serious, because quite a few feathers were torn out

Because of comments people had made, I felt my adult chickens were safe from cats. Apparently that's not the case with mine.

I think that any predator that's hungry enough.....is something to worry about! I'm not going to risk it. I'll wait until I can get something decent built that's safe.....I like the rolling coop idea....

LfJ
A high-powered pellet gun WILL kill a cat... just aim for the chest, it will puncture the lungs. Or trap it and take it to animal control, tell them it was killing your chickens and they will probably put it down. They may even have a live trap you can borrow/rent.

Since it's already hunted at your place, deterrants probably won't work, it will just get smarter. At least, that's been my experience with dogs.

Jay

Mother Cats with kittens are very aggressive and hunt for food to produce milk for the kits and later prey for the kits to eat. My Mother cat could take down a full grown rabbit and bring it to the house for her kits. She also brought live but injured rats,birds and lizards for them to learn to kill and hunt.

I think those of us who have no trouble are ok because it's our cats that we raise. Not a neighbor's poorly fed or a feral cat!! Any carnivore is going to find or make a hole big enough to get through once it decides there's meat on the other side!!

Most definately! The neighbor's cat tore a hole through several layers of mesh screen. I had to close their window with a board to keep them safe. I still took out that cat though. Had to set a little something out for him at night if you get my drift. Put it inside the chicken coop, right next to the window. The chickens were closed up for the night and my dogs were safe inside my house. Anything that came prowling along in my coop certainly didn't belong there that night. No more cat - no more dead chickens. They are mine to protect.

Cats will kill chickens, if they are inclined. I recently rehomed two proven chicken killers. One ate 11 babies right in front of me, I placed the cat the next day, then the 2nd cat at two more babies, so he's been placed too. Best thing we ever did, no one misses the cats, and our dogs don't bother the chickens.

Question: Will opossums kill chickens? I know they will take eggs but do they actually kill chickens. I have Bantams and we keep the place as clear as possible of opossums, but occasionally one will slip over the fence. TIA!!!!!!

I believe they've been known to. grapevine -surely someone has firsthand on this?

The cats that killed my Bantams were unusually well fed. Fearful of more lost chickens, I fed the cats two cans of meat, each cat, each day, with kibble & treats, to be positive they were full and had no reason to kill the chickens, except sport, which is definitely why they killed the Bantam babies. I worked with the cats, sprayed them with water, put bells on their collars, nothing worked, so I rehomed them. It took me abut two years to do it, but it was the right decision, I don't miss them. They also killed baby ducks, and an 18 month duck and adult chickens. They were sneaky and I never really knew for certain until the cat killed the 11 babies at one fell swoop, with me doing everything in the world to get them away - I managed to save 5 or 6 then the 2nd cat went after them, I had no idea until that incident that the 2nd cat was a killer too. I've had it with cats...

My cats did well with my chickens. Just had to keep the chicks safe from the cats for the first 3mos or so. Feral cats are a totally different story. The raccoons in this area eat my chickens if they can get at them as do the hawks or falcons. Coyotes are a problem too. Gotta protect from all angles, which makes it a bit 'trickier' to free range - but what I got going now seems to be working until the predators figure it out that is!

Cheryl ~ Pea

That's horrible -after all that work too. I suppose it just means that you know you did everything that you could do, but it hurts anyway.

My five cats were raised with the chickens. The chickens were much bigger than they were when they got here. And we handle them all a lot. That may be the difference. And I'm sure that there are some cats that just are 'that way' in spite of everything. But a neighbor's cat coming over would really get to me. My own I could rehome -like you say. But if the critter is not mine to rehome...it becomes mine to stop I guess. Ughh...

It is too upsetting to think about everything we did to attempt to stop the cats, and we went WAY further than the extra mile. The cats were smaller than the chickens when they arrived, and we had a protective roo, so the chickens did their job of 'training' the cats. All the while, I worked with the cats, same as I do with puppies, I scold them, spray with water, shout, even used a cap pistol to startle the cats, I used a fishing pole, any and everything we could think of and the part that bothers me the most is that I didn't rehome them until after I lost so many chickens & ducks. And, to think that I have two dogs, a Golden & a cockapoo and they know better than even to glance at the chickens - they are free with the chickens and never a single problem, one dog 6, the other 3, males, intact. After all is said and done, I think the cats, males, neutered, were possessive and envious of the time I spent with the chickens. I made my choice...only thing I did wrong was waiting so long to do it. I can take an occasional hawk or owl, but a well fed, well cared for, house cat, that deliberately kills chickens, then walks off, isn't the correct fit for life here in south Arky...

Ouch. I cannot imagine what I would have done and regretted had any cat of mine done that...I feel bad even making you mention it...Thanks for the input though.

I have Bantams because hub's mom needed a little pump up, she recently died at 94.5, and I brought in the chickens about 4, 5 or 6 years ago, and they made a world of difference in her life, she grew up with chickens. We took her out on the deck and she would hold and pet the chickens and she was able to collect their eggs and it was the activity she needed to get her feet moving and she looked forward to it each day, we think the chickens gave her additional years. We had one cat Potter, an angel, who never bothered the chickens. Then, two stray cats, about a month apart, joined us and, within 6 months, Potter disappeared, and to this day, we believe the two rouge cats 'did him in', but we had no evidence. Potter had no teeth, a deformity, and road the gate on the barn deck, and I fed him by hand. Long story short, these to innocent appearing cats began several years of 'pulling the *cat hair* over our eyes'. We were busy caring for my daddy and hub's mom, and our 7 grands and 2 grand nieces, and a chicken would be 'lost' here and there - there were a couple of times that we blamed the chickens for killing other chickens. Long and short is that if something is getting your chickens and you cannot find the cause, think c-a-t. I lock ours up at night, but that doesn't help in the daytime if there is a stray, we have one now and, since I haven't seen him in about 4 days, it is my hope that he's given up.

We love our chicken yard because it attracts birds, finches, wook peckers, Inca Doves, Mourning Doves, Collared Doves, wrens, chickadees, worlds of other birds, our dogs, and the birds get along - our dogs and the cats got along great too, they loved each other but cats will kill Bantams in a flash, never trust a cat with a Bantam. In addition, many friends who have Bantams and cats have had the same problem. I no longer give Bantams to friends that have cats.

Love you story Sherry anything that gives someone a few more days or years is always great. I had a cat also that would terrorize the chickens he has a new home now.

Love the Story Sherry i had a gentleman call me couple years back wanting to purchase some cochins. He said he had alot of roosters and needed hens i was happy to help him and gave him my address.

He came on saturday with his wife and introduced themselves and then told me about the chickens he had.
He said one day his sister called him and told him she had cancer and only had a short while to live. Him and his wife were crushed and told her to come live on their farm which she did. He laughed when he said and she started collecting these cochins he said she went to the auctions and brought them home. He said i never said a thing to her and then she started a garden and seemed to get better. They would all sit on the porch and watch the chickens and they helped tend to the garden.
He said she was always busy and loved those chickens so much and her health was good for awhile. But she began to get sick and he said she never got better. he told of how she sat on the porch watching the chickens and talking about her garden and they spent those last days doing only that.
He said the last thing she said to him was George "I almost got it all Done". He said he told her not to worry it would all be taken care of and thats what he did.
He said he was keeping his promise and he and his wife was getting the roos some hens and tending her garden.
He said he & his wife loved sitting on his back porch drinking coffee and watching her chickens.

Oh, Harm! What a lovely story(tears are prickling my eyes). I'm sure she's watching them too. :)

Oh sandy i stood and cried as he told me that story i've never heard a story so sweet.
Our unselfish love is the greatest gift we can ever give♥

Precious stories!! Our Bantams are popular in our small town. For years, I've asked anyone/all that might object to the early morning or full moon crowing via my Roo(s), to let me know and I will remove them immediately. We've never had a single complaint. The only problem we've ever had was when my neighbor's yard man put out fire ant poison which bled, via rain, into the Bantam yard. My neighbor was terribly distressed - absolutely no problem with the chickens, even the babies, they had to have eaten it but all lived to crow about it. If my roos had created problems, I would have crated them, individually at night, but, after all these years, they have never been a problem...