Good poison for cats??

I don't understand at all these folks who say killing them is not the right thing to do. As the landowner, you have every right in the world to protect yourself and your livestock. I'm reading here that Granny is not able to catch and haul them off or even catch and then kill them. If she had rats in the basement, she'd use poison and no one would care. The problem I see with poison is that critters that you don't want to kill can get into it; if a cat can reach it, so can you chickens and there enters the risk. Unless.......your chickens are penned up long enough to get rid of the critter and then put up the poison. Go on, flame me, but I don't really care about other folks' animals who they don't take care of. I used to live in a trailer park and a neighbor had cats get into the insulation under his trailer. Animal control brought out traps and then, when the cat was caught, collected $10 from the cat owner and released the cat--all the while charging the other guy rental on the trap. So, he put his pets up for the night and put out a saucer of antifreeze. Good riddance to the cat. I love animals, too, but not to the extent that we save every life etc. My boss even went so far as to have bats removed and relocated from her house! What a waste of money. The no kill shelters around here are always begging the town for more money to keep running--so my taxes are going to pay for something that I really don't want. I'd put all the strays to sleep and be done with it.

DianaMallory said:

STOP Killing the cats!!!! If your grandmas chickens wandered into her neighbors yard you wouldn't want them to kill her chickens would you? Have we tried talking to the neighbor and explaining to her that she is not helping those cats by allowing them to breed like that? And by having so many around unfixed and probably deceased. The state of Ohio use to have a catch fix and release program. I don't know if they still do anymore. But they use to trap them and release them on the prisons property here. Check with your state. In the mean time get a dog or electric fence! And tell grandma next time she sees a cat in her yard get out the water hose they hate being sprayed with water! Or buy her a super soaker squirt gun! Let granny have a blast! and yet another reason not to free range your chickens! Pen them up! Where the cats can't get them! Problem solved nobody loses a life and no fight with the neighbor over her nuisance cats!

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Frankly, if Grandma's chickens wandered over into the neighbor's yard and were destroying the neighbor's property - say, eating their prize-winning rose bushes, or even just digging and scratching in the garden - the neighbor would have every right to kill the chickens. Especially if it happened time and again, and the neighbors talked to Grandma about it and she did nothing to prevent it from happening again. Sounds to me like the chickens are penned up pretty well. That many cats probably aren't being fed enough which is why the cats are coming over for chicken dinner.

cowhlb said:

Killing them isn't the right thing to do... What I would do is get some LIVE traps and set them out in various places around your yard. Bait them with dry or wet cat food. When you catch them either take them to the pound, ask around and see if anybody would adopt them, or let them go some where in a wooded area or far away from chickens and your house. Life is precious so please do not kill any more. Would you like it if someone shot and killed you? Don't think so...

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Did you read what OP said about taking them to the pound? It would cost them $12 per cat to get rid of them. OP has already eliminated over 30 cats - multiply that by $12. No one should be expected to shell out that much money for a bunch of stray cats. OP lives 40 miles from the Grandma's house. It's really not practical to be making an 80-mile round trip every day to check the LIVE traps and would be cruel (and against the law where I live) to leave the cats in the trap for days on end until they could get there. Letting them loose to probably starve to death in a wooded area is a great plan. Maybe they can become someone else's problem instead. No, let's not do that one, either. Really, sometimes a quick, humane death is the kindest thing for an animal that's neglected and probably slowly starving to death anyway. Do the cats "like" it if they're shot and killed? They don't even know what hit them, so they really can't like it or not like it. That's reality.

cowhlb said:

Also, why would a 90 year old woman have chickens? To me, that is to much for a woman of that age to handle.

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If she can feed and water them, it's not too much for her to handle. It probably helps keep her going, and more power to her! My 99-year old grandma still lives on her own and still waters her flowers and sweeps her walk and driveway. (Yes, she sweeps her driveway... it makes her happy. )

OP, I hope you can get your problem solved. Maybe beef up the coop and run a little so the cats can't get in? I would stay away from the poison myself, just to avoid killing an unintended target.

And for those of you who think I'm a cat-hater, you're wrong. We have a very spoiled indoor/outdoor cat (we live far enough away from our neighbors he doesn't go bother them) and some barn cats. But people should not have to deal with multiple strays from the neighbors eating their chickens and probably using the lawn and gardens if there are any as litterboxes.

We won't let this turn into any more of an argument. Thank you for your partipciation.