Best way to kill cats? *Yeah I think the cats could have done it*

[furbabymum]

I didn't want to have to go this route again but here we are. Live in the country and feral cats are an issue. There are at least 5 black feral cats next door. We see them on our property all the time. I was kinda loving them because our rabbit population plummeted. Now I must kill them as they've taken 4 ducks. I sell duck eggs and thanks to them I won't be able to fill my orders.

In the past our dogs took care of the problem. Now it looks like we are going to have to start removing them ourselves. Any suggestions?

Update- People have been saying they don't believe the cats could take a full grown duck. This morning the dogs were going nuts, I looked out the window and a cat had a turkey carcass. It was one of our young borboun reds, that to be fair was already dead. The dogs had killed it the day before and since I'd been running late for work I'd just tossed it over the dog run fence to dispose of later. (the turkey had flown into the dog run) Then it stormed and I never got to dispose of it. Anyway, point being these turkeys, while young, are bigger than the ducks and the cat was carrying this carcass. So yeah, I do think a cat is strong enough to take a full grown duck now.

 

[XtremeRooster]

Intentionally killing a cat is a criminal offense in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, regardless of ownership. Anti-cruelty laws apply to all cats—companion, abandoned, lost, and feral.

/www.alleycat.org/page.aspx?pid=302

no matter what anyone thinks, or what you have been told by some redneck game warden, it is a federal law. my bf arrested and fined people all the time for trapping and killing feral cats. there are usually rescue people that will help trap and relocate feral cats. search on craigslist maybe. or contact this alleycat website.
we have lots of barn cats that keep away rats, mice and snakes from getting to our feed. they are spayed and neutered and live outside 24/7.
i trap feral cats and take them to the local clinic where they get spayed/neutered, shots, and wormed (for free) and then i set them back outside in a safe environment. it is called trap and release.
and lets be realistic, if cats can get to your birds..so can racoons..or hawks, or whatever..
my idea would be simple, keep a dog in the house for indoor protection, and a dog outside for outside protection.

Please do yourself and others a favor, check your facts before you present them as such. Killing a cat IS NOT a CRIMINAL OFFENSE in all 50 states, anti cruelty laws DO NOT apply to all cats in ALL STATES. One thing my 27 year career as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer has taught me is to KNOW the LAW.
http://animallaw.info/articles/ovusferalcat2010.htm

If you take the time to read the link I can verify you are correct about one thing, Florida has now joined the above mentioned states that choose to protect feral cats to a limited degree, Florida Statute 828.055. So technically there are 14 states who have laws regarding Feral Cats. Georgia is NOT one of them. THERE ARE NO FEDERAL LAWS regarding FERAL CATS. If there are would you kindly post the link to the USC United States Code regarding such.

What is one thing HSUS, ASPCA, and PETA have in common? Hint; They are not federal agencies. The USFWS United States Fish and Wildlife Service is: http://www.fws.gov
Click on the SEARCH link and type in Feral Cat there is some very interesting links on that site.

jaxchic I'm gonna be nice and not call names like "Redneck" because I am from Jacksonville. The game warden you refered to as "Redneck" is a lifelong friend of mine who has 29 years of service with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and he has a bachelors degree in wildlife biology. He is a heck of a nice guy unless you are a poacher.

 

[speckledhen]

Instead of killing cats that may or may not have been responsible,try predator proofing your chicken coops. I have cats/dogs and i make sure that my chickens are safe from ALL predators,i have not had any of my tom cats kill any chickens. My dogs (black labs)would more likely kill my chickens then my cats. I personally find your forum heading"Best way to kill cats" offensive and disgusting,and i agree with Str8m8,why are you advertising this fact?

Again, this post violates the rules of P&P. Please read those rules at the top of this section. Fort Knox isn't going to fix every predator issue and if you pen chickens up that tightly, all you get is substandard commercial eggs from them and less than super healthy chickens. Everyone needs to keep their pet cats at home and the ferals are not doing anyone any favors. They are not natural wildlife but an insult to it, IMO. Sad, yes, to be sure, yet an issue that the folks in rural areas have to deal with as they see fit. This thread was going quite well and a good discussion. Predators and Pests is a place for such discussion, so that is why the OP is "advertising" that fact.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

The sweet think about box a.k.a. live or Have-a-heart traps is that when you trap a problem cat it can be eliminated discretely and the PITA cat lover is none the wiser. Don't say squat to any one either before or after, just let the PITA cat lover imagine the worst. You may even get a two for one out of this by taking the cat collars and leaving them under a hawk's or eagle's nest. At the least the cat lover may keep their cats better confined. At the best the PITA cat lover may take it on himself to settle the score with the tabby eating raptor. Feral cats are the most destructive introduced animal on planet Earth and every year in just the USA they kill 10s of billions of birds and other small animals. I have a cat but he is confined to my house 24-7. What makes those PITA cat lovers so much better than you or I? In short they are no better if as good as anyone else.

 

[chooks4life]

Just wanted to offer my .02. For the record, I totally support the animal keeper's need to keep their animals safe, and also the inverse which is the animal keeper's need to keep other animals safe from their animals. I prefer the least painful and distressing methods possible but unfortunately they are not always possible. Personally I would never use poison though, but I'm not here to judge those who do. If poison is used, best for it to be a very quickly eliminated one that doesn't linger on for generations and which is potent and kills the first time, every time. Non target animals will possibly die, including pets or livestock, but these are risks inherent in using poisons.

I have been breeding good self defense mechanisms and traits into my livestock animals for a while now, since any animal that sits in the paddock being easy game is wasting my time. I need them to be able to run or fly or attack as necessary, and to have the weapons, attitude and aptitude to do so; also I gear their environment in such a way as to ensure they have the advantage. For geese, that's living on a sloped paddock that has a dam at the lowest point, and no obstructions. If attacked up the top of the paddock they will take flight and land in the dam. Just as an example. If they ranged a wooded level field they'd be easy game.

I'm pretty experienced with feral cats, having lived for years in the midst of a colony exceeding 100 at one point. I've also had pet cats since I was a kid. A few people here don't seem to think a cat can carry off or kill a fully grown duck. I assure you, they can. Most cats lack the desire, but that doesn't mean they won't if hungry or brave enough. So I do believe it's logical for the OP to view the cats with suspicion.

Also, the trap-neuter-release thing I'm not sure about the worth of. An outright cull would be better. People say it leads to the cat "holding the space" --- not in my experience, it doesn't. (But if anyone has proof of that claim I'd be happy to see it). We see even in chickens how very important breeding viability tends to be for an animal's status and subsequent control of resources.

From my experience, desexed cats lose status immediately, and become viewed (and treated) as cripples by the majority of entire cats. A cat's entire endocrinal system in functioning order holds a strong influence over its ability to gain and defend a territory. The gonads of both genders are a part of this.

An adult cat's breeding status bears huge influence in its ability to hold a territory and therefore gain a steady feed supply. It cannot compete with non desexed ferals, and automatically the majority of desexed males and females will lose status and territory; they then assume the status of juveniles or old or crippled cats, and it's hard for them to survive. Once the entire cats smell that the desexed cat's scent markings no longer declare its viability, they move in on it, fight, and if able to they displace the desexed cat to a lower grade territory where it will often suffer for lack of food. In my opinion it's kinder to cull it rather than waste money on neutering.
Quote: Our cats used to kill and carry off wild rabbits twice their size. Cats have no problem killing and carrying prey up to twice their weight. They are incredibly efficient and powerful predators. Around here (Australia) they are known to take goat kids, wallabies, adult geese, lambs, etc, and basically anything they can get hold of. Some ferals around here also chew through chicken wire without an issue.

I lived for a while near a pig and duck farmer. He had large ducks in a fenced enclosure and we suspected one of our cats was paying them visits, so we caged the cat. There was never any proof of an attack and he'd always been a good rodent killer, not bird killer, but we saw him watching them too closely and took what we thought were pre-emptive measures. They would have weighed more than him, but he'd killed things his own size or larger before, and carried them off, so we made sure he wasn't loose to attack someone's livestock. When cats stare at animals they tend to mean something by it. If these cats are spotted watching the livestock I would assume at least one has had a go at them.
Quote: Cats don't bother crows for the same reason they don't bother tiny willy-wagtails --- the bird tends to be too clever for the cat to catch. Willy wagtails will spend a long time tormenting any cat stupid enough to try to catch them, until the cat is so resigned that the bird can stand an inch from its face in smug safety, and even walk on it. The bird's glee and confidence is palpable. They also torment dogs in this way until the dog's learned to never bother trying to catch it. Size doesn't have anything to do with that.
Quote: On that topic: I found that rather than killing every new lot of rats that moved in, it was best to keep the ones that made the least nuisance of themselves. Only some of them attacked chicks; others were quite inoffensive, only tidied up any scraps that were left about, etc. There are many different species of rodents, with only a very few being pests, and some species control other rodents. Native rats tend to kill domestic/feral rats and mice, and there is a species of mouse that will hunt and kill and eat all other mice. This latter species is allowed to be kept as a pet. I have always found that asides from cats, the best rodent control is an established breeding pair of a species that holds territory and defends it aggressively.

On the topic of deterrence, anything that contributes to confusing their senses or obscuring some information whether scent or sight or sound will help. The less the cat (or whatever the predator at fault is) can clearly see and hear and smell its prey, the better. I believe this is why ammonia sometimes works; not because they respect a human's urine markings, but because the potent stench obscures other smells which are vitally important to know of.
Quote: Those are general guideline sorts of details... Cats can cleanly take prey, and foxes/hawks can make a mess, etc. Some animals tend towards messy kills but that doesn't mean you can ID the predator from one kill in every case, just based on how many feathers are present. Not that you were saying that, just giving an example.
Quote: In my experiences, that's basically how it goes. Even if he's not desexed, if he doesn't measure up in any way, death is likely. Once he's desexed, he lives a terrible half life in perpetual anxiety unless someone takes him in to be a pet. I would hazard a guess that about a fifth of toms are killed by other toms in the wild. It might be a higher or lower number, but I'd think higher; also a lot of fatal maulings occur, which aren't direct kills but lead to death through sepsis. Any tom that can't fight his way to the top (which is the vast majority) is likely to get killed sooner or later.
Quote: What it does do is take away his edge. Once that drive is gone he knows he's the inferior specimen, the other cat knows it too, and cats are one species that really specializes in psychological intimidation as a method of achieving their ends. Once a cat feels it is a goner, it's a goner; this is irrespective of its physical capacity to defend itself. Feral cats also take it upon themselves to eradicate sub par members of the species with rather more dedication than I can recall seeing in most other species. I regularly found dead toms which had died from being bitten in the chest and neck by other toms while living at that overrun place.

It's a controversial topic, controlling animals through killing. But it's easy to be adamantly anti any method of control until you've tried all the humane ones and they've failed and you're still taking losses. To the OP: if you've tried every alternative and they've all failed, don't waste time feeling bad about doing whatever you had to do. Best wishes.

 

[speckledhen]

Again, this is the place for this discussion, whether or not you approve or disapprove of what the original poster intends to do. Just because I am acting as a traffic cop here in this thread at times (habit left over from being a moderator on this very forum for over five years and knowing and believing in the rules of it as I do), doesn't always mean I agree with what is being said; sometimes I do, sometimes, I don't. Never assume. The rules always apply.

I do free range the flocks and they have encountered cats and I have never killed one (yet). I have no issues in doing so if a cat or cats become a problem with my birds. I've seen a very, VERY large cat looking in my low-to-the-ground coop window-a screen that was leaning against that very window fell on it and scared it away as I caught a glimpse of it. It was obviously a Maine Coon and that is a HUGE cat. Could it take down a chicken if it was so inclined? I have absolutely NO doubt of that.

The facts of free ranging birds with good forage being healthier and producing eggs higher in Omega3's and other nutrients and lower in cholesterol, etc, has been proven. Won't argue the point. It is what it is. There will always be risks with free ranging. I mitigate those in a small way by running large roosters with the flock and have so far never lost one to any predator, cat, fox or coyote (though odds are my number is up soon, I realize).

Quote: The pet should be at home with the child, not on my property, crapping in my garden, spraying my porch and scaring my birds. That guilt trip doesn't work with me. If it's on my property, it's a predator, not a pet. Read my sig line. I mean every word of it.

 

[dawg53]

I'll do whatever it takes to protect my property.

 

[XtremeRooster]

Quote:
I AM NOT ADVOCATING KILLING CATS MERELY STATING WHAT THE LAW SAYS. CHECK YOUR OWN STATE LAWS. MAKE YOUR OWN INFORMED DECISIONS.

 

[WYNot]

My personal view is that I would never put out poison. A quick, clean, never-knew-what-hit-'em death is what is best, IMO, for all nuisance predators. The objective is to remove the problem, not torture an animal. Wild predators mostly are nocturnal, though some do hunt in daylight, especially when feeding their young, but they are not the main cause of losses, it seems to me. Domestic dogs are. Cats, I dont know. I've seen plenty of stray cats come and go here and none bothered my birds, other than to pretend-stalk them. They never actually pounced and ran like heck when the birds spotted them and advanced on them. We've never shot a cat on our property, but if one became a confirmed nuisance killer, you bet we would.

Whether or not the predator in question, be it dog or cat, is someone's pet, is not even relevant as far as I am concerned. My chickens are someone's pet-MINE. I fail to see why my pets are less valued than theirs when mine are on their own property and theirs are not. Seems pretty simple to me.

Actually, in most places the chickens are considered livestock and thus have greater protection under the law than simple pets. As mentioned in a previous post, here in Ohio at least, if your dog chases livestock then it is perfectly legal for the livestock owner to shoot it. And, you as the dog's owner will pay any damages. Cats are not mentioned specifically in the ORC like dogs are but I'd bet that the case wouldn't be that hard to make if one was chasing livestock and was dispatched.

And yes, I agree that animals under my care and on my property have a much greater value than someone else's animals coming onto my property. While many of you think it is cold or cruel, I will dispatch any animal that is on my property bothering my livestock. My livestock are not just pets. They are income and investment. You may think the chickens are not a great expense but add up what it cost to raise one to layer and the income/food lost while waiting for that replacement to be raised. Or better yet, figure the cost for a calf or cow to be raised to replacement.

If people don't want their pets killed, then they need to keep them under control and on their own property. Given the choice between destruction of my property and destruction of an animal that is out of control and trespassing? No contest.

 

[rancher hicks]

Time I departed I think .. this could go on for days, even months and I am sure we will never all agree which is OK, because we are all entitled to our opinions and our beliefs. While I definitely do think there are times when creatures-behaving-badly should probably be humanely put to sleep ...I am sad that we have become a selfish society which believes it has the right to kill anything that gets in the way of what we want or doesn't fit in with our plans

Sorry but you have no idea of how far we have come. I was recently commenting on how when families were poor the authorities came in and took the kids away and put them in orphanages. Now we help families stay together.

We have more charities than ever before. Food pantries and used clothing collection boxes in nearly every church I drive by here.

We spend more per child to educate the poor as well as the rich.

We have more shelters than ever before and more kind hearted people working to save, re-home and prevent cats and dogs from coming into this world. I myself have benefited from the CNY Cat coalition in having a Skinny Pete neutered when I could not afford it. People giving their own time and money to spay and neuter any stray they can catch. Catching and adopting feral kittens. Some providing foster homes.

More blacks and whites are living side by side than when I was a kid.

The coyote and the wolf are being or considered removed from the endangered list because their numbers have come back from near extinction. Bald Eagles are more commonly seen than ever before.

It is not a society that believes it has the right to kill anything that gets in it's way, it's the FEW in society that believes it has the right to let their animals two and four legged go where ever they choose. Even destroying others people property.

I'm much to old to buy the propaganda that humans are destroying the world. My property has a dump in the back where garbage was tossed and I can never clean up. It was built in 1959. Yet today we have many folks like those on this site who are environmentally conscious , recycling and reusing. More laws promoting recycling too.

I for one sell my eggs and donate the money to the India School our church supports. The school has rescued more children since we've become family. I give eggs to co workers who I know don't make a heck of a lot. I volunteer at my kids old school and everyone who works in that kitchen is a volunteer as well. What are you doing to make this world a better place? (this is a rhetorical question).

Many years ago , I was a homeless young man with out a job. I ate a meal at the Rescue Mission. That one meal changed my life. I will be forever grateful to those who paid for it and cooked it for me.

On assumptions: “If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.” - A. Lincoln
I'm sure I've said to much, but life is not all doom and gloom.
Rancher