Lets face it, no one likes to kill any predator. Unfortunately if you live in a very rural area often your choices are limited. There really isnt any assistance from rescue groups, not to mention if a cat is feral most shelters wont fool with it anyway. You can trap-until they figure out the traps. You can try hazing-I tried repeatedly with the hose. You can reinforce but sometimes it doesn't work. My grow out shelter is built from siding, plywood, 1x6 lumber, small woven wire fence WITH an over wrap of chicken wire. I also surrounded the bottom of it with cinder blocks. I had three young cats- one that was a teenager and two that were a bit smaller. Hell I even tried setting out food and water thinking that if they weren't hungry they'd leave the pen alone. What I finally caught them doing is they would reach their little paws through the wire (keep in mind this is small fence with a chicken wire overlay) hook a chick and try to drag it through. The bigger chicks they couldn't get through and they would just die from the injuries. Frankly it's frustrating because I KNOW where the cats came from. My neighbor ended up with a couple of strays that hang at her barn, she feeds them but didnt bother to get them fixed. So now there are little feral ones looking to make their claim on territory down the road at my house. After losing all my chicks save two I made the difficult decision to get rid of them. I love cats, we have a cat that wandered into our property starving this last winter. We fed him, fixed him, vaccinated him, and he lives indoors. As I said I don't think ANYONE really enjoys doing the dirty deed, but perhaps these people are asking for advice so they can do it as humanely as possible. Thankfully I think this thread has probably given them every option possible as a suggestion so maybe they won't have to actually kill a cat. But in the end people have a right to protect their livestock.
