Feral cats

[Bryce Thomas]

In the last week I spotted 2 different feral cats eye-ing my chickens. There are 9, or possibly more feral cats in my neighborhood.

Just 4 days ago one of the feral cats was about a foot away from the chicken run holding a dead dove in this mouth, then ran off once it saw me. The next day I saw a bunch of dove feathers from which I assume was the same dove in the cats mouth, but the feathers and bones were everywhere. I'm assuming the cat decided to have a feast just outside the run later that night.

Any ideas to ward off the cats? I'm thinking about putting down coyote urine, that might do something.

 

[BlueBaby]

It might be that the cat's are hunting the smaller bird's that are hanging out there because the bird's are there to try to get some chicken feed and water. (Unless you have some of those smaller bantam breed of chicken's, of course.)

 

[SilverBirds]

Looking it up, it says fragrant smells like orange, coffee, lavander, etc can deter them. Coyote sent may also work. We used to have a lot of feral cats and now have two pet cats. None have ever hurt my chickens, not even my bitty seramas. Do you keep yours locked up or do you free range?