Feel kinda crappy.....had to shoot a cat

[shay20]

Quote:
Want to shed some tears as well for my 32 ducklings killed by cats? Some are nearly full grown and miss 2-3 a day, doubt they'll eat them all..... as a cat lover you should know they also hunt for fun, not always food.

Animal shelter here will put down any feral trapped, so you can imagine how scared the animal is tranfered in a box for hours, handled by strangers and jabbed.... a bullet is a far quicker death.

I dont whant to start anything here, but as an owner and cat lover of 7 cats and 20 something roo and hens and tons of baby chicks, my birds run free with my cats and my cats had never once tryed anything with my birds or babys when together. I am sorry for the ducklings, if it was me i would be very po , but i could not have the heart to do that , i never had that type of incedent happen to me. But the person posted this thread knowing about feed back. Like I said I dont whant to start anything, I just cant belive there are peaple that can do that and judge others for less.

 

[shay20]

I will never give in or agree to anything like that, I respect peaple judgment, so that said i will not come back to this thread. But I hope i am not the only one that feels that.

 

[Davaroo]

Okay, folks, get your pants unwadded. The world is down by one cat, that is all - it won't be the end of things, I assure you. Take a deep breath.

The OP made his/her decision, pulled the trigger and that is that.
We do the same for a wild fox or predatory coyote... or a chicken slaughtered for the table.

Accolades are deserved, for coming forward with feelings that show depth and remorse for the act itself.

Lets not bog this down in a mud fest, okay?

 

[farmgirlie1031]

Living in the city I had a crazy neighbor lady that fed all the stray cats. There were 100's of cats over there. Animal Control would do nothing since they were outdoors and not in her house. Some of those toms were very mean. They would come after you and try to attack just for being in your own yard. I did trap several of them and take them to the shelter. The shelter just put them down. Then they got sick of me bringing in cats all the time and wouldn't take anymore. It would have been kinder to some of these cats to take a bullet then to suffer the way they were living in the wild half starved and dying of lekemia, distemper, and other things. Please do not sling mud on this thread. Thank You.

 

[klf73]

Quote:
I haven't read the whole thread but......this would not be an option here. I don't have the several hundred dollars to neuter someone elses cat. There are no programs that I could find here to neuter my dog for less than a couple of hundred, although down south we only paid $60.......
I personally couldn't have done it, but dh would have......not going to have my animals suffer, starve, or get beat up because of a person's irresponsibility, especially a repeat offender. Sorry you had to do it

 

[EweSheep]

My father and I had to do this dilemma twice with stray tom cats roaming on our farmyard, terrorizing the queens and the babies, not letting them eat at all or get any sleep for that matter. For those queens that stays on our farm have to earn their keep such as kill mice, screw mice, rats, snakes, stray starlings and they shall have a place to eat, sleep and hunt. We have a limit how many we can support too! We have had people dumping cats and we have to rehome them. As for the feral cats, we had trapped them and taken them to the shelter and all they said that they are too wild to be adopted, they will be put down if we pay the fees to have them put to sleep. So my parents took the cats home and shot all of them. Its cheaper to shoot them with a .22 than to pay 45 dollar for EACH cat to be put down. I'd rather put them down than to see them suffer from distemper, horrible illnesses and catfights that just drag on.

We had to shoot one cat that was our neighbor's son's cat because it was a tom cat and was hell-bent in killing the kittens and some of the lower ranking queens. Well in a few days, the neighbor had to check all the neighbors in our area to find if we had seen his cat. My dad replied, no, we have not seen him but you are welcome to take the kittens we have out in the barn. Well, they did! One didnt end well and the other ended well. We were not going to lecture them to spay their cats because from then on, we have not had any problems with their barn cats coming over to our farm.

We have to make choices even we do not like to make them. If they are your dear cats, wouldn't you want to make a safe place for them to stay and not feel threatened???? As for feral cats, they do NOT need your human touch or feelings, just feed them and have a place for them is all they wanted, no human emotions at all. After all, we are human and we do have feral cats that we liked and accepted their lifestyle they chose.

I do respect anyone decision whatever they want or need to do in the situation. So dont feel bad about shooting that feral cat.

Off my soap box!

 

[speckledhen]

I rarely respond to the cat threads, but I just had a cat incident tonight with a humongous cat I'd never seen before going after one of my broody hens with chicks. I rarely worry about a cat since I fed a stray for two years who never bothered my chickens, even when they met face to face in the brush. I've seen several cats here. They like to hunt mice on my deck at night. I was sad one day when my stray disappeared and I knew that coyote or fox or some stray dog had gotten him finally; tiny chicks are a different thing altogether-very easy prey if the cat can get past the mad mama hen. This was one big cat, too. Dusty was screaming her head off and we had never heard her make that sound before so we ran outside and saw the cat. When it saw us, it make tracks out of there, but if we hadn't heard anything, I might be down a couple of chicks right now.

Everyone lets the cats roam, but if it roams over here and tries to take some chickie nuggets, DH will eradicate it. Dogs should be contained n the owner 's property and so should cats.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
you said it!!

 

[Swamp Roo]

When a cat comes on to my property and starts to stalk my animals, I have some choices. Some of them are that I can ignore the cat and my animals start to die or suffer, I can catch the cat and terrorize the heck out of it and it will be put down at the shelter (all the "no kill" shelters are perpetually full, or are just some hoarders way of legally keeping hundreds of cat locked together in crowded conditions), or I can put it down without it knowing what is happening. Now some people say it's not the cat's fault, and they are correct, it isn't fair to the cat at all. However, it is not my fault either, nor is it my animals fault, why should we suffer just because some jerk didn't do the right thing with their animal. Believe me I'd much rather shoot the owner/dumper, but that is not an option. I live "at the end of the road" and some try to tell me that's what I get for living there. My response is it would be like a thief saying that if you didn't work hard and buy nice things they wouldn't try to steal from you. I know that my location here is more likely to end up with dumped pets, that doesn't make it right when someone dumps a pet here. Would a reasonable person get upset if a large predator was put down because it developed a taste for small children, a bear has to eat right? If people want to get mad, fine, but get mad at the root of the problem not at the folks that are forced to make unsavory decisions.

Unionwirewoman:
It was very unfortunate that you were forced into the position you were in. Somewhere there is/was a person responsible for that cat, even if it was an um-teen generation feral,. Unfortunately that person doesn't care or will never know the trouble they caused. I've had to shoot 3 cats in the last year, and I hated it every time. I have two cats that I love dearly (even though I do threaten to make "roof rabbit" stew out of them periodically). I fully understand your feelings, I expect I'll be in the same boat again eventually. You did what was required of you for the animals YOU are responsible for (though your mom).

Swamp

 

[enola]

Any cat stalking my chickens will be shot ! ssshhhh!