Feral Cat

[theoldchick]

Chili was a good lookin' rooster. Excellent photo of him. I trap feral animals and let animal control take care of them. Very sorry Chili had to die this way.

 

[neuchicontheblock]

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Feral cats are the only preditor I have had to deal with on attacking my chickens. There is a big empty field behind my property that they would come through. Would be devestating to wake up in the morning and find a handful of my pullets slaughtered. I did not know what exactly was attacking and killing them, and was puzzled that the whole flock wasnt taken down, so I set up security cameras all over my property and found that the cat(s) were coming in the wee morning hours, and they were reaching inside and clawing at them. I set up live traps with food for the cats and couldnt catch one. My husband came up with a wonderful idea to make lures out of chicken feathers and hang them from inside the trap to lure the cats inside, and the first night, we caught three! All taken to the humane society. Since then, we havent had another feral cat come onto our property. We still have the live traps out, and camera's going, and for almost 1 yr., no more cats on the property. We do seem them occassionally during the day in the field (well, the dogs see them first) and I shoot my bb gun thru the fence towards them to scare them off.

Sorry to hear about Chili, he was a handsome buggah, I am sure the girls are mourning his absence.