Feral cats - chicken predators?

[rod5591]

The cat is doing good

Cats don't normally bother adult chickens unless they are very hungry. Personally I have a cat who will hunt and kill just about anything, including rabbits her own size. But she won't touch the chickens.
I think some of y'all on here are cruel, saying that it's okay to shoot the cat. It's not.
In my opinion, the only reason OP should kill a cat is if they have recently lost chickens to a predator, and see the cat hanging around the chickens. In that case I would set the trap and take cat to animal control, who would then take care of it however seen fit. Normally cats in my county are not killed. They even rehome ferals quite often as barn cats after they get fixed.
If, and only if, I couldn't catch the cat I would kill it. Trust me, I have had to shoot a cat before.. but that was AFTER trying to catch it first.

Please listen to me, Rod.. That cat has a life too. You have no idea it's reason for being where it was. It could have just been drawn to your trap bait, uninterested in your chickens completely. I would hate to think a life was ended for no reason. I would take it to animal control.

I didn't need to do anything but release the cat. She was a young beauty! She is up at the farm now, catching mice. I see you are from Virginia. I grew up in Yorktown and Chesapeake. Love the Bay area....

 

[SiriusChicken]

I leave a live catch trap out at night inside the hen yard. Tonight I caught a well fed young calico cat with no collar/tags. Was this cat going after my chickens, do you think? What would you do in my place? Choices are, take it to animal control, release it down the road, or shoot it. I am leaning towards animal control.

Animal control, since it could belong to someone & it’s the kinder more responsible thing to do. My feral cats don’t bother chickens. The chicks and kittens grew up together, & chase each other playfully. But I feed them cat food so not sure about all cats. They’re curious & before I started feeding her, she ate wet chicken food & milk I left out & hunted birds & mice near the chicken food. They go for small easy prey & run from chickens in my experience.

 

[SiriusChicken]

The cat is doing good


I didn't need to do anything but release the cat. She was a young beauty! She is up at the farm now, catching mice. I see you are from Virginia. I grew up in Yorktown and Chesapeake. Love the Bay area....

I’m so happy! That’s an awesome ending. I didn’t see this when I replied.

 

[SiriusChicken]

Bait was a slice of bacon. Actually the trap was just outside the fence of the hen yard, not inside like I said, my bad.

That’s unfortunate about the bacon, you’ll draw in all cats (& foxes). Cats like to wander & have good noses & are crazy for meat.
Someone once bait trapped my pampered house cat who’d been trained not to bother birds in the house, & it took 2 weeks of posters & hunting all over town for her to find her (he baited, trapped & dumped a bunch of neighbor cats too).
My cat was so terrified the people feeding her thought she was feral, they were so sweet they wouldn’t take the reward. My cat was afraid to come out of my room for months.
But after all my stress & crying & worrying, I was civil & refrained from harming the guy, though we all got together & reported him & he was warned not to bait anymore. And we kept watch on him to be sure. Some cats didn’t survive sadly & some were never found. Most of them belonged to retired people and families.

Moral of this story is that baiting traps is bad. It catches innocent cats & makes you the villain for all the angry neighbors who see their cat as their child.

 

[Michellep224]

The cat is doing good

I didn't need to do anything but release the cat. She was a young beauty! She is up at the farm now, catching mice. I see you are from Virginia. I grew up in Yorktown and Chesapeake. Love the Bay area....

I am VERY glad to hear that! She looked very pretty from the pictures, and should make a great barn kitty.
That's also cool to know you're from Virginia too! I'm in the mountains, Haha. The bay area is beautiful, I agree with you. I miss the ocean terribly sometimes!

 

[roosterhavoc]

That’s unfortunate about the bacon, you’ll draw in all cats (& foxes). Cats like to wander & have good noses & are crazy for meat.
Someone once bait trapped my pampered house cat who’d been trained not to bother birds in the house, & it took 2 weeks of posters & hunting all over town for her to find her (he baited, trapped & dumped a bunch of neighbor cats too).
My cat was so terrified the people feeding her thought she was feral, they were so sweet they wouldn’t take the reward. My cat was afraid to come out of my room for months.
But after all my stress & crying & worrying, I was civil & refrained from harming the guy, though we all got together & reported him & he was warned not to bait anymore. And we kept watch on him to be sure. Some cats didn’t survive sadly & some were never found. Most of them belonged to retired people and families.

Moral of this story is that baiting traps is bad. It catches innocent cats & makes you the villain for all the angry neighbors who see their cat as their child.

Baiting traps isn’t bad. Animals don’t just go into a cage for giggles. The moral of the story is don’t bait traps near your chickens unless your positive you already have animals bothering your chickens. Anyway when using bait around cats use something sweet like molasses, syrup etc for raccoons. Cats aren’t as interested in sweet stuff. No meat and no fish.

 

[New2Chicks97]

I think it depends greatly on the cat. Our barn cat that adopted us is quite the bird catcher. He catches the wild quail around here and sometimes some of the smaller birds. But he doesn’t mess with the chickens. I don’t know that I would trust him with any baby chicks but he lays right out in the middle of the big girls and hangs out with them. He often ends up tucking tail and running when one or two of them decide to try to peck his fur clean. I have seen him take on cats two to three times his size and win so he could take a chicken if he wanted to.

This cat might have been doing nothing but hanging out. I guess animal control would be my suggestion. Or may talk to some of your neighbors and see if it is their cat?

 

[Conan]

When I lived in the suburbs many several years ago, I had a couple neighbors with live traps for various reasons. One to catch raccoons and one to catch rabbits in a greenhouse. I had a very greedy cat that just accepted sleeping in a live trap all night. He'd go back for the bait every time. Sometimes I would let him out, sometimes the neighbors would. I think he went in the rabbit trap hoping it was like the coon trap. Pretty hilarious. I'm glad that no one shot him. He lives on my friend's farm now. Never even goes for the ducklings.
I currently have two indoor/outdoor cats. I have mainly Bantam chickens and ducks. I've never had an issue with them even being interested, but they are well fed and have many rodents to kill if they feel like hunting.
That being said, cats are predators and if they are starving, they will do what they need to survive though I have never witnessed such behaviour myself.
Personally, I feel as though poorly behaved dogs are a much worse problem than the most vicious cat. I can't stand people that allow their wild untrained dogs to roam about. Drives me nuts. I will absolutely shoot dogs going for my birds on my property. I appreciate the cats. They just kill the vermin.
Glad to hear that this story has a happy ending. Good work, OP.

 

[Biddybot]

Well, luckily we don't have feral cats where I live--the coyotes take care of them--but I do catch the odd cat when I'm trying to catch something else. Since it's always someone's pet and frequently a repeat 'customer', I always let them go. I doubt any of the cats I've caught were after chickens, since I always catch them at night. What they're after, I'm sure, are the mice and voles that live in the naturalized islands and meadow portions of my yard and they're welcome to those. Still, I wish people wouldn't let their pet cats out at night hereabouts. The coyotes always nail them eventually. They even get them in the daytime, if it's pup season and the parents are hunting day and night...there's only the one road here and we all live next to thousands of protected acres of prime coastal habitat stuffed full of wildlife. Oh well, guess some people just don't give a damn about their cats or would just as soon get a new kitten. I sometimes wonder if that's why I'm visited by quite a few of the neighbourhood cats that have the misfortune to belong to irresponsible owners, at least at night. I'm the only person on the road that's got a fully fenced yard and I think the smart ones have figured out that if they climb my fence and drop in, they'll be safe from the coyotes and even get do a bit of hunting in peace.