How can I get rid of a cat?????????

[stilldeb]

We had a cat hanging around our chickens. It even tried to open the gate to the run, but was mostly curious and would lie in the flower bed and watch them. He found out he could make friends with my dog in his kennel and squeeze into his run, share his food from his feeder, whole lot easier than live chickens. He ended up being "Duke's cat". Duke died of old age (he was 17) and we never saw the cat again.

 

[itsmechrissy]

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Awwww.. such a sweet story. Bet Duke's cat is out looking for Duke :-(

 

[zzGypsy]

we've got barn cats, they've got a job just like the rest of our animals, and they do it well. and they run loose because, well you know, that's where the mice and the moles are. we see bits of what they eat, mice, rats, moles mostly. I've seen bird feathers once this year, and it was a mocking bird so likely it was harrasing the cat when it got nabbed. they don't bother our chickens who free range during the day. or the ducks or geese or the turkeys or the guineas. in fact when I put out food scraps, the cats and the chickens, turkeys, guineas all get in there together to eat them. we don't free range chicks or poults, just to prevent problems.

cats don't have to be a problem, and they don't all kill birds on the endangered species list. our barn cats are outside on purpose, they've got work to do.

the alternative to barn cats is traps or poison, both of which work less well and are far less discriminating in what they kill than our cats.

the house here was overrun with rodents, rodent stink, and the smell of rotting rodents as the landlord had tried to handle the problem with poison. it took 25 hours of work to get the kitchen clean of rodent trails and poop and the rodent smell to a tollerable level. and then we still had to wait for the rotting rodent smell to discipate, that took another 2 months. I thought we were going to have to pull the cabinets to get the stink out.

so our barn cats and house cats hunt and we keep the chicks and poults penned. much better solution.

to the OP, sorry you've got a cat harassing your birds. lots of solutions to choose from here. just know the chickens might not be the only thing they're interested in hunting, perhaps it's a problem of changing their focus.

FWIW, some of our barn cats are domesticated, some are fully feral, all eat with the chickens and don't bother them.

 

[millebantam]

Wow. I think I finally have it figured out. It seems that the "pro-cat" people have all the good ones. You know, the ones that eradicate a heavy rodent infestation instantly, better than any poison or traps. And the ones that would never crawl up on a pen or run, and spook or harrass any domestic fowl. To top it all off, these perfect cats never, ever, kill any wild birds, well, except the ones that actually attack the cats.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are left dealing with the ones that prefer to kill songbirds over rats, use our gardens as litter boxes, harrass our domestic birds, tear up trash bags, and spray their stench every few steps while tresspassing on property that that have no business being on. Maybe that's why I never run into any of the good ones, because all the good ones stay on their own property and are never seen by neighbors. Makes me feel a lot better about disposing every one that walks on my property, since now I can be assured that I'm only taking out the bad ones.

 

[chickened]

I "like" this.
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[no1hilbily]

A good pellet gun would work

 

[War Chicken]

A good read on using cats for rodent control:

http://tnrrealitycheck.com/barn_cats.asp


Usually, if you have rodent problems it's because you have unsecured food laying around all over the place.

Using one species to control another often ends badly. Examples include mongoose to control rats, cane toads to control cane beetles, carp to control algae, etc.

 

[MusketeerinFla]

I agree with CarliLynn, a live trap and a tin of tuna. I take them a few miles away and release them. You never know what you will catch though. I recently caught a raccoon ! MiF

 

[kcwazzu]

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No offense but your method is just making it someone else's problem. If you are going to the trouble to trap them, then take the extra effort to properly deal with the results. Dumping the offending animal a few miles away gets rid of your problem but creates issues where you dump them.

 

[moose tracker]

My chickens trained my barn cats when the chicken were young. One or all would attack the cats as they came through. Live traps work good. When I have to trap skunks I end up trapping all of the neighbor cats first.