I have this crazy idea.....

[Eggsoteric]

Is there an area in the barn or one of the outbuildings that you could place the kittens in at night to keep them safe? Are your runs covered in the event of rain? What will you do when you're away?

 

[popsicle]

We have a stray-turned-pet cat living in our chicken coop. Our coop is in an old shed that the chickens only have access to 1/3 of. We put a cat door high up on the divider wall so the cat can access the chicken half (to hunt mice at night and such. There is also a cat door going outside from the non-chicken side of the coop. The system is so far predator tight. I think it's confounding enough for marten/foxes, skunks can't climb, doors too small for bears/coyotes.

She hasn't challenged the chickens; well, except when I've given the chickens meat scraps, but the chickens win everytime. Many LF chickens are bigger than most cats--especially scrawny farm cats.

I suspect our cat is an abandoned house cat. She is pretty lazy and doesn't want to fight the neighbor's cats. We needed to make sure she had access to a secure structure so coyotes, bears, owls, stray dogs, etc wouldn't get her. We haven't seen any signs of rodents in the coop since she's moved in. She would live in the house but our dogs want to eat her.

 

[lynyrd]

cat saliva very toxic to birds

 

[Gallus Sapien]

cat saliva very toxic to birds

Besides this, it seems like it would work....just alot of work to round up the cats until they are trained. GOOD LUCK TEX

 

[TW1Kell]

My barn cats (Rat Catchers) hang out with my chickens, all the time. They eat scraps, side by side. The cats don't ever mess with the chickens, tho the chickens will peck a cat that gets a bread crumb that the chicken wanted. Also, I have my entire chicken pen encase with electric fence. I ran 3 strands, 1 at 6" from the ground, then 18" and 32", respectively. That gets critters from snakes and 'possums, up. (The snakes have to climb against the lowest wire because of the boards lining the pen) As for 'Yote smackin', I use a 7.62x39 AR with a starlite scope for nighttime, and a 5.45x39 AR with a Trijicon ACOG for daytime. I also hunt hogs for farmers. 'Yotes and wild hogs will pretty much killany possibility of having ANY critters of crops, so I advise gettin' ON 'em, HARD!