I want this thread locked!

[Domestic_goddess]

 

[CorinneP]

I am sorry you Lost your chick.. But I would just protect the Chicks better. Most cats chase little Birds ..

 

[Domestic_goddess]

 

[farmguycitygirl]

This is a learning experience, and I'm sorry it made you sad

Let's look at a couple of things:

First, a lot of people have said it is the nature of cats to catch small prey - this is entirely true. If a cat spots anything small enough for it to subdue, it will usually try. However, an interesting quirk of cats that you can take advantage of is that they're social creatures and understand "family." If you show the cat from early on that the chickens are family, and you show them care and protect them (even to the point of protecting them from the cat) most cats will get the idea. Some will even protect the chickens from other predators...

Second, you had a failure of your chick system. the chicks were exposed to a predator and the predator gained access to the chicks - this should never happen, even if the "predator" is Timmy the family pet. This is a failure of the system set up to protect the chicks. You need to step back and review the protection system you have in place and reinforce it.

Once, a dog managed to tear apart the wire of my coop and took two of my best hens. I replaced all the wire with a better system, and took away the access the dogs had to the outside of the coop. I made sure it couldn't happen again....

As for the killed and injured chicks - please don't feel too badly for them. Emotionally, it can suck, but it happened very early on before you had a great deal invested in them. They hadn't started laying yet. Better to lose a chick at a few days or weeks than to lose them after a year when they've become a valued and dear member of your outdoor family.

Lastly, you can't protect them from EVERYTHING. You can't anticipate EVERY threat. You can just learn from it and make sure the same threat doesn't become reality again, if possible.

Don't be so hard on yourself. Or Timmy.

 

[woodmort]

Unless it is an extremely old, fat, lazy cat, all cats will attack small animals, including baby chicks. The fault does not lie with the cat but with the way the chicks were housed. As several above have suggested, keep the cat and chicks separated until the chicks grow feathers and they'll get along fine. Some 20+ years ago when I was brooding chicks on the cellar floor in a side room, someone left the door open and our cat got in and killed 3--our fault. We learned never to allow her access to them and she never killed another--even those that were being raised by a mother hen.

 

[DirtCreature]

I think most of you need to show a little more compassion. this person comes to this site, in pain and almost frantic it sounds like, maybe even shock that it happened. (not to have things sugar coated and I'm not saying to). but maybe instead of posting comments that are rude, you can say something a little nicer, or word it differently.

we are all grown ups here.... come on.

she is obviously upset, and hurting that she has lost a chick and has an injured one.

Maybe instead of stating to obvious, that she should lock up the chicks better (which I'm sure she knows now) you could offer a little advice about chicken first aid for the hurt one, or ask how she had things before, and post about what you experience is about how she could improve.

________________________

I'm sorry for your loss, I too have lost chicks and it can be so devastating. I'm glad if anything you can gain experience from this horrible thing that happened, and hope you other chick makes it. If you need anything please feel free to PM me.

Melissa~

 

[BeulahBreezes]

So sorry you lost your baby chicks. I hope it does comfort you to know that us newbies, like myself, have learned from your experience. So although this is terrible, we all can learn more about how to protect our 'little ones'...... I have 2 cats, one of which is an avid hunter.......birds, mice, weasels, chipmunks, .......anything small that moves!!! I have made sure that he gets nowhere near my gals! (He is a wonderful cat)
Once again...sorry for your loss........hope you feel better soon! ~Beulah

 

[PsychoChickens]

Sorry for your loss.
I like to use big rubber maid like tubs with 1/2 wire mesh zip tied to a big hole in the lid, it's cheap and easy to make.
It keeps house pets out and young birds exercising their wings in.
Don't let this loss deter you from getting more chicks and pursuing your orginal plans.
Good Luck!

 

[BullChick]

It really does stink that this happened. Most of us agree on that. We also agree that it is a learning experience, and we thank you for sharing with us.
I hope you are able to move on with the knowledge that it was an accident, and you are a caring person to feel grief. I know too many "friends" that tell me it is nature, and get over it. It is nature, but we are better humans for CARING that it happened.
Chin up! We have more babies that need us. When they are big enough, sick 'em on the cat! Ha ha! Kidding. See if you can get the cat used to several hens (they make cat harnesses), Good luck, and please keep coming back.We are not all evil roosters!

 

[ThreesACharm]

Listen, it's NOT your fault -- **** happens, and it's a learning experience. In my house, our cats are completely disinterested in the chicks, so we don't think to take any extra precautions with them. If something did happen, I wouldn't blame myself; sometimes, an animal's most ancient insticts supercedes it's domestication, and bad things happen. We had an incident where our dog (who is almost always crated whenever I have to move/remove/clean out the brooder) managed to unlock his crate, sneak out without me realizing, and as I was removing a chick from the brooder, actually went to EAT the chick. Thank God my husband caught him as he was doing it and pulled it off, but it's an example that proves no matter how careful you are, no matter what precautions you take, something unexpected can always happen with animals, including cats and dogs. Anyone blaming you for the accident is clearly fortunate enough to have never experienced something like this.. but that isn't an excuse to be ignorant.

Anyway, for the future, this is what we do: we use a BIG (I want to say 50 gallon?) Rubbermaid storage container, sans the lid. We then put the Rubbermaid container inside of an old dog crate (for large-sized dogs -- it actually used to belong to our rottie, who passed away 2 years ago), which was initially to keep the chicks from hopping out and to prevent our quail chicks from flying out. It also works amazingly well at keeping out cats, dogs, our 4-year-old hands and anything/anyone else who shouldn't be in the brooder. We hang the heating lamp off the top of the crate with a large clip. This is what our brooder set-up currently looks like (ignore all that mess on top, it's usually clear on top!):





Our isolation brooder is a similar set-up: it's a smaller Rubbermaid container (around 20-25 gallons), and locked up inside of a medium-sized dog crate when in use. You could also use a large cat carrier or a similar cage with a Rubbermaid container for that purpose.

And don't get rid of the cat -- it's not her fault, either! It's her instinct to chase birds, so if she sees a baby chick, she's not going to understand that they're off limits. I probably wouldn't try to re-introduce her to chickens, either, even older ones; if she attacked once, she's probably always going to want to attack again, and nothing you can do can remove that desire. You may be able to teach her not to do it (and older chickens, at least in our house, will certainly put her in her place if she tries), but you can never be 100% sure that temptation won't overcome and cause her to attack again. The best thing to do is to keep the brooder locked up inside of a crate where she can't reach it, and when you need to remove the chicks, lock the cat up in your bedroom until everyone is back safely inside the brooder. Once the chickens are outside and free ranging (if that's what you plan), they should be old enough to fight back, assuming you allow your cat outdoors. If you can, though, you can keep the chickens in an area where the cat can't reach, maybe in an enclosed run or something. But worry about that when you get that far, because that'll likely be a lot of trial-and-error if your cat is anything like ours!

Good luck, I hope you try again, and I'm really sorry this happened. But try and take it as a learning experience; I've lost quite a few chicks/chickens, some to illness/injury and others to hawks/predators, and it's more upsetting each time, but I try and take each loss as an opportunity to correct what I'm doing wrong and/or improve the way I care for and protect my chickens. That's all you can do, really, and hope for the best