Lost my birds to a cat (need advice)

[Reg]

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Definitely a fox. If you catch it stick it in the car drive it 30 mile & let in out. bye fox.

Dont let it follow you home tho

 

[Juise]

Hey there, I know you have gotten a lot of replies, but I wanted to chime in as well with, "It's not a cat." Having seen the cat around isn't a very strong reason to place suspicion, I'm sure the curious thing loves to watch the chickens and dream.

I have 4 hunting cats, and this is simply not the way cats kill. Not domestic cats, not feral cats. Cats won't be digging under, knocking things over, leaving large puncture wounds, or killing multiple birds at once, let alone 5. They will also very likely not leave a corpse at all, excepting perhaps beak, feet, a few feathers and a wobbly bit.

So sorry for all your losses

And although I am sure it isn't what you want to hear, I agree wholeheartedly with Reg that you don't have the right to kill anything just because it sets foot in your yard. Animals have no concept of "yours" and "mine" (especially cats!

) or especially human boundaries. It's no cause to spread the heart wrenching pain of losing a beloved pet.

 

[dutchhollow]

"It's no cause to spread the heart wrenching pain of losing a beloved pet"
I posted early on that I don't think this is a cat, for all of the stated reasons, but the last sentence, above, people with beloved pet cats don't let them roam, they are house cats, possibly a barn cat in a very rural area. Roaming cats anywhere else are bait for cars, dogs, coyotes, bobcats, neighbors who don't like cats using their gardens as a litterbox and spray on everything. I like cats and own two (spayed) they do go outside, but, I live on a dead end road in a very rural area, if they got to a neighbors and something happened to them, I would have to accept it.

 

[Carolyn]

I don't know what killed your birds but I think it highly unlikely you have only one predator. I had a small flock free ranging and lost 5 in one day during daylight hours. I had to go to the emergency room and when I came back we realized some of the chickens were gone. My hubby went looking and I lay down....He found 2 dead in the woods, 1 head missing, one with throat injury. Later found another, minus head in edge of yard. One we never found. I woke up to squawking and saw a fox plucking a hen out the back, my hubby shot him but had a light load shell in the chamber but the fox left and that hen survivied. We left one dead chicken to see what came to get it and late that afternoon I killed a large ferral cat that was eating on it. We set traps and caught 2 racoons and 3 opossums. What killed my chickens? Kinda hard to say for certain.

I now have an electric fence which limits free ranging area. I have lost 2 to opossums when the fence grounded out in a drought and 2 to hawks when they were in the pen.

 

[Juise]

dutchhollow - I would like to respectfully disagree with you. I love all four of my cats very dearly, and I accept the risk of them going outdoors because I think they deserve to be free and I think it is the most respectful way to love them. I in a semi-rural area with lots of undisturbed forest for them to roam, though. Personally, if I were in a very urban area I would not want my cats going out, because I think the risk of accidental death would be quite high, but to say that people who let their pets go outside do not love them is undeserved.

I do have neighbors (who have never complained) but that doesn't mean my cats are terrorizing their yards and gardens. I'm not saying that no cats do, but I think the first thing you should do if you have a complaint about someone's pet is talk to them about the issue. Mostly likely they are entirely unaware that there is an issue, and if they had any thought that their pet was in danger of it's life by purposefully shooting it, I think most people would react. Whether it be by keeping the pet in, or relocating it to a more appropriate home. The chance to resolve the problem is the least you can do, animals eat other animals, they are not personally to be blamed.

Occasionally one of our neighbors dogs wanders onto our property when it escapes, and if anything happened to any of my feline friends it would be absolutely traumatizing for me, but I would not want to kill their dog.

 

[chickened]

One other thing you may consider about cats, we have one cat a spayed female and she is about 12 years old and cannot be left outside in our rural farm because she has been attacked by feral cats and many vet bills later the feral cats keep coming around mostly toms and there seems to be plenty. My point is you may take good care of your cats but they also attract strays that may very well kill and eat a chicken.
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[mkeawsh]

www.niteguard.com - Haven't lost a chicken since - Enough said.

 

[sfw2]

Carry on without me . . . I'm still trying to picture a hedgehog carrying off a full-sized chicken . . .

I'm guessing you may have more than one predator, too. The bite marks on the back do sound like some sort of canid. The ones in trees, I would think a large owl, or another raptor. It's been 30 years since I lived in England, so I don't remember too much about what owls are there, other than barn owls.

 

[Juise]

chickened - I can certainly understand that, we don't have any strays around here that I have ever seen, but the point I was really attempting to make was that I believe an issue with someone's pet should first be attempted to be resolved with the owner before doing something like shooting the animal. Obviously, and unfortunately, not all people are compassionate caregivers, and not everyone will be receptive to peaceful resolution.

From there, I would attempt to trap and relocate the animal, or call in an authority, because I'm not a killing kind of person, but I do think the attempt should be made before any other measure.

Certainly, if any of my neighbors were to tell me that one of my animals was bothering them to the extent that they were going to shoot it, I would be shocked and never let them out here again. If that meant re-homing them, that would be incredibly hard and sad for me, but I'd do it in a heartbeat before letting one of my little furry friends be shot.

 

[chickened]

Believe me my wife would never kill anything and feels the way you do and she has done what you said about contacting neighbors, one to the west and one to the east of us that have about 100 plus and 50 plus cats each or more and guess what they did about it... nothing, so what I do is a last resort as my place is the demilitarized zone where all the spraying, breeding and fighting happens. The county vector control or the animal control will do nothing about feral cats they more or less said do what you feel is necessary. I wish my neighbors had your attitude and responsibility..
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