Hi guys, I need to ask my fellow house-fowl owners something. How do you introduce your pets to existing four-legged ones? My cats both bonded with the rescued gosling we fostered and released last year, but this'll be the first time either have them will be around a newborn hatched bird. I assume the standard pet introductory steps must be taken, such as bringing them one another's objects to sniff, letting them smell one another through the crack under a door, giving them treats to associate one another with yummy things, etc. But since I'm keeping a house-duck I'd like to know if any other house duck (or chicken) owners have had successes merging their furry flock, so to speak.
The way to do it is: you don't! Feline saliva is laden with disease lethal to avians, and if your cat takes to grooming a chicken, there is a very real risk of them falling terminally ill. More so, it only takes one claw snag or bite for the to introduce nasty, deadly bacteria of all sorts right in to an open wound. Cats and birds do not mix, and for the safety of the birds,
should not. A lot of people would say "well I've done this and that and not lost a bird-" but the fact is they mean not lost one yet. It's not a problem 'til it's a problem, and then it's too late. By the time you know something is wrong, there's little to be done for the poor bird. It might seem cute to look at such interspecies relations, but it is a dangerous risk.
There is also your cat's safety to consider: the first time Pepper ever got to see our cat, both of them being held, she scrambled loose to take a peck at his oh-so-shiny and tempted eye like a magpie at heart. Even if you have a claw capped blind cat that stays aloof and on the other side of the room, it's not as if a bird is an unmoving lump that never takes interest in their surroundings.
Conflicts can, and will, happen. I don't know a cat keeper in the world who could promise their cat would never mouth or claw any animal that descended on them or spooked them. You can't trust that you will simply stop it, because you won't- a paw will get thrown or teeth will come down before one can react, and it only takes a nick. It might not happen the first time, but for all intents and purposes, it's russian roulette. You don't tempt a rattlesnake to bite you because you know most bites are dry, for instance. For the health and safety of both animals involved, they should never mix. Dogs actually pose the same risks, sans claws, but are much easier to train to keep off poultry, and are usually in a weight class above the fowl. Human saliva is also dangerous, so birds should never be allowed to peck at teeth or in mouths or to share from eaten-off food.
Our cat only gets to see the chicken when one of them is being held far out of reach. He is permitted to look in to the brooder, but not sit upon it. He gets run of every room except the one the chicken is in. He is only made aware of the chicken's presence so that she is a familiar entity, so that the situation isn't a ticking time bomb of the cat slipping in unnoticed and taking a shot at her in curiosity. He's no longer interested in her and is kept far, far away. I'd call that success, and anything else an unnecessary risk.
The other just never bothered. They also wear soft-paws, so who knows.
