Stray cat- Dangerous Killer?

[sweetclover]

I saw your post and wanted to warn you, here's what happened to me 2 summers ago-
Living in a rural area with many abandoned farms, we have a huge problem with feral cats. After a night of losing several adult chickens to an at the time unknown predator, We put a live trap directly outside the door to the coop on the second night. Surely enough, in the morning the trap contained a large and vicious cat who was caught red handed (literally) with the blood of the chickens he had eaten still on his face and paws. These were some larger breeds, including a partridge rock rooster, but I'm sure they were quite defenseless when attacked inside their coop while asleep at night! I have seen many strays still lurking out there, but after this incident I improved the locks on my coop and always keep my chickens in a covered run and locked up at night, and have not lost any more. I'm here as proof to tell you that a cat definetly can kill chickens!
Good luck and be careful.

 

[BabyGirls]

Thank you so much for your responses. This newest stray we found out has a collar on and seems to now be hanging with the other 2 neighborhood strays (that have never had an interest in our girls). It still worry's me by how she was reacting to us while in our barn-scared I know but aggressive. I hope for the best with all of them though. They went near the coop last night and just hung out- in the open (it was pretty cold) they set off the motion detector. Not sure why they would hang out there not in the barn. Since losing four last year to other predators, it was beyond devastating and can't go through that again.

I would love to feed them a little but know that any food doesn't just feed her but could attract those predators that I don't want back again- raccoons/opossums! So not sure what to do but keep getting up all hours of the night to our motion alarms. Just need sleep and to be worry free- guess with protecting our babies that is never a possibility!

 

[jjthink]

If you would like to feed her, you could try just having food out in the daytime since those preds are nightime critters. It's so nice of you to want to help her.