I'm so glad someone asked this because I'm having the same problem!
My cat has been an indoor cat since I got her at the age of 2 months. She was born in our backyard to a feral mother and pretty much lived in our backyard the entire time so I'm almost positive that she's never seen a chicken before. She's 4 years old now and we got baby chicks for the first time this past Sunday. I brought one baby chick out to show her and held it up to her. The cat smelled the chick, grimaced and then backed away. She refuses to go near the chicks or even in the same area. Her food is in the same general area as the chicks and she won't even go near her food to eat! Anytime I go to that part of the room the cat hides because she thinks I'm going to bring a baby chick over to her!
I tried bringing her food past the door and closing the door so the chicks wouldn't be too close for comfort, but nope! Cat still wouldn't go near the area! The next day I brought the cat over to her food and sat there with her with the door closed so she couldn't run away and she sat there growling at me in growls I've never heard from her before. She also hissed at me and swiped at me. I'm surprised she didn't murder me in my sleep!
We're best buddies again but she still won't go near her food. Part of me wants to bring her food out to another area so she'll eat, but another part of me wants to train her to accept being around them even if she's not too keen on it.
She's 10 lbs and afraid of a fluffy little chick that probably only weighs a quarter of an ounce. It's bizarre!
