Chickens and Cats

[frogga]

We have a cat that keeps appearing in the garden, this afternoon I heard one of the chicks making a fairly loud sound, rushed to see what was going on and saw the cat chasing it.

Will the cat kill the chicken or is it just playing? The 4 girls are now in there run for the rest of the day,just sat down, looking fairly distressed.

Can anybody help with ideas? I am considering trapping the cat but unsure what to do.

Andrew

[motherhen]

This will stress the hens and is not good for them, I must say it's fairly unusual. Personally we do not free range at all, we are very rural and foxes are dumped in woods near us so we cannot have anything free here as they come in the day and are not a bit bothered about people.
As far as the cat is concerned I would shoot the hose at it if you are around, you may be able to trap it, I'm not sure how you stand about doing that. is it a neighbours cat?

[chris]

I have the same issue - but in the end now my 3 hens chase cats out of the garden - works for me, I hate the bloomin things.

[Hilary B]

Can you 'borrow' a cockerel for a few weeks? Odds are he would see off a cat, and once they had seen the example, the girls might get the idea.
The usual result is hens 2, cat 0, once the hens realise their ability.

[frogga]

Im unsure if it is a neighbours cat, it looks stray and very mangy,it will not let you near it, it runs at the first chance,may set a fewtraps in the garden this evening to try and catch it.

[Anna Stox]

I'm having a similar problem in the suburbs with my Pekins and lone old english game hen. My rather small cat got out when they were loose in the garden and promptly leapt on the OEG hen, which I can kind of understand as she is the size of a pigeon. She's also since stalked (until I caught her) the Pekins, which surprised me as I grew up with lots of chickens and cats, and never had a problem before.

Unfortunately we also have some rather large neighbours cats who parade around the area - and I have no doubt they could bring down a chook. Last week the local black puma which lives a few houses away heard the neighbours dogs barking - and came running to see what the fuss was about - no fear what so ever!

So I am just making sure our cat is in when the birds are loose, and I am in the garden to scare off other cats. It's incredibly frustrating as I would love to be able to let them out more, but daren't risk it. It's also meant I've had to alter my final run plans to incorporate a roof - was hoping to get away with 6ft fencing, but the cats would be able to either climb it or leap over from the garden fences.

If I thought the pekins would scare off the cats I would re-home the little OEG with my mother - but they just wander around oblivious, not even aware they are under threat! The black eyes on my cat when she goes to stalk them are truly scarey!

[elizajay]

My pekins were scared of the bully cats around when we first got them and on one occasion the chickens all disappeared. Found them in the front garden under shrubs once and up a trellis another time. Now we have no problem with cats, if anything they avoid the chooks. Your pekins are probably just showing they aren't scared and if that's the case there is no fun chasing them.

[perkin]

I have two local cats who come into my garden and stalk the chickens occasionally. My 'head chicken' makes loads of noise to alert the other two and then after a while they seem to ignore the cats. I saw one cat try to get too close once and it got a swift peck on the nose for its troubles. It doesn't seem to stress the girls out anymore and the cats can certainly see who's going to come off worse.

[VirginVegGrower]

This will stress the hens and is not good for them, I must say it's fairly unusual. Personally we do not free range at all, we are very rural and foxes are dumped in woods near us so we cannot have anything free here as they come in the day and are not a bit bothered about people.
As far as the cat is concerned I would shoot the hose at it if you are around, you may be able to trap it, I'm not sure how you stand about doing that. is it a neighbours cat?

I borrow my son's super soaker water gun which I line up on the landing windowsill and FIRE! Can give lessons - not seen next door's cat since