Cats + birds = unhappy face

[FerlasDave]

If your cats are eating wild meat, they will get worms. They will need dewormed especially if there are children or pregnant women around your home.
Feral cats are lucky if they live three years, our domesticated ones get at least four times that lifetime.
Kittens full of worms don't thrive, they can be a major issue in cat mortality.
Tom cats don't generally take food back to the tabby, usually the tabby is more concerned about him near her kittens.
Most cat owners don't want their pets predating the local wildlife; the RSPB consider cats to be the major cause of the decline in some small bird species.

cheers,
Toddy

Yes he does eat wild meat. He has done for the last three years, I was given this advice by my father who had cats before, one of which was a ferral cat from a work place bought back home to kill mice. (it took 6 men all morning to catch him! lol) His cats all lived 15-20 years so I have to say your wrong there. However I do get him wormed every 2 months as I know blood in birds can carry parasitic infection.

Treat your cat as you wish but I try and remember that he is still an animal and up until the last 200 years has been liveing quite happily without the need for vets, medication, special diets etc. Our ancestors never had any of that for their animals but they still had them and they still lived long lives.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Putting a bell on the collar doesn't necessarily mean it will prevent them from hunting. In some cases it makes them a better hunter as they learn to move without making the bell jangle.

 

[BushEd]

Surely the most potent source of decline for wild birds would be us...

we forced them out of the woods and into gardens; and then we put the cats there...

blalming a cat seems about as pointless as blaming a rock. "Bad cat!!! Don't eat those nice birds" "Meow?"

 

[Toddy]

Response to Davey............feral cats are a topic unto themselves. I worked with folks who neutered them and returned them to the site from which they had been found rather than put them down. From their research over many years the average life expectancy of a feral cat is less than three years.

My cat wears no collar, had one litter of kittens, that I found good homes for, and then I had her dressed. She spends most of her life outside, she wanders the gardens, the woodlands and the burnside. However, she is still tame and a pet. I have her vaccinated and wormed and I feed her, but in all other ways she's living as nature intended. I feed her and the birds both in the knowledge that more birds survive that way
Mice ? she can take as many as she has a notion to and I'lll not fret.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[FerlasDave]

I know alot of feral cats around here that came out of factories and what not a few years back and they are all strong. Maybe it depends on the area the reasearch was done, theres plenty of places round here they can get food from and places to shelter. Im sure your cat still hunts though as it is in their blood and is only natural to her, I just feel it best to encourage use of the quarry instead of just hunting for nothing.

 

[British Red]

Theres a feral in our barn - don't know how long he's been there - we've only lived here seven years and he's been full grown as long as we've known him

 

[Paul_B]

Well our industrial estate has feral cats and they don't manage to take care of our rat problem but they don't seem skinny rather too well fed IMHO. Just goes to show how bad a site it is being near the river. No-one can get close to them nor would they. We did have some lasses who saw a rat with three baby rats. Some of the guys tried to catch them for disposal but the lasses stopped them (amazing how women can control even the biggest most determined men). They even started feeding them. The general manager caught them one day feeding them their crusts and read the riot act. Threatened to sack them if they did it again. Which they did. Still one night some guy sorted it. Later that week we got the rat man in with his poison. Did you know the rat poison makes them thirsty so they go out looking for water then die. That is what we got told when we asked why we never saw any dead rats. Sorry off topic but In some places you need a lot of cats to control vermin and not efficient. Similarly I am sure that the number of cats around would not kill the number of birds around. Nature has its balances and predators are part of that balance. The reduction in song birds really must be down to man's actions due to when in our history it started, namely as we got more industrialised everywhere including in farmin with pesticides and the like. That's just my opinion and is probably wrong and over-sentimentalised for an imagined older and better way of living.

I still don't think you can call cats pets. They are animals who choose to live with you (or not), who choose to allow you into their lives (when it suits THEM).

 

[Paul_B]

Dogs on the other hand IMHO are part of your life and you are part of theirs. A communal animal, pack animal.

 

[Toddy]

I disagree.
Pet cats are permanently stuck in kittenhood apparantly. That's why they're so playful. Mine cuddles in when I'm sitting quiet, comes for a looksee when I'm busy, does her own walking, buries her own faeces, doesn't piddle on every prominent bit of street architecture, doesn't smell, doesn't cast masses of fur everywhere, never begs at the table, doesn't slobber all over me, never climbs on worktops. In my life that's all good

We were puppy walkers for the Guide dogs for the blind, I like dogs fine, but they don't belong in the house and I'm not having another one.

You see, everyone has an opinion. and a right to it.

I have never gone looking for a cat, one has always found me when I have a cat shaped space in my life. It's not superstition, simply that cats suit me but dogs are too much bother. When I was little almost every household had a dog, society has changed, and there are fewer dogs kept now than in a very long time.

Farm cats can be funny creatures, but the average lifespan is still not as long as domesticated. I remember a litter of farm cats and they were all polydactyl, looked weird with those huge paws. My aunt's farm cats on the other hand were pure bred cross eyed Siamese The dog was a Cerebus like hound that was chained to the cattle grid with 50' of double link.
Not a pet or even pleasant company. Useful though. Probably what dogs are best at, being useful, if you've a need.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Opal]

Before we moved four years ago from the edge of the city, we had a large rear garden which was visited by hundreds of rats over the years. All our gardens backed onto a small area of overgrowth, our lovely Jack Russell, at the time, killed more rats than all the cats did between them....and there were many cats.

A neighbour had caught a rat in his wired trap and as we chatted over the low fence with the trap near his feet, a cat passed the trap and looked away from it as the rat jumped at the cat, the rat cut it's face on the wire and the cat done a runner faster than Linford Christie.

The only rats I've seen dumped by a cat in our gardens, you could count on one hand and they were tiny ones, saw many fearthers tho', in fact yesterday when I went round to my daughter's to rid her shed of bees, she showed me another pile of feathers.

Useless animals, only fit for comforting or exercising yer wrists.....and excreting in peoples gardens.

 

[maddave]

............ I'll get me coat !!

 

[drewdunnrespect]

you evil man dave you very evil man dave

 

[JonathanD]

............ I'll get me coat !!

Bwah Ha ha :yelrotflm

 

[Ph34r]

Well TBh, i have tried most of the above already - par the oranges. But the birds are actually asking for it now. At the end of the day, i love my nija kittens, and am not tooo upset about a few birds, but when they bring in a bear, or sheep, i will worry.

Thanks guys,
PH34r

 

[Ph34r]

Bwah Ha ha :yelrotflm

Thats just plain F*****G harsh, i fail to see how that is even funny in any way.

 

[British Red]

Really?

time for a sense of humour check then fellah.

 

[Ph34r]

Really?

time for a sense of humour check then fellah.

Not really, i just thinks thats cruel.

 

[Opal]

I needed a good laugh, must get meself one.

Ph34r, we don't mind a few cats going awol either.

 

[maddave]

Not really, i just thinks thats cruel.

It's not real... Honest !!

 

[nitrambur]

I've got 5 cats and I found it funny