Solitary chicken - need advice

[Hennubi]

Hi,

 

I am going to be getting my first chickens in November (YEY!) and was wondering about getting some bantams, but we have two cats who do hunt the local starlings despite all bells etc.. so I wondered if anyone had had problems combining the two species?

 

I can understand how bigger hens can hold their own/be boss over the cats but am a little worried that batnams would be small enough to be temping to a naughty cat..??

 

The chickens will be in an eglu run+ converter when we are at work and then out under supervision.

 

Thanks for your help and all the other posts which I have been reading with interest!!

 

Bex

[The Dogmother]

I wouldn't worry, my two cats (and all the others in the neighbourhood) are scared witless of the bantams

[Hennubi]

Thanks Claret, thats what I needed to hear! Pekins here I come!

[TAJ]

I have the most evil cat in the world and I would not trust him with my full size girls - but he does catch full sized wood pigeons, rats and various other birds on an almost daily basis.

 

I use the Omlet netting and my girls are 99% safe from him in there - only once has he grabed a clump of feathers through the netting.

 

Tracy

[mrsj]

I have two cats and they sunbathe with the bantams! Mind you we had the hens for a long time first. When we got the cats they were only 7 weeks old, so I put corn and treats for the hens all around them. Poor kittens, they were so shocked by the excited hens that they gained a solid respect for them!

 

Every so often one of the Pekins will give the cats a peck to keep them down the pecking order too.

 

[The Dogmother]

Biscuit is enormous (wait until you meet him Tracy) and a brilliant catcher of furry and feathered things, but a good telling of by both me and the chickens when he was a kitten sorted out any ideas that he may have had of chicken-chasing. Being chased by a herd of pecky-beaked hellions helped too.