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[cluckynikki]

Has anyone had any experience of their hens being attacked bya cat?

 

The last fortnight or so we have had three occasions when a cat has appeared in our back garden. The first two times hubby rushed out on hearing the racket our two hens were making and saw the cat disappear over the fence.

 

Yesterday however, when he rushed out he saw the cat disappear over the fence from the area in which we keep the hens fenced off. (They are fenced off with Omlet netting, with the garden boundary fence on one side.)

 

To my horror I discovered about 6 of Tillys soft fluffy feathers and one of her long wing feathers scattered around a patch of their ground. She looked quite indignant but seems to be ok. Even more worrying was that Coffee had somehow managed to escape out of the netted area and was exploring the rest of the garden.

 

Tilly was always doing a houdini act and escaping through the trellis into the rest of the garden from that area, but Coffee, bless her had never escaped once. I thought I had hen proofed the exits and even Tilly has remained inside their area recently. What prompted Coffee to get out and how did she do it? Would she have flown over the netting ( wings are clipped)?

 

Anyone else had this problem?

[teri]

how high is your netting? i've seen my girls clear a five foot fence without any effort and they have their wings clipped. if your hen was spooked by a cat that may be why she jumped. as for the cat a water pistol is a great deterant that doesn't hurt it in any way. a high powered one is best just squirt it every time you see it in your garden it will soon give up. i have a huge tabby and my neightbours all have cats and i have never had any problems with them at all. in fact one of my neighbours cats can be found asleep on the coop roof every day. the chickens just ignore it! i think its after the mice at the back of my shed rather that my hens.

you might want to check the chicken with the missing feathers for any broken skin as cat bites often become infected and can turn into an absess really quicky. bathing the area with warm salt water will clean it effectivley.( just boil the ketle and let it cool down a bit. one tea spoon of salt to half a mug of water is plenty)

hope this helps teri x

[Patricia W]

I'm surprised. My three bantams see off all the neighbourhood cats. Phillipa, in particular is like a missile - she takes off at 100miles an hour whenever she sees the cat. Poor Poppy is terrified and runs the other way! They deal with all the local cats this way.

 

Tricia

[Minky]

I'm with you Tricia, our back garden has become a cat free zone in both this house and in our previous house due to our three girls scaring them off! One of out girls is rather lame too, and I've even seen her face off a cat who tried to corner her - she flapped up in his face and he ran off never to be seen again - I wouldn't be surprised if the feathers you found were from Tilly flinging herself at the cat!!

I'd suggest next time you spot a cat in the garden, keep a careful eye in case they do need you to step in, but otherwise wait and see how they deal with the feline intruder themselves

[Sarahsausage]

I had a neighbours cat attack one of my hens, I had left my girls free-ranging in the garden and had popped back in the house only to hear lots of sqwawking 5 minutes later, ran out and to my horror a cat was on top of Gladys with her neck in it's mouth! The only physical damage she had, luckily, was some damaged wing feathers, I think she may have been bruised as well as one of her wings looked weak for a few days. She was quite shaken up and it took her a couple of days to get over it. Ever since then I have only let them free-range when I'm in the garden. The water pistol idea is excellent but I have found that everytime I've seen the cat in my garden I have shouted really loudly at it and chased it off, haven't seen it for a few weeks now, fingers crossed!

[saracook31]

We have two cats, both whom spend their days hunting for mice and rabbits and are very successful!

 

However, when they've been too close to our girls they are scared off as soon as they fluff themselves up or flap wings! The cats don't bother trying now, in fact saturday the cat was found in an area I'd fenced off just wandering around with the girls peacefully!

[beulah59]

We have four cats, so I'm hoping that when our chickens arrive (not for a few weeks yet!) they won't feel excluded from the whole garden! I suspect the kittens (just a year old) will cope ...

[cluckynikki]

Thanks for the replies. I am hoping that Tilly will have scared the cat off too with some good flapping! Let's hope the cat will not be back.