Gransnet forums

Pets

Cat killing baby birds

(33 Posts)
j08 Sat 29-Jun-13 09:40:57

Hunt we would NOT be "overrun with birds"! We are losing quite enough of our garden birds as it is. We are lucky to see a sparrow round here, and we never get a starling - used to have loads.

I'm glad the cat now has a collar with a bell. Couldn't you find some other way to control vermin?

specki4eyes Fri 28-Jun-13 23:46:51

Yes Tegan mines a silver tabby!
How are you? Hope you're not still working too hard.
I think only you and I are still up - I'm going to bed now, night night

Tegan Fri 28-Jun-13 23:37:48

You probably know this anyway Specki but put the baby bird outside so the mother can see it's dead. When I had cats I had a distraught mother bird ouside until I put the dead baby where she could see it; she then went away. I have a cat pen and when I used to have cats I used to keep the cats in when I knew the birds had fledged. One day I went into the garden to see how the young birds were getting on; I scared one of them and it flew though the mesh of the pen, straight into the waiting mouth of one of my cats [I still feel bad about it years later]. I had a cat that was a silver tabby at the time, and I'd read that they were the worst of their breed for killing birds [she was a British Shorthair] and she certainly lived up to her reputation.

merlotgran Fri 28-Jun-13 23:25:49

My cat doesn't kill baby birds. She's too busy catching baby rabbits!

Hunt Fri 28-Jun-13 23:16:03

Just think ,if your cats did not catch birds we would be over run with them.(birds, that is) Think of it as culling.

Charleygirl Fri 28-Jun-13 22:57:20

My cat caught 2 birds in one day. I managed to rescue the adult sparrow and then I went out. When I returned, the minx had devoured most of a baby bird.

She has never caught a bird before, when on a killing spree it is 3 takeaways (mice) a night for maybe a couple of nights and then a rest for a couple of months.

I was so cross when the sparrow was brought home alive and screaming that I felt like fitting a church bell around her neck!

Speck4eyes there is nothing else to do except fit a collar with a bell but check that the collar does not become entangled under one of its "armpits" as happened with my last cat.

tanith Fri 28-Jun-13 22:45:16

I've kept cats all my life and I never managed it. You could keep her in but its what cats do I'm afraid , its just nature.

specki4eyes Fri 28-Jun-13 22:41:34

Help! My lovely young cat is on a killing spree..its so upsetting. Tonight she came in with a beautiful baby blackbird in her mouth. The bird was screaming, the mother was going crazy outside. I was so upset, I've now put a collar on her with a bell but I was reluctant to do that because I want her to catch vermin. What else can I do? Any ideas?