Feeding cats

[simon831]

We have a few semi-wild farm cats that live outside all the time. Our hens free range wherever they like.

The problem I have is how to feed the cats without the hens getting it. We feed the cats meat once a day and have to keep watch while they eat or the hens chase them away. I would like to leave the cats dry biscuits to eat during the day but the hens just eat them all. The cats are rescue, and too timid to come into the house through a catflap so there is nowhere I can feed them without the hens following.

Is there a feeder I can buy that the cats can use, but hens can't open?

 

[Marigold]

Hi Simon, and welcome to the Forum.
What an interesting problem. The trouble is that a cat is roughly the same size as a chicken, isn't it, so any hole that a cat could get through might let a hen through as well. I wondered whether it wold be possible to make a feeding enclosure for the cats, with a cat flap on one side, which might be too stiff for the hens to get through, or maybe they wouldn't realise how to do this? You might need to leave the flap open for a while until the cats got used to using it, and maybe during this time, it might be possible to pen the chickens off from the area of the feeding pen with a barrier of mesh or chicken wire?
Another idea I had was to make the feeding pen with sides too high for hens to easily fly over, but with sides that cats could climb. I know some breeds of hen are good fliers, but mostly they settle down once they start to lay and don't take off so often.

Of course if you could get the cats used to going in to such a pen, and if it had a roof, you would be well on the way to being able to catch them if necessary, eg for trips to the vet to be neutered. If you could situate it in a out-of-the-way place where they felt safe, and make it covered and comfortable, they might actually adopt it as their home place.

Or, of course just put the food somewhere up too high for the hens to get at it. .