First encounter

[dinosaw]

I assume that my ex batts had never encountered a cat before last Sunday so it was interesting to see their reaction, what I took away from it was that in the download they received as chicks domestic cats didn't show up as predators. Greta is a rescue cat we picked up in April, she had been stuck in the shelter for 7 months, more than a third of her life poor thing, so was very institutionalised when we got her. It took about a month to get her to tolerate being in an open space but she has come on leaps and bound since then. She has carved out her own territory and seen off next doors tomcat who is a huge brute, she is an excellent mouser and has been roaming further and further away from the house as time has gone on so it was inevitable that she would eventually meet the chickens. She started to stalk them before seeming to decide they were a bit too big for her and then lay down in the shade as it was a very sunny day. Blondie who has bags of personality decided she was going to investigate and to my surprise boldly walked to within two feet of Greta before aggressively starting to cluck at her while walking up and down, Greta stayed lying down alert tail twitching and responded by clacking her teeth and hissing in as much as to say 'get lost chicken', soon Blondie had reinforcements arriving curiously looking at what for them was something new and I did think for a while one of the 4 of them were going to peck her before they eventually lost interest and moved away to scratch about in the shrubs. Whether they would have been so bold without me there is another matter but I think once we have some fully grown boys up there I expect her to get a chasing.

 

[MrsBiscuit]

Over the years I have found that the best cat/chicken relationships are where there is a mutual lack of interest. I've had a psycho cat (not mine) harass bantams which did not end well, and I've also had a particularly well socialised hen (with humans) take it upon herself to rush across the garden every time our good natured, rather fat female cat appeared and harass her for no good reason, whilst ignoring the male cats

But 99% of the time the two groups of feathers and fur just ignored each other, our cats just seemed to know somehow that the birds were part of the gang, and not to be eaten, although they would take on rabbits and pigeons. However, I was always extra vigilant with the chicks, being snack sized.

 

[chrismahon]

Ours are OK with domestic cats but seem to be responding to the colouration I think. We have three tabby coloured ferel cats wandering about from time to time and they start the alarm calls off if they are spotted outside the enclosure. The neighbour's chickens chased their tomcat off recently -quite a sight to see him running away with three hens hot on his heels!

 

[dinosaw]

Yes previous chickens have generally ignored cats too and vice versa with the one exception of a particularly curmudgeonly hen chasing next doors cat up a tree for some reason or other.