How do we stop cats killing birds
Sep 10th, 2008 by Birdy Trish
How can we stop domesticated, well fed, cats killing our garden birds?
Has anyone any tips or advice.
I have had a comment from someone who has spent hours trying to protect his garden birds-
. I’ve just spent the last couple of weeks spending my nights protecting my (endangered &; uncommon in this part of the UK) Tree Sparrows from a neighbour’s cat, so I’m fried .
As it’s already taken most of the Dunnocks, the resident pair of Robins (leaving me to hand-rear a fledge)…several Tits…the male Blackbird, I see no reason to sit on the fence at all.
Feral cats are feral leave them be be. However, if you own a pet you have an obligation to make sure that that pet is not causing misery with it’s serial killing antics. If you can’t do this then you have no right having a pet.
How good of him to care for birds.
I know how he feels trying to stop cats. I had this problem over a year ago. The cat’s one aim in life was to kill birds. In my case the cat was a starving stray that latched on to us. It became well fed and fat on cat food. It still killed birds. Seeing the soft, pink / red feathers floating to the ground from a robin that had been killed made me take action.
It was easy for me to ring the RSPCA and ask them to take it - because it came as a stray. They took it. I live in an area surrounded by birds. Hopefully the cat was rehomed far away from the countryside.
I had spent ages trying to keep track of the cat. When I saw it jump inside a hedge after a bird I pulled aside the branches to try and catch the cat.
Has anyone any advice, tips or new ideas on how to stop cats killing birds.
Oooh….thanks for taking the time to do this. Found the female blackbird (dead) on my backdoorstep last night, so I’m just about to pop round to my neighbour’s house with it & a cat collar with a large bell on it.
I’m going to tell them that it’s either the bell or the pound for that cat.
You take care of yourself & keep up with the good work!
BW <— a girl
As above, I found a collar with a bell on quite successful as the birds can hear them coming. If you want to stop cats coming into your garden (depending on the size of the garden) pepper dust is also quite effective. It will deter them from coming in to mess, and if you put it around the base of any fences or gates in high concentrations it will deter them from using their normal entry points. You can buy it as a cat deterrent from most DIY/garden shops. It doesn’t appear to deter ground feeding birds where I live.
Put bird feeders etc far enough away from any bushes so cats can’t jump out and surprise the birds, and if putting them in trees put them on branches where cats can’t reach (thinner the branch the better). Make sure if you have any ground feeders to put the feeder somewhere where the birds would see a cat coming.
Sadly I would suggest not putting any nest boxes up if your neighbourhood has a high concentration of cats. Fledging birds can fall to the ground or sit in trees and would be easy prey for cats and if cats know there’s easy prey they’ll just keep coming back.
Hope this helps.
Round here there is one particular black cat which is a born killer. I saw its head and claws one day as it leapt up the back of my fence to grab one of the line of house sparrows which were sat there. I and my dog have tried to catch it but it is too wary. Me with a water pistol and Bobby with nice clean canines!
I will try Denney’s suggestion of the pepper dust. There are bushes next door next to that fence so the dust will not be a problem and the neighbour is friendly and hates having the cat about as well.
As you said Trisha, if the hunter is wild and feeding itself then that is the way of the world but so called domestic cats which just kill for pleasure really have no place being allowed to roam.
Hi Everyone,
Cats killing birds is such a problem. Or maybe it’s the owners of cats who kill birds that is the problem.
Burning Wellies - Ooops. sorry I didn’t realise you were a girl! Hope getting this support and ideas will help.
Denny, I tried putting a bell on the cat I had that killed birds. The darned cat could move without making the bell ring! It could also get the collar off it’s neck. So that did not work for me.
Thank you so much for telling us about pepper dust. I’ve never heard of it. I’m sure that will help a lot of people (and wild birds).
I had been told that electric wire round the top of a fence keeps cats out, but surely it will hurt wild birds as well when they try and perch on it!
John, So sorry you have problems with cats. At least you have a friendly neighbour. I’m interested to hear about pepper dust. It would not have worked for my problem as the cat that was doing the bird killing lived in my house (for a short time anyway).
Why doesn’t the RSPB (and also the RSPCA ) speak out more. I think we all know there is carnage of wild birds all the time by domesticated cats.