Kitchen Garden Forum

went upstars earlier only to find a dead sparrow at the top of my stairs
im pressuming one of my cats killed it but it still looked so perfect so im hoping it died of heart failure/broken neck?
hasa anyone any idea how to deter pets from doing this as i hate it-she doesnt do it often; but i turn into a screaming girlie

Dear jopsy on a more serious note, have you tried putting collars with little bells on your cats, it's supposed to let the birds here when the cats are about.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

yes herby they already have them
she really doesnt do it often
its usually butterflies which is slightly more bearable

Jopsy, it could have been worse.

A young lady I used to work with had cycled over a mile to the post office before deciding that yes there really was something in her trainer....













... a very, very, dead mouse.

A love token from one of her cats.
The trainer went into the ditch at high speed, never to be retrieved and she went oddfoot to post office and then home.

well peter now you come to mention it
we had a v v bad smell in the house
we turned everywhere upside down
turns out dh had a dead mouse in his shoe under the bed, the shoe went in the bin!
grim
the cycling girl is a worse story tho-yuck....

We used to live in one wing of a much altered Elizabethan mansion and at some point the top floor of our bit had been completely pannelled in a very grand style, quite lovely.

Downside was being an old building many other species had gained access and every now and then a starling used to fall down from the attic into the gap between the pannelling and the threefoot thick brick wall.

A day or two of scrabbling, a few days of nothing, then a foul all-pervasive smell.

First time I remember this I must have been about five or so and I wos very very scared by the monster in the wall and strangely reassured by the smell as it told me Dad had explained it correctly.

This is beginning to smell very similar to my very dear friend Jenny Green's cat experiences.....
Perhaps you should take yourself off to the Autumn Malvern Show to compare notes with Jenny and I?!

Oh dear - I'm afraid this is just part of having a cat and if you've already attached a bell on the collar you've probably done as much as you can do, apart from not letting your cat out in the garden in the early morning when the birds are at their most hungry and needing to feed. I had a cat who over the years bought home racing pigeons, water rats, moles, and even occasionally dead moorhens and the odd duck (when we had a river at the bottom of the garden). Afraid you can't really expect them to deny their basic instincts, however much it offends our human atitudes.

oh i agree primrose
this was early evening prowling!
i never got to the end of jennys cat story wellie
peter thats quite scary for a small child

Hi Jopsy

The cat returned. It was just an evil plan she had to make me think she'd gone forever.
Strangely enough the evil cat's only evil to humans. She's stone deaf so has never caught a thing in her life. Though sometimes she finds long dead animals to bring in and claim as her own kills.
The nice cat's a terrible predator. She's got less predatory over the years, but I've found the only solution is to keep her inside a lot in the spring and generally only let her out in the evening. She did bring back two baby rats once which I was actually quite pleased about.
For a really evil cat, follow this link:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23365034-details/Meet+Grumpy+-+the+nastiest+cat+on+earth/article.do

have you offered to take on this cat in the article jenny?

glad yours was found/returned-i think!

Maybe I should take that cat in and it and our evil cat could fight it out. Maybe they'd even eat each other and cancel themselves out, like in Millions of Cats (anyone read it?).

no, whos it by?
dont read cats of moon cottage cos its sad-esp if you like cats!

It's by Wanda Gag. It's a very strange book written in the 30's I think. It's handwriting, not typeface and it's the story of an old couple who want a cat. I won't spoil the ending for you if you ever read it! It fascinated me as a child so I bought a copy for the little one.
I'll take your advice re Cats of Moon Cottage.

well i could lend it you if you feel like a good cry!!