Kitchen Garden Forum

I dreamt of keeping Chickens last night. Must be an omen. I have been reading your posts here with interest, and the KG article yesterday, both have prompted the dreams no doubt.
I have a question; How do domestic cats usually react with your Chickens? I do not have any cats but ALL my neighbours do. The cats have always just done their own thing anywhere and everywhere in all the gardens...that's poo, mate, fight, killing frogs & birds etc.. Do they do anything to Chickens?

Hello GS
Chickens and cats go well together or should I say they are wary of each other and each keep their distance. We've had chickens for more years than I can remember and the neighbours' cats have never been a problem with them.
Next doors' dogs though can be a serious problem and will kill birds. Fortunately this neighbour moved several years ago but not before we lost 6 birds in one afternoon. From comments I've seen on here though it seems to be possible to train your own dogs to respect hens quite easily.

John

My cats are terrified of my chickens - even the free ranging pekins The little pekins are very territorial and will chase anything that ventures close - blackbirds, cats, sparrows etc.

When one of the pekins had chicks she used to scream at the cats and go for them with a vengeance.

Thankyou John & Diane, very helpful.
I think I will look more seriously at keeping chickens. I do like cats. I just didn't know how they will be with chickens since there are so many cats that visit my garden.

I used to have six cats running around with chickens free range in my garden. I never had a single problem, even when my cockerel accidentally trod (or possibly tried to perch) on a sleeping cat who leapt a country mile with fright.

Cats generally only go for things that flutter around; if chickens do anything it's flap and then they become very big and scary.

In my younger days i used to do a bit of farm work now and again, and on one of these farms the biggest Tom cat i have ever seen started taking chickens, but luckily it dissapeared as quick as it had arrived.

Our cats are fascinated but scared silly of the chickens, as is the dog. The dog has good reason though..........the chickens used to go up and peck her bum when she was out going to the loo Shame the local villagers dogs are not quite so scared.
So I suppose the short answer is it is possible to train your own animals to respect the chooks.......... of course that depends upon the breed of dog you own........... cats aren't so much of a problem

Dear Myrkk, i used to have a most wonderful Whippet that would have anything if it ran, but with a lot of time and patience she used to be fine in the chicken pen with me.

OH that's good. My dog is a lurcher so it shows it is definately possible to train sight hounds and more difficult breeds to be small furry/feathery friendly.

We used to keep chickens and our Springer was fine with them. She would even collect the eggs without breaking or stealing them. The cats were too after they were 'trained' - using water! We have a Brittany now and she loves chickens. She ate all of our friends' rescue hens having first worked out how to break into the hen house. She's even had a go at their geese! As a natural hunter and a dog who regularly brings back rabbits, pheasants and various other things, it's all fair game to her.

The only problems we have encountered with cats are feral cats living in rural areas and need to kill to eat, normal domestic cats are normally not a problem.
Dogs can be a bigger problem especially if they have not been reared in a chicken environment. We have a Border Terrier who wouldn't dare look at a chicken in our company, however, I'm pretty certain that he wouldn't think twice about killing chickens if he was with them by himself, that's a Terrier's nature.

Thankyou for all the replies, they will be very helpful

i was worried about how our two cats would react to our ex battery hens, the old one hasnt shown any interest at all and ive not seen her with anything larger than a mouse for a couple of years. the two year old was the potential problem he even takes wood pigeon. however i took him into the chicken run and intoduced him to the chickens. when they were let out he started stalking one, .. now after a couple of months they are ok together yesterday i had 4 chickens and the young cat helping me clean out the polytunnel, there allways seems to be a couple of foot between cat and chickens but neither seem to take much notice of the other.