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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] RE: cats and birds

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  • From: "Elizabeth Knutson" <eknutson AT clubdepot.com>
  • To: "'Jay Gee'" <jaygee AT jghelp.com>, "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] RE: cats and birds
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 07:25:51 -0600

The drawback to the elastic collar with bells is that it makes it more
difficult for the cat to be an effective hunter. I suppose the cat's mere
presence could have a deterrent effect. I have 3 adult cats, the one that is
about 12 years old is an excellent hunter and in the last 10 years I can
only recall him killing 3 birds (starlings or sparrows) and two baby
rabbits. He has never caught (to my knowledge) a young pheasant, killdeer,
or meadowlark. Even if he caught 10 times that many birds over that time
span, I think that would have little to no effect on the bird population. I
know they still sit on the tops of my bean trellises and tomato supports and
"decorate" the produce with white. But I don't have rabbits and mice in my
garden.

The youngsters (who were left here by their feral mother as kittens last
summer) have not brought any prizes to me yet, so I don't know if they are
hunting. All three cats come and go from the house pretty much as they
please, though I am considering putting a cat door on the pump
house/tool/storage building and getting them used to going in there for
their dry cat food as the mice have chosen that as "their" building.
Hopefully it would be the cats that would eat the cat food and not the mice!

>From time to time I do see some of the feral cats hunting in the field, but
we have a lot of field mice. And a couple of hawks, an eagle occasionally
and a huge owl that hunts here too.

Betsy (eknutson AT clubdepot.com)

Southern Idaho, USDA Zone 5

> -----Original Message-----
> From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-
> bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of jay gee
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 3:18 PM
> To: Market Farming
> Subject: Re: [Market-farming] RE: cats and birds
>
> Christina,
>
> I have found two effective ways to keep cats from
> hunting and catching birds:
>
> 1.) Keep them indoors; or,
>
> 2.) Get an elastic collar with bell on it and
> add a few more jingle bells to make it
> noisier.
>
>





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