[Ag-eq] Chicken Killer!

[nfoster at extremezone.com]

Hi  Susan:

Sorry to hear about your chickens.  I hope no more cats are able to get in.

Does your county have programs to help spay and nueter the wild cats?

The city of Phoenix doesn't do much about them.  There are some programs to help
spay and neuter and release again, but that's about all.  The ccounty won't pick
them up unless they are injured or a threat to people.  You can trap them
yourself and then take them to animal control, where they will be put down.  I
think you have to pay to turn them in.  We have enough coyotes in my
neighborhood that there are no more wild cats.

I wish people would spay and neuter their animals so our country wouldn't have
these problems.  The last neighborhood I lived in had several wild cats.  so a
couple of neighbors and I trapped them, had them altered and released them.  It
took us forever to catch one of the females.  We caught some of the cats 2 and 3
times before we finally got her!

Good luck with the cat problem.

Nella






Quoting Susan Roe <dogwoodfarm at verizon.net>:

> Hi Guys,
>
> Thursday morning about 4:00, I was awake and heard my chickens really
> throwing up a fuss.  Sometimes that is not too unusual because coop 3 has a
> rooster who gets fussy when his hens aren't doing what he thinks they should
> be doing and when.  So I lay there and listened until one hen was litterly
> screeching above the rest and continued until she just faded off.  Matt was
> working nights and I couldn't call him because from 4:00 to 4:30 he is doing
> phone confrence calls.  I couldn't go back to sleep so I got dressed,
> checked e-mails until 6:00 and my inside dog and I went downstairs and I
> called Matt.  He said he was finished for the night and would be home in 10
> minutes.
>
> By that time my sister was up and asked what were the chickens going on
> about all night.  Apparently, they also were upset about 1:30 as well.  The
> outside hounds never barked.
>
> Let me also explain something with one of Matt's rules that I don't argue
> with.  There are no lights around my three coops, so you have to have a
> flash light to investigate the hen yards and in the coops.  He does not want
> us to investigate the chickens at night when he is not home because there is
> too grate a chance that the problem is not only a wild animal, but a rabid
> one as well.  You have to go inside the coops to check what is going on
> inside and they are long and narrow, 4 feet by 12 feet by 6 or 7 feet tall.
> It is not worth us getting attacked by a wild or rabid animal as they would
> feel trapped and we would be between them and the exit.  I love my chickens,
> but I would not fair well if I were to be injured from teeth or claws with
> me on blood thinners.
>
> So, Matt went in through the back of coop 3 first and when he started
> cussing up a blue streek, I knew something wasn't going to be good.  He then
> checked out coop 2 and then to coop 1 which only has 1 little hen.  At first
> glance, he couldn't find her in the coop or her outside pen.  He looked
> closer inside and he said he just had to smile.  She was sitting way up on
> top of all the nest boxes as high as she could get.  She looked down at him
> as though to say, "What ever it is, it ain't gonna get me!"  Matt then went
> and checked out coop 2's pen and then to coop 3.  He started cussing again
> and then went off, bringing back a piece of ply board and a hammer.  He
> nailed the board up against the front of the coop right along the ground.
> When he finally came back to the porch to get a heavy plastic bag, he told
> us there were 2 dead hens.
>
> We can't burry the chickens on the property any more because dogs have dug
> them up in the past, even when we go deep and put something over them.
>
> We believe, but can't prove, it was a farel cat.  Both hens were parcially
> eaten, 1 still in the coop and 1 in the yard, front end halfway pulled
> through a hole that was dug under the coop.  Evidently, they dug up under
> the back of the coop, and then once they were under the coop, could easily
> slip under the front of the coop where the hens like to scratch in the soft
> dirt after it rains.  The animal couldn't pull the large hen back the way it
> came.  Needless to say, my husband was not a happy camper.
>
> This farel cat population is going to have to be thinned again and the ones
> we want to keep are going to be fixed.  Any others that come around are just
> going to have to go away.  I can't and won't let anyone shoot them, nore
> will I allow the county to trap them, fix them, and then bring all of them
> back.  They classify farrel cats as a part of the natural eco system in
> which they reside and it would not be a good thing to remove a predator from
> the envirement.  I say bolonie, because I'm the one feeding the gang 10
> scoops of food a day and they are hunting at least rabits as well.  Our base
> number of cats, about 8, are the only ones I want to fix and keep.  The gang
> has already started having kittens and it is still early!
>
> Susan
> dogwoodfarm at verizon.net
>
>
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