Cats & Chickens

One of the things that concerned me most when I was thinking about keeping chickens was how they would interract with my cat. Now, my cat is about 13 but shows no signs of slowing down and regularly brings us “little presents” although I would have to say that his prey of preference is small mammals and rodents rather than birds. However, he has always been an only cat and is fiercely territorial with the battle scars to prove it so I was unsure about how he would react to his garden being invaded by three large birds.

I was reassured by everyone I spoke to and everything that I read which told me that a chicken is more than a match for a domestic cat and that the two can cohabit fairly peacefully.

When we first brought the chickens home and installed them in their ark Simpson, my cat, was enthralled with them

“Mummy, you brought me some new toys” and would sit and watch them for hours. After a few days however, when he realised they were firmly shut their side of the wire and no more than a visual entertainment he lost interest.

His interest was renewed when we let them out to free-range in the garden and for the first few days we had them running free I kept a close eye on Simpson. Those first days he made a few half-hearted runs at them and a couple of times I heard some agitated squawking and looked out to see the cat nonchalantly cleaning himself in the middle of the lawn and some ruffled chickens hurriedly distancing themselves.

Now, a couple of months in,  he seems to ignore them in much the same way he ignores the squirrels which run around our garden – other peoples cats are another matter. Literally days after the chickens arrived I noticed a large ginger cat in our garden, a cat I have never seen before. It was as though some notice had gone up “They’ve got chickens at No.57″….the first time I noticed this cat it was creeping up on the chickens in their ark.

What this cat had failed to notice was that Simpson was sitting the other side of the ark watching the chickens through the wire. As the ginger cat stalked up on the ark, Simpson lay in wait and just as Ginger sprang forward Simpson leapt around the ark. Ginger was somewhat surprised and streaked back up the garden the way he’d come.

Since then Ginger has been appearing regularly in the garden and Simpson is not happy about it. They’re his chickens and no other cat is going to come in on his turf. This afternoon I was witness to a highly amusing scene.

At the end of the garden we have an old forsythia bush with a really thick trunk that has fallen over and lies horizontally, the chickens have found this and like to perch on the branch under the shade of the bush. This afternoon they were scratching around underneath the bush when they came rushing out squawking, I went to take a look and could see Ginger underneath the forsythia. I decided to keep a watch and see what happened next. The chickens forgot all about the cat almost immediately and found another patch of ground to scratch around in….Ginger starts creeping towards them through the undergrowth…..which is when I notice further down the garden Simpson creeping up on Ginger.

So there you have Simpson stalking Ginger, Ginger stalking the chickens and completely unaware of Simpson, and the chickens pecking at insects and completely oblivious to either cat. Ginger was about a foot away from the chickens when he suddenly spotted Simpson, the look on his face said it all. On the one hand three chickens which I really want to catch on the other an angry looking tabby….is the reward of one worth the risk of the other? He sat for several moments looking from Simpson to the chickens summing it up before deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and beating a retreat over the hedge.

The chickens meanwhile, hadn’t noticed a thing.

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Tags: cat, chicken, backyard, hens