Okay - my two year old cat has never shown any real hunting instincts apart from watching and occasionally stalking the birds who are foolish enough to land in my garden while she is in the vicinity. During a discussion at work about how cats can be a menace to birds I foolishly stated that my cat had "never caught a bird" - oh foolish, foolish woman I am. In the space of 10 days she has returned with 4 dead birds. The first three were sparrows of which there is a massive population here. She kills them, plays with the bodies and then eats them [vomit emoticon]
After the third I went out and spent nearly £20 on a collar which emits a loud beeping sound on any sudden movement from the cat. Amazingly she has accepted this with no problem even though it beeps when she jumps, scratches or makes any other sudden movement - we are getting used to it.
For over 48 hours it has been bliss with no dead birds......until this morning when I came down to find her chucking a dead wagtail around the kitchen. I have evicted her to the garden and she is now chucking it around out there and doing real hunter stuff - sitting on it, sniffing it, throwing it around some more and just generally being far too "I am a fabulous hunter" for my liking.
Now I realize that wagtails a very swift and possibly any wagtail which gets caught must be ill or injured anyway BUT even so I could have cried.
What else can I try?
Am going to lock the cat flap at dusk and not re-open it until after dawn.
Any other cat collars I can try? Am considering hanging huge great fecking bells off the one she has on as an added alarm.
Please no cat haters on here. I love and adore my cat and I know she's just doing what comes naturally but I would like to slow her down a bit before the birds all have a mass exodus. I love seeing the birds and am a member of the RSPB so it's a bit hideous to see the poor things having been slaughtered by my cat.
BTW - I do not feed the birds in my garden - that would be too much of an added opportunity for the cat.