Thoughts on collar bells?

[Cuppatea14]

Torn between wanting to protect the local birds, and worrying that having a jingly bell attached to you all day must amount to low level psychological torture!! Thoughts?

My cat completely freaked out with one on. So I took it off.

We got our cat at 4 months old and she had one on already, she's fine with it, and it helps us find her when she's in stealth mode.

Cats soon learn to muffle the bell under their chin when hunting, so they don’t work. And for a creature as proud, autistic, solitary and noise avoiding as a cat, yes, bells probably are a torture.

I would never put a collar on a cat. One of mine got a collar caught around his mouth and must have been like that for a good few hours until we came home from work. Cut all around his jaw and needed to visit the vet. They can also get caught on branches etc.

I wouldn’t put a collar on a cat either. My father is a retired vet, and has seen cats who were strangled when their collars caught on something.

My pair (we have an old boy too whose hunting days are over, so no need for a bell!) have the collars with the little release catch that opens if they get stuck and tug at it, so I think it’s ok from a safety point of view. DH is convinced that someone will think they are strays if they don’t have collars and start feeding them etc.

Hmmm. I tried to put one on my boy before and it was torture. He went wild trying to claw it off. So I didn't try again for a few years. But then for some reason his hunting got prolific - I was coming home to piles of beautiful finches and songbirds daily. I tried again. He was fine with it. He's a moody, violent, mulish bugger so I'm confident he'd let me know if he had a problem with it.

Did it cut down his hunting goose?

I have a collar, no bell on one of my cats and no collar on the other. The bell drives DH mad and I think he sympathises with any cat forced to endure jingling all the time. My other cat freaks out but can remove a collar in about 10 seconds.

I had to put a bell on our rescue cat as he's permanently about an inch behind me/to the side of me/in front of me and I kept falling over him 

Haven't had a dead bird since we put it on him Cuppa. He may still have slayed a few and I haven't found them yet... but nothing on the scale he was at before.

I always remove - for my sanity and also to spare the cat.

That said, she is 11, soon to be 12 and definitely not a hunter. If I had a younger kitty that brought presents into the house, I might rethink. Or even look into those scrunchie-type collars, which while assuredly demeaning, appear to be effective at preventing kills.

The sound would drive them mad surely.

My cat knows the one next door is around by the jingling bell. Poor thing is trying to slink around but his cover is blown.