Advice for dealing with a VERY prolific hunter

[welcometohell]

DH and I adopted a lovely little rescue cat a couple of months ago. We adore her, but it turns out she is a serial killer, to say she is prolific would be an understatement! Every morning without fail we wake up to find at least one body but often it's two or three. To make matters worse, she frequently fails to finish the job so one of us then has to start the day by putting a severely injured bird/small animal out of its misery . We then come home from work in the evening to find more! She has brought 4 bats and a bird into the house over the last 48 hours alone!

Has anyone else had a cat like this? We've had cats before so fully expected to deal with the odd bird or mouse here and there, but we've never known a cat hunt this much, or so successfully! Dealing with the aftermath is starting to feel like a full time job, on top of the full time jobs we already have. The other evening, unbeknownst to us, she brought in a little bird only to lose it and despite being maimed it managed to escape behind a large and very heavy piece of furniture we'd fixed to the wall for childproofing reasons. By the time we'd figured out where the cheeping was coming from, unfixed and moved the furniture, retrieved the poor thing and put the room back together again it was gone midnight.

I know it's probably a long shot but is there any way to discourage a cat from killing off all the local wildlife? I thought about a collar with a bell but she likes to climb trees and I worry she might end up hanging herself. Any advice would be much appreciated.

But you’d be okay with cats destroying entire bat colonies? Why are cats more important than bats. Cats are ten a penny and prolific breeders; bats are endangered creatures that have 1 baby per year. Occasionally a cat may get injuries by a collar, why is that worse than all the creatures cats torturer and kill for the hell of it. Cats might be a bit stroppy about being kept in at night for a while but they get used to it.

I understand people love their pets, I’ve got cats myself I do get it but if you have a cat that hunts you’ve got a social responsibility to do something about it. Your cat is not the only thing that matters.

To the person upthread that said without cats we’d be knee deep in song birds as If that would be a bad thing. What the fuck?

But you’d be okay with cats destroying entire bat colonies?

Is this question addressed to me? If so, then no, I'm clearly not ok with it. That's why I've posted here asking for advice and have said I'm willing to keep the cat in at night even though she'll blatantly drive us all mad gamboling up and down the stairs and meowing to be let out. But I don't want my cat hanging itself from a tree branch either! I'm willing to admit that the death of my own cat would distress me more than that of any bats it might kill. I think most pet owners would say the same if they were being totally honest.

It wasn’t aimed at you personally just generally towards people who won’t let their cats wear collars. There is a risk associated with collars just as there’s a risk associated with being out on the roads/ in gardens where there may be dogs/ Nutters with pellet guns. Lots more cats get killed by cars than will ever be harmed by a collar but that’s seen as an acceptable risk?

I love my cats, they live the life of bloody riley but they both wear collars even though I’m sure they’d rather not. I can’t cope with the dead wildlife if they don’t wear collars. I’d feel personally responsible for every dead thing - which of course I would be.

Your cat will be a pain in the arse at night for a bit bit then she’ll get used to it

Ours ask to go to bed in the evenings, gets to 9pm and her Highness starts tapping her watch...

If you get up earlier than usual you get a sleepy glower for disturbing them 🙄

I agree far more cats get lost or ran over than get strangled with a collar. Fortunately only our boy hunts.

Mine wear collars. Partly to help warn birds but also for security. I don’t want other people feeding them and I don’t want them to get lost.

You can also get cat flaps with timers or sensors so that it becomes "in only" at a certain time which would help if you work irregular hours.

The people that don't have litter trays, where do you expect the cat to go to the toilet? I keep my girl in until she's been in the litter box in the morning because I'd be mortified if she was doing all of her crap in a neighbours garden!

Aww bats . I've noticed bats in the late evening ( before we had cats we had guinea-pigs and occasionally saw a bat when we did the supper )

Our cats have a tray 24/7 , they have their door open at 6.30 am and locked about 9pm when they have dinner .
They will come in to use the tray So I am confident that no cat shit in the garden ( though the male does use our tall plant pot ometimes )

They started bringing worms in, now progressed to butterflies .
One bird from MaleCat .

Not prolific but they used to be running wild before they ended up in Rescue so maybe going back to their dark side .

@EdwardCullensBiteOnTheSide despite your cat taking its morning dump in the litter tray, I can guarantee it’s still crapping all over the neighbours gardens

Doubt it. Because she does her nightly one inside as well. But even if she did do a random one outside, at least it's better than merrily bidding my car farewell knowing they're definitely off to crap in others gardens.

Cat!

The people that don't have litter trays, where do you expect the cat to go to the toilet? I keep my girl in until she's been in the litter box in the morning because I'd be mortified if she was doing all of her crap in a neighbours garden!

We had a litter tray and assumed it would be permanent fixture but once she was allowed outside after her vaccinations she stopped using it almost immediately. We got rid of it when we realised she hadn't used it for a month. Even if cats have access to a litter tray all the time and are kept in at night I find it very difficult to believe they never go in people's gardens during the day.

Get her a collar with loads of bells. She needs to look like a morris dancer to give the wildlife a bit of a chance.

I've also heard you can get smart catflap that don't let the cat in if it's carrying prey.

I've also heard you can get smart catflap that don't let the cat in if it's carrying prey.

I've looked at smart cat flaps and they all say they prevent other cats coming in as they're linked to your cats own microchip, but I can't see how this would stop her bringing her prey into the house. Surely it would still detect her microchip and open whether she had something in her mouth or not?

My cats stopped using the litter tray once they started going out. As well as the bath, they seem mostly to toilet in our garden although I don't know for certain if they go elsewhere. I keep a few patches of earth are and turn the soil so it's easy to dig in and they seem to go there.
Where I live is next to several fields so it's quite likely that local cats don't foul gardens as much as if we lived somewhere with more houses.
I have a really big fern in the back garden that seems to be quiet a popular spot for cats to pee under. They don't dig a hole and it's sheltered if it's raining

We had our hunter double-belled with a quick-release collar for a few years. I used to click and pull the collar catch apart a few times and file it until I was happy it was loose enough to come off easily. So of course he was forever losing them... show how much they do get caught on things.

Eventually the boycat lost enough collars and I got sufficiently worried that I took them off both cats and it doesn't seem to have increased or decreased the body count. Though two large dead rats in the last month in the hallway was atypical even for him! Usually mice with the odd gets-him-told-off bird. Unless it's pigeon.. he can have those and welcome. And I've told him if he wants to go for a red kite, it's his problem.

No bells does increase the chances of him getting stepped on though, as now he can ninja up to me without me hearing/noticing he's there.

I don't think the mice stopping cat flap is on the market yet.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48825761

My cat is the same. He also used to bring in live mice.
I bought falconry bells from Amazon and put one on his collar. He doesn't mind it at all and he has not killed mice or birds for some time.

My old boy was apparently a prolific hunter before he came to us (his previous owner died, and was nursed at home beforehand; he dropped a decapitated pigeon in the lap of the night nurse who had dozed off...).
The first thing I did was put a quick release collar on him, with a bell and a metal tag on the same ring so they clanked together. I also kept him in at night - it also reduces their risk of being run over - and occasionally kept him in for a day or two if there were fledgling birds in the garden. In the 8 years we had him, he never brought us a single kill.