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I am wanting to keep a couple of chickens in my garden. Ive read on line and spoken with a farmer and am lead to believe that cats don't kill hens, is this true? The farmer laughed when I asked him this and said it would be very rare for e a cat to kill a chicken. I would like them to have some freedom in the garden. If the information I have is incorrect I will just keep them in a pen. There is a fox in the neighbourhood so they can only be out when I'm there to supervise anyway.

Hi Jules I have three cats and none of them have shown any interest in any of my hens and my hens roam freely in the garden so if they wanted too they could, but they are totally not bothered!
keep a close eye out for the fox though!!!

Hi Caretaker, i to have 3 cats, who kill rats n mice, hopefully they wont be interested in eating hens! I will keep an eye out for the fox, ive only seen it once at 1am and my neighbours saw it strolling through their front garden and into mine at about 9pm. A colleague of mine had regurlarly let her hens roam freely in her garden whilst she was out but came home to carnage one day when a fox had killed all but one traumatised girl. :-(

Hi,

Hi,
We have two cats, pluss there are about 5-6 other cats that live near by and come into our garden daily.
We got our hens last weekend and like you when we are at home the hens are allowed out and have the run of the garden.

When we got the hens home last saturday we put them in our coop, within 10mins our Girl cat was creeping upto them. She got about 1ft away from the coop when one of the hens made a noise. Well this scared our girls cat that much she shot off up the garden and onto the shed roof and spent the next couple of hours up there!.. Well roll on a week and and every one is now friends. The hens roam the garden and the cats keep out there way. All the other cats that come into the garden all stay away from the hens apart from one young cat thats not long moved in a few doors up. She is a lovley cat with some great markings on her coat. But still a very young cat. She has got quite close to the hens while they were out. Also she has gone right upto there coop. She has not yet gone for any of the hens. And i really hope it stays that way as a hen that decideds to have a go back could do a hell of a lot of damage to a cat.

iv 6 cats and a stray. i wouldnt risk the chicks or ducklings but even my smallest bantam dont intrest them.
my guineafowl and brain damaged orpington live in the lower flor of my cattery and iv found my youngest cat in the chickens basket.

When i first got my hens they would chase the cat around the garden to put him in his place, and now he will happily lay down with the chickens all around him! They should be fine! :D

my stray sits amoung the chickens looking for mice, the ducks have even landed on it not a flinch lol.

We have two cats and they don't bother our girl's but their is a stray that came around and Pulled my Fauna out from under the coop, didn't get to finish her off though! I wasn't home when it happened my father in law was taking care of them, the cat had nawed her feet, then my puppy, who wanted to play ended up snappin her neck and putting her out of her missery! I was distrawt! hope everything goes well for you! I have never had an experience like that til someone dropped off that stray tomcat! my cats were raised with my birds and saw them every day as they were growing up!

Thanks everyone. I will keep a close eye to watch what happens when the chickens arrive. I think Mr Fox will be more of a threat!

Please dont be lulled into a false sense of security there is no doubt whatsoever that cats will kill even quite well grown chickens as I found out to my cost when a stray Tom got into one of my runs and created total carnage killing over 30 well grown birds in one night , I know it was him as he was still there in the morning.

Are you sure the cat wasn't a secondry visitor? 30 chicken kills is an incredible number for even the biggest cat! Was he injured?

The only problem I have from my cats is they like to sneak into the coop and sleep in the next boxes.

i dont have cats but neighbours both sides do and initially i was worried nut as soon as hens let out in garden they chased them off,however one of the cats is facinated by them and likes to jump on the roof of coop and sneak up on them at back of run and sends them flapping about for ages and scares them which is very annoying as when im at work nothing you can do,when they are out in garden then the cats arent brave enough to get too close, im afraid i am not a lover of cats purely because if my chickens went next door and pooped on the patio and dug up garden i think they would complain,but its ok to find cat poo in my shingle path and find they have dug up my border and use it as alitter tray grrrrrrrrrrrrh!!

Hi all, I got my hens at the end of June and have no probs with my 3 cats. My older two avoid the hens totally and the young one plays in the garden but doesnt bother them apart from being a bit nosey looking in the coop when the hens are roaming the garden.