Cat curfew ?

I think education is the key - a lot of cat owners now are keeping their cats as "home" cats (i.e. confined to the owners property and garden) not only for wildlife but because it is so risky to be letting cats roam free - traffic, idiots with air-guns, dogs, people stealing cats either for pets (sell or keep for themselves) or as bait for fighting dogs, over/incorrect feeding, diseases such as Feline HIV, poisoning (deliberate or accidental)...with the increasing number of people keeping their cats as home cats, the numbers of free-roamers should hopefully decrease naturally as cultural attitudes change.  A lot of breeders only sell their cats as indoor cats now also, and in all honesty I think more should be done to encourage these responisble breeders and discourage the backyard breeders (the same needs doing for dogs!).  As with dogs, there are far too many cats needing homes and yet idiots still let their cats end up pregnant adding another load of kittens to the list of ones needing homes.  There also needs to be an extensive programme to neuter feral/stray cats so they can't keep going on having kittens time over and over again.

How on earth someone would manage a cat curfew is beyond me, what are they going to have cat wardens patrolling the streets for cats out after the curfew and who is going to pay for them?  What if the owner says the cat simply escaped, hadn't came home that night?  What if they can't even trace the owner because there is no microchip or the details are out-dated?

Perhaps Pets at Home, vets et al should be encouraged to recommend keeping cats indoors - through things like posters, leaflets etc advertising the risks of letting cats roam and the benefits of keeping a cat as an indoor cat.  Lets face it, pet shops could make a killing on people creating indoor cat playgrounds afterall!

I also keep my miss in at night - she comes in when the crew have their last patrol and is not allowed out again until full light especially in winter when I find that some of the small birds take longer to warm up and wake up.  She is a hunter but her main prey are young rats which she does not eat or bunnies that she does eat sometimes - on a couple of occasions she has brought in live creatures that are removed from her and released.  There was the pheasant chick that she put in the larder - that was a daytime hunt.

Caroline in Jersey

I've read this thread with interest. I have "owned" seven cats through my life and all have been trained to come home to the sound of a spoon banged on a tin of food. Worked pretty well. They even let my OH and I have a bit of the bed! None of them seemed to take birds except on one or two occasions. However they did keep my cottage free of mice for which I was grateful as we live on the edge of a wood , near a farm.

The one who lived in the mill where I ran a pottery kept the rats down - didn't eat them just laid them at the door of my office! She spent 99% of her time in the building and seemed very happy. She used to wrap herself round my neck as I bent over the pottery wheel sleeping off her night's exercise!

I have, however lived, in a part of a city where the population of feral cats was enormous and they did catch birds. Where my daughter lives in Manchester, we cannot get birds into the garden because of the large number of cats that are roaming around all day and night.

Responsible ownership is the answer! But how do you manage that?

Jenni

Very interesting comments made by everyone on a bit of a touchy subject.

My own cat only gets out for a wee bit during the day and does not kill anything but there are other cats, one in particular that are out most of the time. The "one in particular" is definitely a hunter as causes such an uproar with all the animals in the garden, wild or otherwise that I'm surprised that he does actually manage to catch anything at all. For what its worth he does eat what he's caught even though he's not a stray and he fights with my cat and the others. He's obviously not neutered either as he's always spraying on everything. I actually feel quite sorry for him as all the other animals hate him where as the birds seem to only make a token gesture of flying away a foot or two if my cat gets too close.

I've only lived here 6 months and my cat only gets out if we're in so we can supervise him in the garden for his own safety as well as everyone elses. I understand that this situation suits me well but is not an option with every other cat owner.

Every pet owner holds the need to be responsible when they decide to share their lives with a pet. Unfortunately there still are some who do not take this seriously and subsequently it is the pet that will suffer as the courts are still very lenient when dishing out punishments.

Why exactly do we need a license to watch the telly but anyone can keep an animal?

I have had cats all my life but only one - a rescue kitten born to a stray queen - preferred to be out for long periods of time. She did kill birds and mice and left them on our doorstep. It is impossible to train a cat like this and to keep her inside would have been cruel. I think we need to tackle the problem of stray cats breeding first. Unfortunately it is in every cats nature to hunt so surely trying to domesticate that is wrong? What would happen if cats did not kill wild birds? Surely there would not be enough food to feed them all? Humans dont have the right to interfere with nature, but we do.

Hi Lolly and Deadpolecat,

You have both made very good points! I so agree with the point about licenses - at our bird sanctuary we have so many BoPs that have been "owned" by  completely the wrong peopleand look at all those dogs being trained to be vicious. It does make my blood boil.

As for cats wearing collars - mine always wore collars all their lives and they lived to ripe old ages 18, 21, 19, 17, and 16! What else can I say!

Jenni

As Lolly says any legislation in respect to domestic animals and certainle pets would be impossible to police,wasn't this one of the reasons the old dog licence was scrapped as ell being underpriced.

I find what Jenni says about BoP owned by unsuitable people quite worrying in the end it is the bird that suffers not the owners,the lifestyle of a lot of people does not fit in with the keeping of any creature that requires regular attention

When my cat was alive he always came home for his supper just before dusk and if he was later than I expected I could persuade him to come home by shaking his dry treats bag. Having lost one cat that stayed out overnight once and was never seen again, I would never want to leave one of my cats out overnight.

Great to see that most cat owners (on this forum anyway) are certainly what you could call responsible owners unfortunately around our area there seems to be a lot of cats out overnight,must be a bit hard for the cats in winter.The article in question is now in the latest copy of Radio Times for anyone wishing to read it.

When all is said and done there is only one answer ..... Wean yourself away from keeping a cat. Buy a teddy instead. I actually feel guilty about starting a wildlife garden because of the killer cats who have decimated the wild young that hatched in my garden. Wrens, blackbirds, robin, chaffinch, young pheasant, shrews, field mice, just name it !

My sister has a chicken coop in the front garden and another aviary-like construction in the back yard. She uses these to allow her cats to spend time outdoors without being run over, after another of her cats was knocked down. It has the added advantage that they cannot catch birds, although they still demolish the odd flying insect. I'm sure the local jackdaws sit and laugh at them :), they left half an egg shell on top of the coop earlier this year.