Trying to convince the cats that we aren’t brooding chickens in the garage

KarenKat

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So about 8 weeks ago we bought some Buff Orpington chicks and they’ve been in the garage since. The cats are beginning to get wise even though we lie and tell them nothing is going on. I’d love to see their reaction, but I’m not prepared for the bloodbath lol.

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There are no chickens!

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fionasmom

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That is too funny. Years ago a friend who lived alone had a very serious car accident. She was hospitalized for a long time and after about a day I remembered that she had Siberian hamsters for pets. I managed to get into her house and bring them to my home until something could be figured out. I knew absolutely nothing about any pet aside from a dog or cat, but they survived and eventually went to a girl who had them for pets as well and knew a lot about them.

I still have the picture someplace of all of my cats, including the ones who hated each other, standing shoulder to shoulder looking up at the cage when I brought them into the house and set them on the counter. Evidently, the hamsters had to live in a bathroom for safety but the cats all camped out at the door until they left.
 
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KarenKat

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That’s funny! This is good training for our two cats because we put a deposit down on a puppy three days before I found out that I was pregnant. So they have a lot of changes coming!

We were actually shocked that they weren’t interested right away but for weeks they suspected nothing. The chickens are much louder now and flap around a lot and the kitties have gotten wise.
 

MoonstoneWolf

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One of my neighbors across the street from me has a chicken house. The cats go there frequently but have not once tried to kill the chickens. Not sure if that's because I feed them too much over here or not. And these cats are feral. These cats just lay around while the chickens are running loose.
 

KittyJ

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Once the chicks grow up, the cats won't mess with them. I'm more concerned about our chickens hurting my cats. I'm pretty sure that they'd kill chicks. Once the chicks are older, you won't have to worry about the cats knowing about them or seeing them.
 
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KarenKat

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Yeah, older chickens are way too big for cats to mess with for sure. And they are omnivores and can be quite dangerous themselves. Our chicks are 8 weeks, so at this point they aren’t prey anymore (at least for domestic cats). We are hoping to evict them from the garage in the next week or so as well.
 
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KarenKat

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Well, Olive dashed into the garage the other day and saw the chickens firsthand. She is not a fan lol. Even with the fact that she’s never really been in the garage before and was nervous in a new territory, the chickens squawked at her and she couldn’t leave fast enough.

Which is no longer a concern as we evicted them from the garage and they are now in their coop! So excited!
 

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That's great that she didn't bother them! How big are the chickens now? I am going to get bantams and I hope that they'll be big enough so that the cats won't bother them.
 
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KarenKat

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They are pretty big, definitely taller than the cat. Definitely up to our knees. Having trouble uploading photos but I’ll try to post a photo for scale
 

KittyJ

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Oh, wow! That is a big chicken! The chickens I am going to get will be about 2-4 pounds.
 
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KarenKat

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Yeah, they are pretty big and only 10.5 weeks. I think they should get up to 8-10 lbs at full size. We had to carry fifteen of them about 300 feet to the coop and the biggest rooster gave my husband some problems! He squirmed a little bit and was the biggest and heaviest of the bunch!
 
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KarenKat

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This is all 15 chickens. Eventually we will want to pare it down to more like 10 or so. We have 5 roosters and will have a sort of hunger games competition where we pick the one that the hens like, is a good protector and isn’t too mean to us. He will get all the ladies lol.
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KittyJ

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Wow! Our layers are about that size but they are fully grown. Are they Red Stars?

That's a nice coop! Yeah, y'all are gonna have to get rid of those roosters. Yes, definitely want to keep one that the hens like. My grandparents have a rooster that would peck the hound of the hens so they had to move him to another pen.
 
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KarenKat

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They are Buff Orpingtons - we wanted a breed that would be good for egg laying and also work for meat as well. We were told to expect some loss early on but they all made it through lol. Note sure if 15 chicks at once was the best intro to chickens
 

KittyJ

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Very cool! I love the buff color! We have Red Stars but those would be nice so when they get too old we could eat them! LOL. I'm totally kidding. I would not want to do that.

Yeah, may have wanted to start with a smaller number... But if some didn't make it, you'd still have enough.
 
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KarenKat

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That’s why we got more, we were thinking around 10-12 and everyone said to expect 20% loss of the chicks. In the end they all made it so now we have extra lol. It’s a bit more work but they seem to be thriving
 

KittyJ

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Oh, okay. That's so sad. Is that 20% loss happen during shipping? That's so great that they all made it!
 
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KarenKat

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Mostly they seem to do good in shipping, from what I understand. I think it’s a combinations of first time mistakes and the facts that chick mortality can be high even if you do everything right. Chicks can fail to thrive for unknown reasons, which is likely why chickens lay so many eggs. I think it’s just a nature thing.
 
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