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The only 100% way to guarantee any animals saftey is to have them
in a fully enclosed place. Of course even then, they can always
escape or a preditor can break in. Life is unsure! You just
have to wiegh the risks/benefits by using your knowledge of your
surroundings, Walter's personality, and your ducks' behavior.
Only he knows for sure, but Walter sounds like he is domesticated.
I would think as long as he is being fed, he probably won't go
for a full-size chicken or a duck. He is probably satisfied
with the little, snack size, easier to catch, less dangerous
and less LOUD critters. Your ducks may be big enough to
put up a real battle cry. Do they band together? Cats wouldn't
want to be cornered by a screeching mob and would vacate pretty fast.
Where I live there are all kinds of cats out and about, including
mine. They do go after the small birds, gophers, mice etc... but
never have they gone after any of the other animals. Not even
a semi-feral cat that used to hang around. Most of my neighbors
have chickens (out loose) and ducks (they don't fly either),
rabbits, goats, sheep etc.. We also have owl, fox and skunk around
our area. They are far more a threat than any neighborhood cat.
In fact a couple of my human neighbors are more of a threat than
a cat. :^) Only 1 animal incident has been reported in the 5
years I've lived here: one baby chick (only a few days old)
disappeared. We were never sure, but this was around the time
we saw a fox nearby. What kind of wild life is around your house?
I was worried that my own 4 cats might go after something, but
they just watch in curiousity. They have respect for the chickens
and stay a good distance away from them, and they pretty much
accept the ducks as just another neighbor. They will watch
the ducks waddle by, but they don't go into attack or stalk
mode. We also have a wild peacock who shares his territory with us,
my neighbors and all our animals. At least once a day, he sits on
my deck (or in my flowers - sigh) with my 4 cats all around him.
They just don't seem him as a 'birdie'. I love to watch them
together. When our youngest kitty was introduced to "Bob" she ran
up to him really fast (exciting new adventures and all) and he just
took a couple steps back, slowly spread his feathers and russled
them at her. That was all the warning she needed. "Just testing"!
Maybe Walter's strolls by, are his test and he is trying to find
out just what these quacky critters moving in his territory are.
Good luck,
Becky
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| I have two cats of my own, one is an adult cat of 14months and one is
an eight week old kitten. Over here in the Uk it is the norm for Cats
to go outside regulary by use of a catflap in the door.
I never had problems with my Cat catching birds and mice but since I
have had the kitten (which is currently too young to go out ie he
hasn't had his jabs) he has woken me up two nights now with 'presents'
for the kitten. A live mouse for the kitten to play with and a live
bird. Fortunately after much chasing round the house and shutting
cats/kittens in various rooms and I managed to get both victims and let
them free in the garden.
The point I guess is that if a cat is well fed, it is unlikely that he
will try to catch prey for food but believes they are actually doing a
nice thing by bringing its owner a present. Unfortunately most of us
could do without this kind of present.
A trick I had for a previous cat which I will now be adopting for my
Cat George will be to buy a very large bell to go on its collar thus
alarming any prey prior to the 'pounce'. Maybe you could suggest that
you neighbour does the same thing. I did find that it worked for my
previous cat for a good few months. Cats are very clever and he did
manage to develop his movements to ensure that the bell did not sound.
But at least if it worked for a while your ducks would have had a
chance to grow and hopefully not be quite so attractive to Walter.
Julie
George & Harry
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| Yes, the old bell on the collar trick.
My KC (KittyCat) was all too please with herself after bringing
in a bird or a shrew. I bought the bell, attached it to the
flea collar buckle and thought I had saved some lives. HA!
Within the week she cruizes past me `on the hunt' as I sat inthe
back yard. No bell ringing! I thought she ditched it. She just
learned to run with it on.
I took it off a couple days later after she discovered...
`Look Dad... this sounds like a phone when I scratch..
Isn't it great it is 3am and when I do this on your pillow you
wake up to play with me'
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| Well so far we haven't seen Walter interacting with the ducks, but
we have left them out all day while we've gone on errands and they
haven't come to harm. Hopefully the ducks are not "pounce-able" and
too big - the six do band together and while they don't have nice
sharp beaks like the chickens, they do have some talons on their webbed
feet. And they do stick together. Actually I'm more afraid of a
roaming dog than I would be of Walter, if I didn't know he actually
catches and eats birds.
We do keep the water hose nearby in case ;^) ...
- Andrea
P.S. We put them ducks in at night; there isn't much wildlife, but
still I feel more secure having them indoors and safe at night.
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