Incoming cat...advice needed

[1ststatestereo]

I love my birds. I have 3 of them (TAG, Green Aracari, Brown-headed). But, I love cats. I've wanted one for twenty years. I will have a 3 month old cat living with me in 6 weeks.

 

I plan to keep the cat in my bedroom (its large) when I am not home (the birds are in the living room).

 

I know I need to keep an eye on everything while the cat is out. I'm going to keep the birds inside their cages when the cat is out.

 

I'm not worried about the cat actually killing the birds, more the stress the cat will cause them.

 

My TAG grew up in a house with a cat before I adopted her. I figure she'll be okay.

 

Any advice is welcomed.

Edited January 23, 2014 by 1ststatestereo

[Brat Birds]

Sorry. I was a dog person, never had cats. Some people have good luck with the bird and cat commination, even to having them out together. I think you should take the time to get to know how they react to each other before actually letting them out together. Use common sense and watch with an eagle's eye! LOL

[Mistyparrot]

I had a cat, Jezebel, when I adopted Misty. She was a little afraid of him but they were both happy to share my lap. However I would never leave them in a room together without me. Jezebel was about twelve by then. She was capable of catching small animals but I think most cats are cowards at heart and I think Jezebel was a little in awe of Misty as he was much bigger than Jezebels usual victims and much feistier than the small birds that she would bring home. I think the fact that Misty would call her by name lent him some respect as well.

In the end never trust a cat and a parrot alone together. One scratch or bite from a cat can cause a deadly infection.

 

Steve n Misty

Edited January 23, 2014 by Mistyparrot

[Timbersmom]

I have four cats. In my case, Timber is much more interested in the cats than they are in him. My cats are totally indoor cats, and have never been outside. They have very little "predator" instinct. That said and as the others pointed out, I never, ever leave them out together unless I'm right there and watching.

[Luvparrots]

No cats here but I have babysit my grandson's cat when he has been out of town. My parrots do not land on the floor or go anywhere near the floor but my TAG would stalk my grandson's cat, Issac, and follow him around. Issac would spend the weekend under my couch afraid of my parrots. I would never leave them alone with each other.

 

The cat you are getting is already an adult so if I were you, I would be very careful.

[SRSeedBurners]

We have a cat, de-clawed front and back - came to us that way. We still will not leave them together unattended. Greycie and Toby take priority as the cat has the run of the rest of the house as he pleases.

[Mistyparrot]

We have a cat, de-clawed front and back - came to us that way. We still will not leave them together unattended. Greycie and Toby take priority as the cat has the run of the rest of the house as he pleases.

 

What kind of person de claws a cat? Was he a rescue?

 

Steve n Misty

[judygram]

What kind of person de claws a cat? Was he a rescue?

 

Usually they only take out the front claws when declawing a cat so I have never heard of them doing both front and back, if you had hardwood floors he would be sliding around everywhere I guess.

[Greywings]

We live with birds, cats & dogs the dogs show more interest in the birds than our cats do. Your visiting feline is still kittenish at 3 months so may be more playful and adventurous, cats are smart and can lean what is not allowed so supervise and correct when needed. Here is a quick view of the relaxed bird & cat, dog showing an observational interest. http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa264/Firefly_mom/P1000356.jpg

[Timbersmom]

What a neat pic!

[SRSeedBurners]

What kind of person de claws a cat? Was he a rescue?

 

Steve n Misty

 

I think it's somewhat common over here to declaw cats, I'm guessing to protect furniture?!? Like Judygram says, usually it's only the front. Our cat came to us declawed by the previous owners - front and back. He was living in a little shed while his hoomans were hoping to move him into their house when they finished building it. The house never got started so he ended up living in that shed for four years before we came along. The wife showed the cat to my wife and next thing I know, we have a cat in the back seat of the truck headed to the Sterling-Ranch zoo. He seems to function just fine without his steak knives including running across our new hardwood floors. He's been a house cat the whole 10+ years we've had him. His name is BuckyKatt. Greycie has bitten the base of his tail twice in swift attacks that I couldn't get to in time. She doesn't like him sitting on the back of my chair, that's her spot.

 

Next time I get a cat, I want a Ragamuffin, which is a cross between a Persian and a Ragdoll. Known as the teddy bears of the cat world, they are known to be very sweet and furry. I like the furry.

 

Picture time - my selfish ratbag BuckyKatt!

 

[Timbersmom]

Pretty cat! Somewhere in my profile pics I have my brood. Timber sees them as part of the flock, as long as they "do what he says." When one of them makes a distressed meow, Timber gets upset and starts his "alert beep."

[Talon]

I have 5 birds, 3 fully flighted, 3 cats. One cat is totally blind, one is an indoor/outdoor and has had a previous life outdoors before we rescued her. The other indoor cat has no idea it's supposed to kill birds..

 

 

My cats never bother my birds, they are more afraid of them than the birds are of the cats. MY birds will go right over to them when they are laying on the couch and bite them. My cats will tolerate my amazon chewing on her tail or biting her repeatedly before she has had enough and will run away. I NEVER leave them unattended, however, being flighted they will fly off if there was ever a reason to. My blind cat doesn't even know what they are a he has never seen them. I do watch a lot and shoo my birds away cause they are trouble makers at times when it comes to my cats and dogs.

As for when they are in their cages, my cats show no interest.

[shanlung]

Beautiful picture of birdie with beasties & Grey wings!

 

 

I cannot believe that safety of birdies can ever rely on eternal vigilance like what some others said.

 

I understand my own inadequacies much better than anyone else.

And know for sure eternal vigilance on my part is a pipe dream.

 

I had to foster friendship between beasties and birdies to paper up the gaps in my vigilance.

 

And records showed that I was so glad I did that.

 

That started when Ivan, my certified killer cat in Hong Kong, protected a baby bat, and which made me decided kitties do understand what is family.

Best described here.

Dubai trip //Ivan & Batty // Roundabout come.

http://shanlung.livejournal.com/105465.html

 

Extract from above

 

 

 

Above is Ivan on my shoulder. That was during our return to Singapore in Oct 2004 after leaving Tinkerbell and Taiwan and fetching Ivan back from my mom in law. I thought he forgotten me but his leap up to my shoulder to curl himself around my neck showed me how much he love to have me back. That was the first time he did that to me.

 

Ivan was with us in Hongkong. He was kind of psychic. I reported that in

http://shanlung.com/ivan1.html

 

Ivan was also a killer cat. At least once a month, he would leave his 'gifts' to me. I had seen him chittering and chirpping to attract birds and then leaping up 2 meters to pluck the bird from the air.

 

One morning, we woke up to hear a strange sound. We then traced that sound to a tiny baby bat which could not fly. We were sure that Ivan must have taken the mother bat. I felt sorry enough to rush out to buy a bird cage so the baby bat be kept safe until it could fly again.

 

I fed it with bananas.

 

One morning I woke up to see that the cage door was opened, without Batty inside. I thought that was the end, especially in the apartment with Ivan the killer cat and two feisty kittens that my wife adopted a few weeks ago.

 

Then I heard the squeaks and saw Batty hanging upside down from the edge of a suitcase. Batty was in between Ivan front paws. Ivan was positioning his body so the 2 kitties could not get to Batty to 'play'. I could hardly believed my eyes as now and then, Ivan turned and spit at the two kitties keeping them away. Ivan saw me playing enough with Batty to decide that Batty was family. And went on to protect her.

 

 

Batty was placed back into the cage again. Her flights at the beginning was weak and erratic. Batty seemed to like me and hang about me when I did my thing. Her flight became more controlled and powerful.

In a few weeks time, Batty flew off my balcony. Never to return.

 

It struck me that Ivan knew who was family even if he was a killer.

 

That was the incident that prompted me to decide if Tinkerbell could live together with Halftail the Bimbo and Zorro the ferret in Taiwan.

 

And later decided that Dommie and Katie be introduced slowly to Riamfada.

 

In the last report of Ivan & Batty, I wrote how by accident, Dommie was locked into Riamfada's room with Riamfada. Since Riam would be placed back into her room when it was dark so she could sleep, I never switched on the light in her room. I relied on the lights in the adjacent room to shine into her room for me to see.

 

I checked all the time for kitty in her room.

 

That particular evening, I checked for kitty. But the lights in the adjacent room was not on. I was in hurry, and check not made consientiously. I placed Riam on the bar stand, said goodnight, and closed the door and went back to the living room.

 

Later on, my wife heard meowing, but did not tell me that as she thought it was Riamfada meowing away. I was a bit annoyed at my wife for not paying heed to dinner appointments that she set and we had to rush off with me chewing her head off. If she told me she heard meows, I would have told her that Riamfada was sleeping and would not have meowed.

 

So it was when we returned from dinner to hear meowing from Riamfada's room to my great shock. I opened her door fearing the worse as you all know Riamfada was never locked in her cage (other than once when she did a flying lunge at my wife ) to have Dommie rushing out.

 

Riamfada was not touched at all in that 3 hours being locked in together with Dommie. Riam was spooky the next morning, flying immediately out of her room the next morning when I opened the door. I then saw that Dommie had pulled off that cloth cover placed on that orange cat carrier in Riam's room last night. You all knew how Riam hated that orange carrier. I used the carrier to protect the speakers I left in her room piping in music for her.

 

 

No single incident should have happened. But Murphy arranged for a host of incidents. The fight with my wife, not checking carefully that night , etc etc.

 

I was glad I invested the time and efforts to get Riam and kitties to know and accept each other instead of relying on vigilance alone. It is a fact you cannot remain vigilant all the time day after day, month after month, year after year.

 

A few days ago, Riamfada flew into the kitchen. On the counter next to Dommie. That would have made me paranoid enough to separate them earlier on. But after Dommie was locked in Riam's room for 3 hours, I decided I need not be that paranoid of Dom and Riam anymore. If Dom wanted to kill Riam, he would have done so then (I still a bit paranoid of Katie though as she is flacky)

 

 

And even when I thought I failed as with Sieben and Jackie in trying to foister friendship between them, I actually succeeded. Their snaring and insulting and screaming at each other separated by wire meshing was a huge joke at my expense. With that kind of display, I thought only my vigilance kept either one alive.

 

My vigilance was an illusion.

 

Goodby to Jackie

http://shanlung.livejournal.com/139256.html

 

Extract from above

 

My last entry was on 3rd March 2012, a couple of days before I flew to Dhaka.

It was not long before I realised my stay there would be short.

I was there for about a month and came back to Singapore.

 

My wife looked Jackie and the beasties.

 

I had hoped Jackie would bond better with my wife but that did not happened.

 

As expected, I was ignored by beasties and birdie the first day I was back. Then it was like before. Except Jackie got a lot more bolder with Sieben. From time to time, Sieben would make a rush to the wire screen when Jackie was on the armchair. To my surprise, Jackie flew to the screen to scream and scold Sieben.

 

My hope for ever loving friendship between the 2 of them got dimmer and dimmer. I tried to foster friendship, in between the rushing of Sieben passed my intervening hands.

 

Even Ivan could not resist batting at Jackie especially as Jackie took to landing on the arm chair that Ivan slept in. How could I tell Jackie that he should not be too cheeky with Ivan. I had to grit my teeth and let Jackie learned.

 

I then gave up all hope that they could be friends. It seemed that only my presence and my vigilance allowed Jackie to remain alive should the 2 kitties be about.

 

Then about a month ago, my laptop complained and complained after I did an installation of Microsoft that I was told was absolutely important to stop virus and shit from hitting my laptop. It got to the point I had to restore the Operating System to the point before I did those installation. So in between referring between Sieben and Jacki in the living room, I came to the PC room to see if I got back my laptop and access to the internet.

 

At about 4pm, I rejoiced to find I got back the Internet. I loaded up my chess interface and found it worked again. I was so happy as for 3-4 days, I did not play chess.

 

I played with a vengence. Games after games after games. Ivan came to my ankle to complain he was hungry. I kicked him in the head especially his clawing me at my ankle made me lost a game. Sieben came and did a mock fight with Ivan near my ankles with claws flashing away. The threat of claws cutting me to the marrow was real. I had to rush to the kitchen to pour them kibbles all loaded with etoxyquin and BHA/BHT. I had no time to fix their mash.

 

In time, I got hungry. So I fixed dinner for myself. Took my dinner to the living room to eat at about 8 pm.

 

It took me 5 minutes to realised the sliding door to Jackie was left wide opened. No Jackie was flying about. I quickly look about the living room to see if blood was all over. Then I went into the flight room and saw no feathers and blood on the floor. Then I looked into the corner of the cage. And saw Jackie sleeping there.

 

That for 4 hours, and even when the kitties were hungry, Jackie was left alone.

All the earlier attempts by Sieben to catch Jackie was to bamboozled me because I was watching out for that.

 

I slide the door shut. I was glad that I tried to make Sieben accept Jackie as friends. The fierce fights those two did , the insults those two gave each other had not resulted into blood death and gore when my vigilance proved to be less than eternal.

 

And it happened a couple more times since then.

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

Interesting about the cats! I have none... I always think they will eat birds in a heartbeat! Unfortunately, both my kids are severely allergic to cats, so can never have one. I really LIKE cats... Nancy

[rickman]

our two get to explore each other with us "bird-dogging" all their interactions and space !

[Grumpy]

A picture is worth thousand words ...

Btw, I have to be more aware of what the bird could do to my cats, since I saw him, not once, driving them away from his favourite spots ...

You have probably noticed that I have some other smaller, exotic birds (canaries) and I always leave some lights on during night as a measure of precaution.

When my bird arrived, he was wary of the cats at first, but that lasted just for a day or two ... now he's the boss

The cats were interested in him when arrived, but the intrest vanished the moment they heard him squeak so loud that they immediately looked for some refuge

[Timbersmom]

Nice pics Grumpy For the most part, my cats and my TAG seem to studiously ignore each other. They get curious about food and toys (like "what have you got there"). That goes both ways. If a cat is eating Timber wants to see what he has and and it goes both ways. Same with toys. No aggression to date, thank God!