Killing birds

This is probably not possible, but does anyone know of any way to stop outdoor cats from catching and killing birds (and other critters)?

At least once a day one of the outside cats kills a bird. Yesterday it was a baby robin, this morning the mother (while father screamed from the trees). Both we caught 'in the act' do to the screaming of the wounded bird ( ). The baby was fairly mauled so we let the cat finish it off. The mother we got right after the cat caught it. So we put it in a box in the truck for a while, then it ran over to the neighbours yard under a bush.

I'm really really sick of cleaning up birds bits and organs from all over my yard. We have a lot of trees, and therefor a lot of birds. I also have dogs. That last thing I wasn't is for them to eat some kind of carcass that's been lying out there all night and carrying who knows what kind of disease. I check the yard over before I let them out in the morning, but I still miss some parts sometimes.

One morning they took down a seagull! That was a huge disgusting mess to clean up!

I realize it's natural, but it's getting a bit ridiculous. I feed them as much as they're willing to eat twice a day. I don't like to leave the food out, as it collects flies and ants.

Any kind of suggestions would be GREAT!!

Bells, bells and more bells attached to the collar can help a great deal. The more noise they make as they are stalking the more likely the prey will hear them coming and flee before the cat can get them.

It does not always work but it cuts down a good deal of dead critters.

I've heard of people having succes with the cat bib http://www.catgoods.com/product.html

My sisters boy Sebastian was bringing home Pigeons almost daily, now he's an indoor cat - along with all the rest.

If you cannot keep them inside, there isn't much you can do to stop it. Belling the cat helps, but after awhile, the cat learns how to stalk without making the bell jingle.

One thing that helps is to NOT feed birds in your yard or put out a birdbath.

Your cats are quite the hunters, you should be proud, at least it gives them something to do, I am guessing if they did not have anything to do while at home, they will stray off to greener pastures and then we'll be reading posts about how to find lost kitties.

I don't particularly care for outside cats with collars (my inside cats have them though). I always worry that they'll get caught in something. I have the break-away kind, but even those take some serious reefing to open sometimes. And that cat bib is attached to a collar as well. Plus, these cats are outside 24/7 and the website says the bib is meant for only when your cat it outside. That kind of leads me to think they're not supposed to be on them 24/7. The cats are just strays that I feed (two of them), not actually 'my cats' though they do seem to spend 90% of their lives in my yard. One is very friendly, the other not so much.

I don't encourage the birds to stick around, we just seem to have prime nesting trees. We have a lot of squirrels as well.

I'll have to keep looking around for a solution, if there is one. Thanks for the suggestions!

Get some owl decoys, that may help keep some of the birds from sticking around.