On The Hunt

Many long term Lime Kettles readers will recall that we bought a kitten some months ago after the passing of our old moggy Tonya...

A cute little Russian Blue Cross kitten we named "Charlie" entered our home and was incredibly playful.  Over time Charlie has taken to us well and is very cuddly and spends alot of time with the girls and in fact generally sleeps in Kate's bed for the first few hours of every night.

All great except one thing... Charlie is growing and is I guess going through adolescence and in male cats that means one thing - killing.

Charlie whilst retaining the cuddly demeanour around the house is a killing machine in the back yard... since Friday he has attacked 2 birds and a frog and on each occasion has brought his prey to the back door generally whilst it was still alive.  I had to put a sparrow / finch type bird out of its misery on Friday and I removed a dead frog on Sunday and yesterday he attacked a bird and had it in his mouth until Niki was able to prise its jaws and the bird flew away (which is a good sign I guess).

I am ambivalent to all this in the sense that Cats Kill Birds... its Mother Nature... and that as long as Charlie stays in the backyard (which he does) then the birds will stay off the grass and our trees once they know he's about... and they do because when he's patrolling the backyard you can hear the birds squawking at him from up high.

But Charlie has now realised that the feathery things he chases outside also includes our Cockatiel "Jimmy" amongst their number.  Just yesterday we have twice caught Charlie standing on his hind legs "rocking" Jimmy's cage.  We locked Jimmy in our bedroom and when Niki went in the bedroom, within seconds Charlie was on the bed just inches from Jimmy's cage.

Jimmy at this stage is rather blasé about Charlie, but that will change should Jimmy be knocked over because Jimmy's cage is actually broken in that the top piece will come off if it hits the floor... and Jimmy doesn't fly either (he has wings, but chooses to walk - thats another story) so if the cage gets knocked over, Jimmy will be lunch.

So now we are keeping them separate, but what can we do?  Seems as though now we have to isolate one of them everytime we go out and even when we're home, we have had Charlie making beelines to the cage every chance we get... and Niki doesnt want him outside as she's worried about the local wildlife.  Do cats grow out of this??