Well, I thought I saw a cat the night the chickens were attacked. It jumped like a cat, it was black and sleek, had a long, thin tail and nails that scratched the front of the coop upon its return.  I think I may have talked myself out of it being a cat because we’ve never had any problems with cats and the chickens.  Ever.

I got a trap on loan from a guy I work with and figured we could try to catch whatever it was.

Setting up the trap

First we had to set the trap. On our first attempt we actually caught…Kitty! So we had to bring him inside for the night. Then, about 2:30am, I heard the SNAP of the trap. I ran out to see what we caught. I couldn’t tell right away, but with the mewing I knew it was a cat. I left him out there till the sun rose and when I looked in, it was Atchpay!  Atchpay completely tweaked out, he looks a bit psycho now…

Guess who? Atchpay

This stray that frequents our backyard fits the description of the perpetrator and got snagged in the trap about the same time.  So we decided to relocate him just in case.  He is pretty feral and definitely wasn’t comfortable being that close to me.   We drove about 10 miles north of town.  Cassie wanted to go further, but I felt we had gone far enough.  We will see.

Atchpay’s New Home -A farm field out of town about 10 miles

For those of you that aren’t familiar with how a live trap works, Schnoodle will demonstrate the live trap. We put cheese in there all the way to the back, when she steps on the lever it shuts behind her.