Does anyone have any experience introducing birds to pet cats?
I'd really like a finch or a budgie but one of my cats is very young, healthy and active. He'll chase a fly around all day and we've come home to dead mice before (though not eaten).
Obviously I don't want to bring a bird home just to have it killed, so I was wondering if anyone has experience dissuading predatory behavior or introducing an animal so that the cat doesn't see it as something to kill.
If you value the bird, you need to keep them permanently separated- if the cat is in the room, it is supervised and the bird is in its cage out of sight and reach, and the cat is removed from the room if it gets too close. If the bird is out of its cage or you are not around to supervise, the cat is locked out of the room. You can definitely keep both in the same household, but cats are never 100% reliable around small prey animals and they can fatally injure a bird even through bars.
>>2150365
I suppose that's the kicker, then. I live in a smallish one bedroom that pretty much runs bedroom->kitchen->living room with a small side office and a bathroom, so the options for keeping them apart when not at home is to either close off a third of the roaming space to the animals or stick the bird in a windowless little office for eight hours a day. It seems cruel to me to deprive the thing of natural light and possibly a view of the outside/a larger space.
>>2150383
Yeah, don't get a bird.
>>2150405
I'll just have to wait until we get a bigger place, I guess.
