I got mine as a 4-6 month old stray. The vet the was hoping to adopt her out had kept her as long as he was willing without putting her down, so I took her. I went into it with the attitude that this will be made to work because the alternative is the likely death of a very nice cat. For the first few years, I only allowed her in the house when I was there. Otherwise, she was on my enclosed porch or in the basement depending on the weather. She spent the first 2 weeks wet from my spray bottle. If she so much as looked at a bird and flashed those green predatory eyes, she got sprayed. Probably not very nice, but two weeks of being wet is better than a permanent death. She had very clearly hunted birds before and it took some doing to get her past the stage of wanting to reach out and touch them. I would never trust her loose in the house with flitty little birds like parrotlets or budgies around. However, now that she's about 10 years old, she's a lot more interested in napping. If I have little birds out, then she has to go somewhere else. If my big birds are out, then I just make sure I'm in the same room and they aren't in a position to touch each other unless I'm literally right there. More often than not, I have a cat napping on the back of my chair and a bird sitting in my lap with no problems. You just have to be vigilant which is hard for some people. If you have kids or other people in the house that would have a hard time following house rules that include always locking the cat away every time you leave the house, and always without ever an exception putting bird in cage before leaving the room, then you might not want to get a cat. Some cats are easier to have around birds than vermin hunting dog breeds.