Not always.
Shooting pet animals is frowned on out here by residents-those are not considered desirable neighbors in any sense-most of the people who do that are townie transplants wanting to protect every sparrow and dove like it is an endangered species because they don’t know any better. I don’t associate with people who poison, shoot, drown or otherwise kill pet animals, feral or not-I don’t find them to be caring people-my business, my choice.
We nearly all keep our cats-and most dogs-indoors unless accompanied to keep them from being eaten by a predator.
The privately funded no-kill shelter guys will trap any intact feral cat and neuter/spay it for free. They can live out their lives killing rodents and being fed by people who have livestock, keep feed in their barns and choose natural pest control rather than poison which can seep into groundwater and gardens.
Most on this road have chickens and sell/trade eggs and chickens-but these are small cottage businesses-there are probably not 80 baby chicks on the whole road at one time. People have well fenced-at least 6ft game fence-areas for their chickens, and take them into a secure henhouse/pen at night-I’ve never heard of a cat raiding chickens here, and I’ve lived in the area for over 10 years...
The chicken predators here are coyotes, the rare loose dog, and varmints like skunks. But there are also plenty of feral hogs, coyotes and a few mountain lions around-a loose pet animal, feral or not will not last the week around here unprotected...