Life is hard...so am I, at least I try to!

[grunau_baby]

Hi,

I guess some will remember I got a new kitty a few month ago, to help my other cat to get over the loss of her sister-cat. Well the new cat is just fine, in fact she is the first completely normal cat I ever had. Simply normal as cats should be... Errm, well, exactly THIS IS the the problem:

She goes out and hunts. She brought us a dead mouse: well great, nice for her and the poor animal was dead allready when it was dragged into the house. But since yesterday kitty tries to impress us with birds. Nothing wrong with that either, it´s her instinct allright. BUT she just does not kill them! So these poor creatures are left to us. Believe me, killing a tiny wounded deranged bird-baby (you can see it wants to live) IS HELL for a convinced (almost) vegetarian! Last night the bird was too big, so the wife wasn´t able to finish it off, she had to take it to the vet and left it to him.

If it goes on like this it´s one kill or vet-visit a day for now on...great - kitty completely sucks at the moment!:banghead:

Regards
Alex

[Lionheart]

LOLOLOL....

Sorry Alex.. You must have aquired quite a hunter. Goodness. Thats a good kill ratio for a house cat!

[grunau_baby]

Thats a good kill ratio for a house cat!This is the point worrying me the most... Cause actually I don´t mind the cat´s KILL ratio! I have a real problem with being forced to get my own kill ratio out off it all, cause kitty only hunts has fun and leaves the dirty part to us...:isadizzy:

[djscoo]

Have you tried a bell collar? We use one on my cat.

[tigisfat]

Many have this problem:

http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt32/walkeramerican/forum%20commentary%20pictures/takemaus.png

[limjack]

Have you tried a bell collar? We use one on my cat.

That is a great idea, I would of never thought of it and worth a try. My kitty only attacked me when I was in the garden. Didn't care about the birds or the rats, just wanted to hunt me down whenever I would go outside.

Jim

[TARPSBird]

Cats being cats! :d
I remember my neighbor's cat in the Philippines, she used to drag rats up in the driveway for public display. Nasty sewer rats, almost as big as she was. Impressive display of hunting skills but ugly damn rodents.

[safn1949]

They are gifts the cat is giving you.At one time I had as many as 25 cats (lived way out in the country) and got this every so often.The bell collar works very nicely for this as it is hard to sneak on something when you are ringalinging along.:d

[cheezyflier]

my older sister had a huge black cat. he strted out with mice, then graduated to rats and baby rabbitts, birds and stuff. one day i'm about to leave for work when i hear the cat outside whining to come in. i let him in, and notice that he's a little chewed up. when i left i found a 4 ft snake dying on the front porch. :icon_lol:
the hunting kinda tapered off after that

[OBIO]

When I was a kid, my sisters had cats. One day, my older sister's cat caught a chipmunk. The little critter was squealing and screaming. So, my sister...in another public display of stupidity...went to rescue the chipmunk from the cat.

First off....no self-respecting outdoor cat is going to willingly give up a tasty mouthful of rodent steak. When my sister attempted to take the chipmunk away from the cat, the cat tore into her with all of its 12,459 claws. That cat tore her UP!

Secondly...once a chipmunk has been extracted from the mouth of a cat, it is not going to bow to the human who saved it and give thanks. It is going to continue to fight for its very life. That chipmunk latched onto my sister's finger and sunk it's acorn-shredding teeth right down to the bone.

Thirdly...the mother of the wounded stupid sister gets very upset when the younger brother of the stupid sister finds the degree to which the stupid sister got guffed up a source of amusement. Yes, I sat on the porch and laughed my head off. And I got in trouble for doing so.

So to sum it all up:

The cat went hungry because it did not get to eat the chipmunk.

The chipmunk died anyhow due to blood loss and shock.

The stupid sister got stitched.

The laughing brother got switched.

Yes...it would have been better for all involved if nature would have been allowed to run its course without human intervention.

OBIO

[Chacha]

When I was a kid, my sisters had cats. One day, my older sister's cat caught a chipmunk. The little critter was squealing and screaming. So, my sister...in another public display of stupidity...went to rescue the chipmunk from the cat.

First off....no self-respecting outdoor cat is going to willingly give up a tasty mouthful of rodent steak. When my sister attempted to take the chipmunk away from the cat, the cat tore into her with all of its 12,459 claws. That cat tore her UP!

Secondly...once a chipmunk has been extracted from the mouth of a cat, it is not going to bow to the human who saved it and give thanks. It is going to continue to fight for its very life. That chipmunk latched onto my sister's finger and sunk it's acorn-shredding teeth right down to the bone.

Thirdly...the mother of the wounded stupid sister gets very upset when the younger brother of the stupid sister finds the degree to which the stupid sister got guffed up a source of amusement. Yes, I sat on the porch and laughed my head off. And I got in trouble for doing so.

So to sum it all up:

The cat went hungry because it did not get to eat the chipmunk.

The chipmunk died anyhow due to blood loss and shock.

The stupid sister got stitched.

The laughing brother got switched.

Yes...it would have been better for all involved if nature would have been allowed to run its course without human intervention.

OBIO



That was a good laugh OBIO..

I give you an A++!

[mariereid]

We were just "blessed" with yet another "stray" kitten. Now we have 8 of the buggers. The new fella, Bob, ( we cannot think of any more good cat names ) is not allowed out yet, but all our cats are outdoor cats. We live away from all traffic on a big natural property. Anyway, only 2 of them are hunters. Charlie, a female, is a bird lover. She only seems to get them in the fall. Van Gough is a master hunter. He only has 1 eye but he does not let a day go by without bringing a prize home. He has brought home mice, voles, moles, rabbits, squirrels, etc. He's really into snakes this year, 3 in the last 2 days. Nothing like a snake slithering over your foot first thing in the morning. That will wake ya up!

[Cazzie]

Cats kill birds.

Cats kill rodents.

Cats kill fish.

And some will even kill reptiles.

It is their nature, they do it well. "When" they do it! To the cat, he/she is doing work for you and you are supposed to reward him/her for bringing you dead rodents and birds. It is a shame they have to kill songbirds, if they'd only knock off starlings, cowbirds, and the like, it would be more tolerable.

All too often, they do nothing, especially the males! But a good killer cat is worth his/her weight in gold in the country. Next best thing is a snake and I think we'll all agree the cat is the better pet.

Caz

[djscoo]

Next best thing is a snake and I think we'll all agree the cat is the better pet.

Caz

We had a three and a half foot long bright orange cornsnake get in our garage for a while. It kept scaring my mom and my cat half to death. I would just throw it out to the back of the yard, but it kept coming back into the garage. After the third time my mom said she couldn't take it any more and I had to kill it or take it far away, so I put it in a grocery bag and drove it to a retention pond and let it go. Snakes don't really bother me, it's spiders I absolutely can't stand.

[Bone]

Many have this problem:

http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt32/walkeramerican/forum%20commentary%20pictures/takemaus.png

LOL. Where do you come up with all of these pics...they kill me.

[cheezyflier]

obio, every now and again, you hit a home run :applause:

[tigisfat]

obio, every now and again, you hit a home run :applause:


Agreed, whole heartedly.


I would offer this though. Your cat's awesome skills are a blessing. Two years ago, I was trying to downsize the menagerie living with me. I think between my girlfriend and I, we had like 20 animals. All kinds of livestock for meat, eggs and entertainment, plus a host of adopted stray cats and dogs. Over the years, we let natural attrition take care of things. We just didn't acquire any more.

Mind you, this house was out in the West Texas country. Our first spring came with no cat, and within a week of the first rains we noticed we had a mouse problem. No big deal, I said. "This weekend I'll go down to wally world and get some traps". By the time the weekend came, we had several different mice actually end up in bed with us, and at any given moment you could hear mice running around. I bought a metric #$%^TON of traps. In another week, it was clear that the mice were simply going to fill up every trap within a day and still multiply faster than we could do anything about them.

It's not until you don't have a cat around that you realize how great they are. I quite literally BORROWED a friend's cat, but it was lazy and hung out all day. I think it was scared of mice. What did I do? Some of you might remember that I keep cats around:

http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt32/walkeramerican/Cats/IMG_0039.jpgThis is one of my babies. When you keep a leopard around, you don't worry about mouse guts or parts. You never so much as see mice, and that's a great thing. It may sound heartless, but at one point I had to remove all of my dishes from my kitchen and take them to a friend's veterinary practice to autoclave them just before bagging them (not to be used for months.)

When your cat brings you offerings, show your love back by feeding it something nice. Believe it or not, my love for animals has desensitized me a little bit. You gotta suck up your fear of the gross and brutal when it's time to send cows to slaughter, castrate sheep or even spend hours pulling porcupine quills from your stubborn dog.

[grunau_baby]

Well, nothing wrong with a hunting cat, and I sure don´t want to lose it again! But our hunter is very good at catching (or rather robbing nests as it seems), but she is completely unable to finally kill the prey. She plays around with it until she loses interest and we have to save the poor baby-birds from any more suffering.

Yesterday, third day in a row, the wife had to kill another bird. She claims she get´s some murder-routine by now. Mind you, she normaly is a person who starts crying when watching cruel animal footages on discovery channel:rolleyes: Conclusion: if we are lucky it will only last a few days before all birds are "gone" from the area!

The idea with the bell-colar is rather bad, cause cat´s have very sensitive ears and the constant ringing when moving is not too good for the cat´s wellbeing. So she just might have to stay inside for some time, like she had to when we first got her. Just as long to make sure the little birds are big enough. She isn´t able to catch grown ups for sure.

At the moment we are not in need of watching any horror movies any more, it´s all here clubbing baby-animals on a daily basis:isadizzy:

Regards
Alex

[AckAck]

Eh, branch out and you can move on to baby seals the next time Canada has their hunt...:wiggle:

Brian

[Ferry_vO]

I've have a very good enviromentally friendly small animals disposal unit that will happily take care of anything the size of an adult mouse..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Ferror/Diversen/Voedertijd2.jpg

*Gulp*

:d