How To Teach Cats To Hunt And Kill? (kitten, eating, smelling)
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Me and my roommate have had a roach problem for the past year due to a previous neighbor. Unfortunately he has not been very cooperative in trying to remedy the situation. I can probably run him off out of spite but it might be difficult to find a satisfactory replacement.
One of the things frustrating me is his cats. They won't do anything to the roaches even as they are eating out of the food dishes right in front of them. My mom's cats always moved aggressively against any invasions of lesser life forms. They were also well fed housecats who killed on their own accord.
Is there anything I can do to get these cats to do their job as nature intended?
Nature didn't intend for cats to eat bugs. Nature intended for cats to eat flesh. For the roach problem, a couple of things:
Get the cat's food -off- the floor. I brought home a wooden skid, cleaned it off, covered the top with waterproof sticky-back shelf liner, and voila - instant kitty platform dinette set.
Now that you have kitty and food safely and comfortably elevated, move the skid away from the wall. Get some powdered boric acid - you can buy it at any pharmacy, in the eye-care aisle. Sprinkle it in where the wall meets the floor, and in the corners of the kitchen. Sprinkle some more in the corners and along the wall of the floor of all your cabinets. You don't need a lot, you don't have to saturate it with powder. You just need an unbroken line.
The cockroaches will generally avoid going anywhere near that line, and remain behind your walls and in the holes from whence they came. The ones that are too stupid to notice that there's really nasty-tasting white powder near their food sources, will drag some of the powder back to their nests, killing whichever ones are there.
Boric acid is to cockroaches as blowtorch is to daddy long-leg spiders (not that I have any experience blowtorching spiders, but, y'know. Just sayin).
It's not a good idea for kitty to suck down spoonsful of the stuff, but if she's dumb enough to try a lick (and she won't like it, promise), it won't hurt her.
If you put out roach gel, within a month, the roaches will be gone. You can put it out where cats can't get to it. I work for a woman (caregiver) that had roaches like you wouldn't believe. I had the apartment complex pest control company come out twice, and within a month they were gone.
If it's "out," then it's where cats can get to it.
You can't put it in kitchen cabinets where there's food or clean dishes because it is a skin irritant and can cause digestive upset if ingested (it's considered a hazardous material according to OSHA, but non-toxic according to the FDA. Both recognize it as a known irritant to the skin, eyes, and the digestive system).
You can't put it near kitty's food. If the cockroach drags it from the little bit of gel, onto kitty's dinner plate, it can harm her.
Boric acid, on the other hand, is non-toxic, not a skin irritant, not a digestive irritant, is relatively cheap, and has the added bonus of being the #1 treatment for eye irritation (it's mixed with luke-warm water in an eye-cup and used to rinse the eye).
Me and my roommate have had a roach problem for the past year due to a previous neighbor. Unfortunately he has not been very cooperative in trying to remedy the situation. I can probably run him off out of spite but it might be difficult to find a satisfactory replacement.
One of the things frustrating me is his cats. They won't do anything to the roaches even as they are eating out of the food dishes right in front of them. My mom's cats always moved aggressively against any invasions of lesser life forms. They were also well fed housecats who killed on their own accord.
Is there anything I can do to get these cats to do their job as nature intended?
You never heard of exterminators? Boric Acid? Keeping all food items in plastic containers and out of the roaches reach? cat's are not roach eaters though insects may be a small part of feral cat's diets. Good luck... I couldn't live in a place that had roaches.
As far as keeping food in plastic containers and not keeping months of recyclables in the kitchen, it would be difficult to secure my roommate's cooperation.
I have about the rock bottom priced place for my neighborhood and I can't afford to move. Eventually my roommate is going to hit the skids and maybe I can replace him with someone I am more compatible with.
Don't have the kitty eat roach... for all you know, they could be "poisoned" via traps already which is not healthy for the kitties to eat.
Now...
Growing up and being familiar to barn cats...
You have to do what a mommy kitty does to a "young", trainable kitten... not an established in the ways adult... so give a "live" feed mice for the kitten to play with (may take 2-3 days of training) in a contained area (a room designated for the task) & encourage the kitten to kill the mice then have it try to eat the mice.
My kitten is trained just like that with a field mice (cruel to some but that is a barn cats life) and had been a great asset to us in hunting mice when we first got her. Now she controls any mole problems we have in our garden. One thing great... she does not waste the meat either... and gets great teeth from the raw feed.
Don't have the kitty eat roach... for all you know, they could be "poisoned" via traps already which is not healthy for the kitties to eat.
Now...
Growing up and being familiar to barn cats...
You have to do what a mommy kitty does to a "young", trainable kitten... not an established in the ways adult... so give a "live" feed mice for the kitten to play with (may take 2-3 days of training) in a contained area (a room designated for the task) & encourage the kitten to kill the mice then have it try to eat the mice.
My kitten is trained just like that with a field mice (cruel to some but that is a barn cats life) and had been a great asset to us in hunting mice when we first got her. Now she controls any mole problems we have in our garden. One thing great... she does not waste the meat either... and gets great teeth from the raw feed.
My cats leave moles, shrews, field mice, snakes, baby rabbits, birds, etc. for me as "gifts" where they know I will find them - on the porch, in the living room, sometimes bringing them up to the bedroom to greet me when I get up in the morning. Barn cats all, with that hunter instinct. The oldest has gotten a bit lazy in her old age. When she brings things into the house, they aren't always completely dead - she continues to "play" (meaning torture them) and they crawl under some out of the way place to die - and end up smelling really awful until we find them. I've noticed that the younger cats catch (and sometimes eat) butterflies and other insects outside all the time - all except Muffy. She got stung on the paw by a honey bee and now runs and hides on the porch if she sees a flying bug.
cats wont kill or eat roaches, roaches are extreemly hard sheled and taste increidbly bitter...a cat might play with one moving actross the floor, but ive never met even a hardend mouser that will take on a roach (or most insects for that matter, spiders though, they like spiders lol)
boric acid and catnip...steep catnip leaves in hot water (your making a STRONG catnip tea), strain and pour into a spray bottle and spray (mist setting) in kitchen cabinates along baseboards ect...catnip is a natural insect repelant and it works in msot cases for roaches too...dont be suprised however if the cats become unuusally interested in the areas you spray it.
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