Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just wanted to say THANKS for all the responses, even those that made me gag!!!!!! (Ohiogirl81, that includes that lovely picture in post #21, lol!) I am having the critter guy come back ... 'til then, I am walking very gingerly around the house and turning on all lights I can as soon as I enter a room!
Another dead mouse in the hall just outside the living room. I have to say, this time I made myself just dispose of it QUICKLY so I didn't think about it much (although I still had to throw a piece of thick scrap fabric over it and pick it up with my gripper before throwing it in a waste basket that I immediately took outside).
I am pretty sure which of my kitties has done the killing ... she is the one who has seemed most interested in what is going on under the dishwasher (ugh). I had put a 2x4 in front of the bottom of the dishwasher, blocking access if any other mice were under there (I thought), but somehow one got through. The critter guy is coming back next week and hopefully he will be able to figure out where the hole is and plug it.
Another dead mouse in the hall just outside the living room. I have to say, this time I made myself just dispose of it QUICKLY so I didn't think about it much (although I still had to throw a piece of thick scrap fabric over it and pick it up with my gripper before throwing it in a waste basket that I immediately took outside).
I am pretty sure which of my kitties has done the killing ... she is the one who has seemed most interested in what is going on under the dishwasher (ugh). I had put a 2x4 in front of the bottom of the dishwasher, blocking access if any other mice were under there (I thought), but somehow one got through. The critter guy is coming back next week and hopefully he will be able to figure out where the hole is and plug it.
One of mine taught the others the proper way. Leave no trace. This spring I had every bug you can imagine, but NO mice. I'm hoping for snow to kill of next springs crop of bugs but Mom taught them well.
Plug the hole, but if they start staring at a corner, let them at it... I'd rather find a dead mouse than find lots of mouse droppings. Or worse, one that is behind something. Cats LIKE to leave their catch out to show how good they've been and that they've done their job, forutnately.
One of mine taught the others the proper way. Leave no trace. This spring I had every bug you can imagine, but NO mice. I'm hoping for snow to kill of next springs crop of bugs but Mom taught them well.
Plug the hole, but if they start staring at a corner, let them at it... I'd rather find a dead mouse than find lots of mouse droppings. Or worse, one that is behind something. Cats LIKE to leave their catch out to show how good they've been and that they've done their job, forutnately.
"Leave no trace" as in eat it? UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I suspect that my kitties would not eat the whole thing ... and the last thing I want to find is mouse feet, or a mouse head, or a mouse torso, lying around. I can just barely deal with a whole dead mouse -- if it were in parts I would be throwing up for days!!
"Leave no trace" as in eat it? UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I suspect that my kitties would not eat the whole thing ... and the last thing I want to find is mouse feet, or a mouse head, or a mouse torso, lying around. I can just barely deal with a whole dead mouse -- if it were in parts I would be throwing up for days!!
The guts most likely, they don't eat the guts. But your cats, while their hunting instinct is strong, in at least one of your cats, she obviously doesn't recognize it at food. She thinks it's a Game.
My little cat was like that the first time she caught a mouse, when we were outside in our yard. She killed it instantly, and then was so surprised that it didn't move any more. She didn't understand..because all the 'mice' she kills inside during Games always move again when Mommie makes them move.
Top Cat, who lived by her own wits for who knows how long, knows what mice are for, and when she catches one (while we are in the yard) she starts nomming until I get it away from her.
We live in a 65-year-old house in an urban neighborhood, and we occasionally get mice setting up housekeeping in the cabinet under our kitchen sink. We can always tell when we've got a new resident, because Finn starts spending all his time crouched on the kitchen floor staring intently at the cabinet door. The Colonel doesn't give a hoot, but boy howdy, Finn is absolutely entranced. My sister calls it "kitty TV," and that's a pretty good analogy. When we start coming out to the kitchen to find the cupboard doors wide open, we know that Finn has gone on the hunt for the interloper, and we know eventually we're going to come out to the living room to a little surprise.
Two of the three times that he's caught a mouse, he ate part of it and left the rest (usually the tail and a well-gnawed head) on the living room floor by my favorite chair. Thank goodness he doesn't actually leave it IN the chair...
The third time, my daughter actually watched him catch the mouse; it foolishly ran across the kitchen floor, and Finn was on it in a fraction of a second. She heard the "crunch, crunch" as he bit down on the mouse's spine and yelled "FINN, DROP IT!" He just growled at her and went on crunching. She grabbed him by the scruff, and he brought his two front paws up over his mouth as if to say "no, it's MINE, I caught it, I'm keeping it, you go catch your own if you want a snack." So she hustled him into the basement and shut the door, so he could enjoy his prize in peace and she wouldn't have to watch.
So OP, if your kitties are leaving you dead but intact mice, you are fortunate indeed! I'll have to see if I can dig up the story my sister sent me about the gifts her kitties gave her.....
Ah, found the email I remembered. This was a couple of years ago, when Sis was living in a first-floor apartment of a huge 120-year-old mansion that hadn't been very well maintained. At the time, she had a pair of orange tabbies (she has since added two more "unadoptable" kitties from a rescue group to her family), and this was part of her response when I emailed her the story of Finn's first mouse:
Quote:
I could've told you right off the bat that that was what he was after.....when my cats started finding the kitchen heat register more interesting than my kids find the TV, I KNEW there was something living there (I just hoped it wasn't a bat!). In fact, Norton even clawed a 4" piece of wood off the trim trying to enlarge a hole to get at what he could smell, but not reach. I called it "kitty TV" (*:
I'm sorry you had some cleanup to do.....Norton carried it (live) into the bedroom during the night, squeaking for our attention (I mean, both Norton and the mouse were squeaking....that was what got me out of bed!!), and I took it to the basement. The next morning, I found a very dead (but intact) mouse in the doorway to the kitchen. Had it percolated upward through the house back to the kitchen, only to be caught a second time?
No....when I went in the basement, there was the one I had delivered to the basement, also dead.....so apparently I had a full household in my kitchen! May you not be so blessed....
And let me tell you, the cats slept SOOOOOO well all the next day!!!! The sleep of the exhausted and vindicated hunter.
So you see, OP, not only could it have been worse if you had only found part of a mouse, if you were REALLY unlucky, your successful hunter could be awakening you in the middle of the night to show you his still-squeaking prize.
Ah, kitties.... whatever would we do without them to entertain us???
i LOVE it when my cats kill a mouse in the house...means they are doing the job i "employ" them to do (they keep the mice out of my house...i feed them lol)
yeah its gross, but at least i know ts one less chewing through the food packets in the cabinates and peeing on my countertops ect.
when i first moved in i was seeing 2-3 mouey bodies a week in here (the house had been empty for a year and neglected before that) now its mabe one every few months that find their way in and meet the cats.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
update ... another dead mouse, ugh
The critter guy is coming back next week and hopefully he will be able to figure out where the hole is and plug it.
But your cats, while their hunting instinct is strong, in at least one of your cats, she obviously doesn't recognize it at food. She thinks it's a Game.
