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Great......like I don't have enough to worry about. Infected rodents can also come into your home and so the risk of your indoor cats is just a great as outside cat.
Great......like I don't have enough to worry about. Infected rodents can also come into your home and so the risk of your indoor cats is just a great as outside cat.
To some extent this is true. But many if not most house-cats will play with but not eat rodents. They don't see them as food. Our house is rodent free as there is no way for them to get in - unless they get into the outdoor enclosure and the cats bring them in. This has happened one time. They killed but didn't eat the mouse.
Now is the time for everyone who gets mice in their homes to block all the holes they're using. A good search should turn up their entrances.
To some extent this is true. But many if not most house-cats will play with but not eat rodents. They don't see them as food. Our house is rodent free as there is no way for them to get in - unless they get into the outdoor enclosure and the cats bring them in. This has happened one time. They killed but didn't eat the mouse.
Now is the time for everyone who gets mice in their homes to block all the holes they're using. A good search should turn up their entrances.
I don't know if you are right about them not seeing rodents as food. Alley Cat Allies recently cited a study in which the contents of deceased feral cats were examined and they found that rodents were one of the major foods (not so much as birds!) for feral cats.
My late female cat, in the days when I let her outside, I saw her eat a mouse on 2 occasions, from head to tail, ate the mouse whole.
I don't know if you are right about them not seeing rodents as food. Alley Cat Allies recently cited a study in which the contents of deceased feral cats were examined and they found that rodents were one of the major foods (not so much as birds!) for feral cats.
I wasn't talking about feral cats. I was talking about indoor cats. Of course feral cats will eat rodents. Some indoor-outdoor cats do as well.
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My late female cat, in the days when I let her outside, I saw her eat a mouse on 2 occasions, from head to tail, ate the mouse whole.
Yikes. When I had a mouse problem in a previous house, I used an electronic mouse-zapper. It's very fast and therefore humane (well, as much as electrocuting cute little mice can be humane) and also no way was I about to put poison out. A: not at all humane, and b: with the stray cat population in these parts, the collateral damage would be unacceptable.
With the dozen or so stray/outdoor cats that live around my house, I suspect I have about a one hundred foot, rodent-free perimeter.
The reason why I worry, is because I had a Tonkinese way back in the eighties and one morning before work, I noticed that he was playing with a mouse. I didn't think much about it. When I got home from work, he was very ill, laying one his side and panting like a dog. I rushed him to my Vet and told him that the only thing different was, he was playing with a mouse earlier. I think the mouse was poisoned. My cat stayed a few days at the Vet's office and was able to come home a much happier and healthy kitty.
Blaliko has proven herself to be a more than capable "ratter" as well as mouser. No one would've known except for the fact that she never eats any part of the deceased rodent. The better to show off her hunting skills, naturally!
I wasn't talking about feral cats. I was talking about indoor cats. Of course feral cats will eat rodents. Some indoor-outdoor cats do as well.
I was describing how my tame since birth, purebred American Shorthair female went out into the yard and would catch and eat whole field mice in front on me.
I think it just depends on the cat. My beloved Riff-Raff once knocked over a mouse cage (my room-mates) not for the poor cowering mouse, but, so he could play with the mouse wheel ;-)
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