The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Cats => Topic started by: jacob and Georgina on September 12, 2010, 03:34:52 pm
-
I'm looking to buy a cat when i move house we are moving some where with some more land and i wanted a cat to keep the mice and rats down. However i have been told that if you let your cat sleep in doors and treat them like a house cat they will not catch any prey.
i just wanted to know what everyones opinion is on this
many thanks ;D
-
im sorry but thats rubbish
i live in town and have 2 cats that come in and get fed regularly
they also kill anything and everythink from frogs to pigeons
rats, squirrels, various mice, voles any number of baby birds...
cats are natural predators if its the right size they will hunt and kill it!!!
Just don't let them get fat or they will be too slow to catch anything they try and hunt!!!
-
oh thanks i was sure that it couldnt be true as they are born predators thanks for that it is always handy to get a second opinion though thanks again
-
Our cat in summer spends most of his time outside just coming in for food and the odd nap but in winter he sleeps inside all day and goes out at night and he still brings up lots of presents on the doorstep.
-
But be warned, if you have a cat flap you may get presents - and not all of them dead ones at that! I replaced all my doors and windows a couple of months ago and decided against a cat flap. Just as well as yesterday I had to dispatch a young rabbit one of the dogs brought me. Rio had taken a bite out of it but not killed it and Allez retrieves to hand alive.
-
Our cat Tinker sleeps indoors at night but during the day in the summer he loves to catch and eat mice, and sometimes fledglings unfortunately. He is fed twice a day but loves to hunt so that is nonsense about them sleeping indoors. He still sleeps most of the day indoors too but manages to catch a quite a few mice.
I agree about not having a cat flap. If it rains cats find somewhere to keep dry until you can let them in. I would have unwanted mice if I had one.
-
I have been told that to get a really great mouser, you should feed them and pet them. That way they are content and happy and see you as a member of the family - hence in need of "presents".
I wouldn't buy a cat though...... there are so many unwanted cats now that need homes. I went to the local Cats Protection when I moved into my smallhold because my husband (all 6'3" judo fighter of him) is afraid of rats. I adopted three wild feral cats to live in the barn. Got them at 6 months and was told that they would never be friendly as they hadn't been socialised to humans at a young age.
As I write one is lying in front of the woodburner being petted by my 18month old and the other two are outside wanting to join her.
The cats are all great mousers (and snakers, and volers and froggers ::)).
The Cats Protection have loads and loads of great cats just waiting for a good home. They microchip and neuter them and just ask for a donation........
-
My 4 bring in all sorts - cat flap was definately a bad idea!! 2 mornings ago we woke up to the indsides of at least 6 mice, 1 pigeon and the hind quarters of a wild bunny.
they are the most spoilt cats you can imagine (well one is half siamese so she expects to be treated as royalty ::) ) yet we still have some of the best hunters ever. having said that, we have no problems with rats getting our livestock's feed either ;D
-
No cat flap for us in the new house for all the reasons above. Agree with McFrosty - CPL do a great job in rehoming cats.
-
Apart from the CPl you can only get a cat by buying one - our local pet shop has had them occasionally for about £50 each. It's about time they did the same with mongrel dogs instead of allowing the so-called designer crosses. I have a friend who breeds LDs, and know for a fact that they are NOT all hypoallergenic, nor do they breed true to type..
-
are LD's labradoodles Annie?
-
are LD's labradoodles Annie?
You got it! As you will have gathered I am a dog snob! :-[ :-[
-
:) I don't like the idea of deliberately messing with nature either. my x breed cats are such because a siamese escaped while in season and my little black snowball was the result ( rescued her from squalor,it was really sad) another of my rescue cats was half persian - he is king mouser yet the full pedigree persian I grew up with (welly!) was scared of mice.
-
Thanks everyone for your replies its been a great help i would like to get a rescued cat as we have ipplepen animals in distress rescue centre near by I'm sure when i go to have a look that the cat will pick me ;D :cat:
-
We are also quite near to A.I.D. Ipplepen, where are you? If no luck there go to Blue Cross ,Torquay.
-
we are in paignton at the moment but looking to move to somewhere with a bit more land!! where abouts are you? we have heard of blue cross so may have a look there aswell! :cat:
-
not all cats are good hunters though, mine isnt interested, i can rear chicks in open boxes with her in the same room and she never looks near them, total woose, doesnt play much either. she does like to sit on laps though. ::)
mandy
-
we are in paignton at the moment but looking to move to somewhere with a bit more land!! where abouts are you? we have heard of blue cross so may have a look there aswell! :cat:
We are in Newton Abbot. Are you looking for somewhere to rent or buy? I'll keep my eyes and ears open
-
looking 2 buy, me and my partner, her brother and her mum are all looking to move together somewhere with at least 10 acres, a barn or stables and an annex or seperate cottage! anywhere in south devon really, very much like the villages outside of totnes and newton abbot such as avonwick, ipplepen, south brent etc! many thanks if you see any thing give us a shout we have looked pretty hard and found a few places we are keeping an eye on! ;D :farmer:
-
I have 4 adult cats and currently 6 kittens who will hopefully be sold shortly as they're at the homewrecking stage now ::)
I can safely say that feeding cats does not diminish hunting capacity, it just keeps them near to home so they keep the house and buildings rodent free and the garden bunny free rather than straying further afield to get a meal :)
My catflap has become just a hole in the door after one cat brought a bunny in at high speed and trashed the flap - finding feathers, back legs of something or a stomach lying on the floor is not great fun but I live with that rather than mice running across the living room carpet and kitchen surfaces which I had before the cats arrived ;)
-
I have 4 adult cats and currently 6 kittens who will hopefully be sold shortly as they're at the homewrecking stage now ::)
I can safely say that feeding cats does not diminish hunting capacity, it just keeps them near to home so they keep the house and buildings rodent free and the garden bunny free rather than straying further afield to get a meal :)
My catflap has become just a hole in the door after one cat brought a bunny in at high speed and trashed the flap - finding feathers, back legs of something or a stomach lying on the floor is not great fun but I live with that rather than mice running across the living room carpet and kitchen surfaces which I had before the cats arrived ;)
i got 4 kittens from a feral cat i have how much you selling yours for?
-
We only had visitors through the flap once and presents she tends to eat herself, leaving only the gall bladder :P The old lady only uses it at night, at daytime she prefer complaining until we open the door anyway, so this was a bit of a waste of money ;D
We rescued her from a house where she was considered the troublemaker and now she is the happiest and most content cat, being sole emperess of the household.
She sleeps indoors but is a great mouser - - - - hunting is an instinct they never loose, hence all the stupid toys you can buy for housebound cats - to simulate a hunt :chook: :&>
-
My cat I rescued as a kitten and for the first 8 years of her life lived with me in a town and caught nada - in fact she was so timid she was chased by everything - I have seen her run in doors while being being bombed by birds.
However we moved to the country and for the last 4 years she has lost half her weight in running around catching everything that moves. She is still spoilt rotten and fed daily - I think she just spends more time outside now to avoid the kids we had at the same time as moving.
;D
-
A happy well fed cat will have more energy to go hunting than a cat who has to go hunting to get food. We bought my kitten in July at a pet shop- not something I would nomally recommend- but, he is the friendliest cat I have ever had, and not only that he isn't 6 months old yet, and I have already seen him catching mice. He also caught a rat 2 night ago- though the jack russell stole it straight off him before he had a chance to kill it. I don't ever remember a cat catching rats that young.
Beth
-
Just to echo what's been said - it's the well-fed, much-petted cats who are the best mousers, both because they aren't in a hurry (they can sit and watch a mousehole for hours), they have the leisure to be playful (which, let's face it, is what most mouse-slaughter entails for cats) and also they have a strong desire to please their pet humans with 'treats' - or else to teach them to hunt mice!
I shall never forget my baby son's first Christmas - I was cooking breakfast in the kitchen and my son was on the floor in one of those bouncy-seats - when I looked over and saw that one of our cats, very much the 'senior' one too, had kindly brought my son a half-dead mouse and was trying to interest him in playing with it. I am sure that cat still blames me for the fact that my son remains a rubbish mouser!
Seriously, though, good luck with finding a rescue cat. Given the state of the economy etc I am sure there are a huge number of wonderful cats who would be all too happy to do a bit of mouse-hunting for you. :(
-
we moved to our farm and asked for 2 feral cats off cpl, we didnt mind what they were and presumed they would be good mousers! one had one eye and the other had no teeth. we put them in the barn but once we opened the doors 2 weeks later they moved themselves to the warmer garage. they slept there for 4 years til they died (they were late teens and one had cancer!) nevermind! our other 2 pet cats live in our garage and hunt reg but are also well fed. they dont come in house cos one is shy and put off by dogs and kids, and other will sneak upstairs to poo on my paperwork! we had a goodmouser that we got from cats home as kitten, but she moved herself in with neighbour and we rarely see her! just one thing which we didnt think of at time, our 1st 2 feral cats had health problems and looked bit odd and tatty b4 we had them, which didnt bother us but did bother our customers that visited farm and im sure they thought we neglected them, which wasnt the impression we wanted to give with a new business. wev had a few older chicks killed by our cat though he doesnt kill the hens. i think a good farm cat is an asset though with feed stored etc. good luck
-
also our ginger cat follows us all over farm, whether were fencing / walking, hes there with us! and will travel long distances to be part of our gang! ha
-
My cat came from the Blue Cross when he was 10 months old. He has his own fleecy bed next to the woodburner and will be on your lap as soon as you sit down! It's rare to have a day when he brings is less that 3 or 4 presents ... rats, mice, grass snakes, birds, frogs, next doors hamster :-\ :o he almost a bit too good at hunting!
-
Grass snakes :o oh my life, I think I'd pass out!! I can cope with things wiht fur and feathers being brought in (just about - my FB friends know about my escapades with live rats lately!) but a snake - EEEEK!
-
Grass snakes :o oh my life, I think I'd pass out!! I can cope with things wiht fur and feathers being brought in (just about - my FB friends know about my escapades with live rats lately!) but a snake - EEEEK!
I've had a live rat experience too! Played with while I was on the phone then eaten alive as I watched. ::) :'( Got new doors put on soon after with NO catflap! >:( >:(
-
I think the NO catflap is key here!! I want to board ours up ;) 2.30am my siameseX (who has turned out to be queen of hunters) brought in a live rat, dropped it on my bed (on me!) and I freaked, threw the duvet which threw the rat on th efloor. it scurried behind a radiator and literally climbed up the wallpaper. Spent an hour with a coat hanger trying to poke it down so snowball could catch it but it was attacking me back. gave up, went back to bed with cat keeping guard. 7.30am rat-boy finally fell down (radiator was on by now and he was hot!) snowball grabbed him and dropped him into the open box I was holding for her. it now lives in another field ::)
-
After both live and dead presents, we don't have a cat flap either. Felix doesn't go out, except on nice days and accompanied, and the kittens (nearly 2 years old now, but always the kits) yell to get in and out. I reckon they can't yell with something in their mouths ;D
-
We dont have a cat flap. Spook shouts when she wants in and out. I also know when she has something to play with in the yard as her shouting changes to a kind of yowl - which is my cue in the summer to go make sure the doors are shut so she can't bring it in! ;D
As someone mentioned earlier, I also remember when my daughter was a baby, Spook was a little put out to start with that she lost pride of place on my lap and pillow at night. She obviously decided to accept the baby and demonstrated this by dropping a dead mouse next to her ear where the baby was lying on a rug on the floor! :o Luckily I got there before she could grab it. *shudder* :cat:
-
I, too, would be in the 'no cat flap' corner. We used to have a wonderful tabby who loved to catch rabbits. There are few things worse than being woken up at 2am (when you know you've got to be up at 5.30) by the crashes and bangs of the cat trying to get in through the flap with a dead bunny. This was followed by a short silence then the ominous crunching of bunny bones as said cat sat at the bottom of the stairs munching his prize. Worse still was if he came to the landing half way up and did the dirty deed there, you could be sure of stepping in a bit of bunny bowel or something equally as squishy on the way down in the morning :-[
-
Aren't cats really disgusting animals? ::) ::) Why on earth do we allow them in our homes after they have eaten vermin, walking on our work tops, across our furniture, having a lick of this or that and depositing goodness knows how many germs in the process? ::) Because we love their free spirits! ;) ;D ;D
-
Our cats are totally pampered, I have raised them since they were born as I also had their mother (who some b*****d poisoned :-[ ), we have a big ginger boy and a tiny grey girl, who love to be with us. They quite happily drink milk, eat chicken and fish and have lots of cuddles. However, when they go outside after their breakfast they turn into killing machines who have to bring us their contributions to the food stores. We rarely find half chewed remains, we get whole with-not-a-mark-on-them critters ranging from pigeons, to baby rabbits and squirrels. They keep the mice and rats away from the food sheds and chicken houses, to the point we are considering rescuing a couple more.
-
I've shared my home with cats for more than 20 yrs and can only add to the feeling that even pampered cats still catch prey. It's an overwhelming instinct, I think.
When we lived on Kintyre they were forever bringing in rabbits and pigeons, as well as mice, voles and even moles.
On several occasions I'd walk into the kitchen in the morning and find a bunny hopping round it.
-
i still cant believe people BUY CATS, when i left the uk in 2004 im sure that wasnt the case ??? was it ? ???
i picked up 2 male kittens at a poultry sale yesterday for free.
-
Yes it's true. Very few kittens over here these days since the Cats Protection League got busy neutering them all. I saw two at £50 each at a local petshop here late autumn.
-
I paid £70 for Snowball my siameseX. Its been a good investment in some ways (she's chief ratter) but having watched her chase a wild bunny up the middle of the road (busy road that is) yesterday I am now living in fear of losing yet another cat.
-
I have 4 adult cats and currently 6 kittens who will hopefully be sold shortly as they're at the homewrecking stage now ::)
I can safely say that feeding cats does not diminish hunting capacity, it just keeps them near to home so they keep the house and buildings rodent free and the garden bunny free rather than straying further afield to get a meal :)
My catflap has become just a hole in the door after one cat brought a bunny in at high speed and trashed the flap - finding feathers, back legs of something or a stomach lying on the floor is not great fun but I live with that rather than mice running across the living room carpet and kitchen surfaces which I had before the cats arrived ;)
i got 4 kittens from a feral cat i have how much you selling yours for?
So sorry I only saw this today, months after the question ::)
I sold the lot no bother at between £35-50 (gingers were dearer and went like hot cakes :o ) but I checked other ads at the time and apparently £50-60 is the going rate for moggies like mine so that's obviously why..
The neutering campaign has worked so well that there are frequently no kittens to be found in private homes or shelters, and given shelters seem to want "donations" which they set at pretty much the same price as buying, I'm not sure what the difference is except that as a charity they get a lot of free support, pay less or no tax on their income and give people a sense they are doing a good thing by buying from them rather than someone who has had to raise the kittens off their own finances and clean their own carpets ;D but maybe had a good time doing it :D
All my girls are now neutered so no more kittens here since January when I got a deal from the local cat rescue to put 3 girls through them for £100 in return for trapping the local feral tom for them which they'd failed to catch in the last 3 years - took me a couple of nights ;) The one I had done at the vet was £100 just for one which was one of the reasons I didn't get another done until this opportunity came up while chatting to the cat lady ::)
Interestingly a lot of folk don't think they should pay for kittens at all but would pay £500 for what is basically a crossbreed mongrel with a made up designer label name ::) Breeders of both put masses of effort, time and money in extra feeding for the mums not to mention all the things kittens/puppies need from weaning foods wormers etc, so I reckon it's a throwback to when kittens were commonplace on every farm all year round and folk were glad to give them away.
So the pressure to neuter has in effect made kittens rare enough that the charities that put that pressure on can now make good money from selling the kittens donated to them or birthed by trapped ferals, while calling it an act of charity with a fixed "donation", while all the folk that would have given kittens away now can't afford to if they've paid the costs of breeding them which vets and feed companies/supermarkets have now created to serve THEIR business interests, AND those folk that try and cover a few of the many costs get slagged for not neutering by folk that either work for one of those charities or commercial interests, believe those organisations' marketing campaigns, or are old enough to remember that kittens used to be free ::)
Go figure - the politics and commercial interests win over ordinary folk yet again ::) whether they breed and pay feed and vet costs or don't and buy their cats from charities and pay the feed and vet costs from that point on ::)