I'd love to have a cat.......but there is a problem

Cats really do vary as to whether they are interested in hunting or not.

If you applied for a rescue one the staff might know its history, or maybe you could take over one from a friend or neighbour who is considering a new home for their pet, or even advertise for one.

Neither of our cats were sufficiently competent to actually catch birds, however much they lurked menacingly behind bushes in the garden or chattered at them through the window!

Maybe male cats instinctively would only hunt to feed themselves in the wild (and being well fed by their owners didn’t feel the need to find more food) whereas female cats are programmed to hunt for their kittens too. Most of my cats were tom cats and it was my female cat that killed everything.

I have had many cats over the years and always found its the females that hunt and bring back prey more than the males. My female cats were strong and would sometimes haul rabbits over the garden wall which they had caught in the field behind our house.
Fortunately they didn't kill them so I was always able to rescue them and keep them in a quiet space for a while to get over the shock and make sure they were OK before I released them.
My male cats mostly just lounged around in the sunny spots !

I kept Sphynx cats for years and they were all in door. It maybe
someone's opinion that this it's cruel, but it isn't as long as you make sure their physical, mental and social needs are met.

I had a British Blue Shorthair. She used to hunt insects, but ignored birds. Another cat I had was a black and white Longhair. She never killed birds, her only transgression or triumph was when I saw her with a wood pigeon between her jaws strutting down the garden path. I tried to save the bird by taking it to the vet, but it died of shock.
(Edited)

I had a British blue (shorthair). She used to hunt insects, but ignored birds. Another cat I had was a black and white longhair. She never killed birds, her only transgression or triumph was when I saw her with a wood pigeon between her jaws strutting down the garden path. I tried to save the bird by taking it to the vet, but it died of shock.

by taking it to the vet, but it died

Feed it well, and choose one that does not have a feral ancestry. Mine was a feral cat and kept the spiders and rats away, but my neighbour's 2 spent all day lying in the sun on my flower border

Crows, Jackdaws, Woodpeckers and Magpies eat other birds, particularly newly hatched babies. Cuckoos push the babies out of nests to die and then take over the nest. Most wildlife out there is being eaten by other wildlife and nature is fairly much red in tooth and claw. My current cat catches about half a dozen mice a year and one or two birds. The same was true of most of the many cats I have owned over the years. In the grand scheme of things its nothing.

Some cats are hunters, some aren’t. I have owned several cats who were far too idle or too dim or both to catch anything. I also had some that did hunt successfully, and the most determined predator was the smallest one. (I hand-reared her when her mum abandoned her, and she was healthy but always very small.) Unfortunately there’s no reliable way to tell which ones will be hunters unless you take on someone else’s old cat and the owner can tell you their history.

It really is possible to have a happy indoor cat if you get the right one. But I must admit that for years I was always on the alert for a door opening or a windows being left open. I don’t honestly know how I managed it as I had teenage kids and dogs at the time. And it still upsets me that the cat I did get that was supposed to be a good breed for indoor living never had the freedom he craved. By the way, I agree about the childless cat lady stuff…

I am grateful for all the information and advice - and sadly am more than ever convinced i should not get a cat - much though i'd like one. If i did get a cat i'd feel i should give it the life it needed to flourish - and then there would be the risk of birds and other creatures becoming its prey. Cats follow their nature. So thank you - and I will not become a cat owner. Who was it in the US who insulted Kamala Harris by calling her followers 'childless cat ladies'? I had a friend who at once bought a T shirt declaring herself to be a childless cat lady (though actually she had no cat) . Probably JD Vance who said it ...but I am rambling here - this thread is not about politics or sexism....

abby0950

I have had cats for 40 years, mostly Siamese, and last year I bought a lilac point Tonkinese and after my previous two Tonkinese died. She is an absolute delight. I kept most of my cats in for various reasons and there were never any problems with them being indoor cats. If you start out with a kitten who has never been out then they are quite happy to be indoors. We play with our cat several times a day. She loves to play “fetch” with her toy furry mice and even puts it in her food bowl to get the flavour! She is affectionate, playful and very friendly with everyone who visits and has lots of confidence. The cons of letting your cat out are numerous in my opinion. Our garden birds are depleting in great numbers due to domestic cats. They pick up fleas which can lead to worm infestation. A neighbour would often complain of taking her outside cat yet again to the vet to get wormed. This cat would even bring dead rabbits to her doorstep. Vets recommend outdoor cats be wormed several times a year. I went to a cat rescue centre near me and I was asked if I would let a rescue cat out. I was told if so, they would not let me have one of theirs due to the decline in garden birds. I only ever let one of my cats out in the early days of owning a cat and he was a problem from the word go. He wanted to go out all the time and once arrived at an open door with a magpie in his mouth. I managed to shut the door quickly before he entered with it! In a nutshell I have never had a problem with keeping my cats indoors as long as you start this from kitten hood. If you are going to get a cat, I would recommend a female. I always found them much calmer than the males I had.

Orientals, in general, have no Road sense and need to be indoor cats for their own safety. Even if they manage to not get knocked down by cars they will happily get into a parked car with an open door only to be discovered by the driver many miles away from home. A beautiful Burmese girl we had got killed the very first time she accidentally got outside. But when we got a Burmese boy, even though he had a cat pen all he ever wanted to do was escape. Instead of cats I now have a whippet who I look on as a cat substitute as all she wants to do is cuddle up on the sofa after a few minutes running round the garden.

A lodger in our house many years ago had a cat that loved to catch baby rabbits in the field behind our house. It would come over the fence with them and eat about half of each one. It would catch several every day. I had to search the garden (sniffing out the remains) every evening to find and dispose of the remains.
Horrible!

Sadly our cat is very efficient hunter. We live near fields and at least a couple of times a week he catches something and brings it home and sometimes eats most of it. In the house he’s a very gentle and loving cat who likes to sit on laps but outside he’s obviously very different.

I agree.
It’s cruel to keep.a cat indoors.

Get a cat and deal with the consequences, if there are any.

I’m sure the pleasure will outweigh the negative aspects.

A previous cat brought home pieces of frozen fish on a few Fridays. We never discovered where she found them! Obviously they were left to defrost by a neighbour. She also came through a top bathroom window with a turkey carcass while I was in the bath beneath. She preferred her prey to be dead already!

A bell on the cat's collar will not stop it catching prey, if it wants to do so. Either the cat will learn to move without the bell ringing, this takes all of two seconds, or it will simply take the collar off - this solution costs you a fortune in collars.

Some cats hunt, others don't- this has nothing to do with their breed or what you feed them on.

I have managed to make it plain to all the cats I have ever had, that I will not have birds brought in. It takes normally the first summer season when young birds are learning to fly.

I have also made the same rule about live mice - as the cats are far better at catching the pesky things than I am. I simply thank the cat politely for the present she or he brings me of a nice, dead mouse, gather it up on my dustpan and discretelly get rid of it.

If you really cannot bear the thought of a cat following its age old instinct and hunting, then you either will have to keep it indoors, or only allow it out in a caged in run.

To my mind both are cruel but here we may agree to differ.

Perhaps you should consider a dog, of a breed that does not hunt rats instead, or a rabbit?

For the OP, sadly amongst the good advice on here are some rather ill-informed ones!

We've had lots of cats, over many years, a few have collected crashed birds that were learning to fly, but those unfortunate creatures are also high on the menu for magpies and sparrowhawks.

Several liked to catch mice, more to play with them than for eating purposes, we're pretty sure catfood and cat biscuits taste better?

We also have maybe a dozen assorted bird-feeders, some on stands, some hanging from the lower tree branches, the garden birds have a well-developed sentry system in play, checking not just for cats but also the predator birds who come round.

At one point we had a giant, easy-going ginger cat, he'd go out for some air and a snooze, the birds soon got to know him ("he's OK, that's old Ginge") and he sometimes came back with bird poop on him -- he would sometimes have a kip under the tree if he needed shade. But the other cat, went out less often, if she went down the garden the birds immediately put out the alarm call, as they weren't so sure about her.

Our present lodger is a little old lady, and deaf, we think maybe she used to be an indoor cat, she does go out now, if it's not cold or wet, but has only sat and looked at the birds on the feeders.

Check out the local cat rescue places, sometimes they don't know much about their cats, but sometimes they do. Broadly, as someone said, the older cats are less likely to be energetic enough to bother with birds, and male cats are more likely to go and explore a bit. Our large idle ginger boy did - we later discovered - like to visit several other houses in the road to see if any snacks were on offer! But he DID once bring back a rat, as a present. On checking, it had a single wound to the back of the neck, trademark of a sparrowhawk, our hero must have found it and thought he could score some brownie points.

The advice re the very big 'showpiece' cats (Maine Coon, Ragdoll, etc), is quite apt, they're used to being cosseted, not chasing mice and birds.

Oh, and I recall a TV show, 'My Cat From Hell', (USA), in which a behaviourist analysed problem cats. He often suggested changes in their environment, and often reminded the owners that cats need some stimulation, so play with them (NB -- Not ALL cats want to play, some will do it just to oblige their hoteliers).

As I said, go and check the local cat-rescue options (Cats Protection is nationwide, but there will be others), somewhere there's a cat just waiting for your B&B services!

We had a cat who was a great hunter. He brought in many 'presents' which he usually ate after playing with them for a while. Sometimes we rescued his prey and set it free but we let him keep mice and shrews. He had a bell on his collar but he still managed to catch a couple of quite large birds. He also became adept at fishing garden ponds! When he went missing for 3 weeks he was eventually found trying to fish a pond on the other side of town and the house owner had seen our 'Missing' posters, called him by name and returned him to us! After that he regularly brought in fish so he'd learnt to fish while away from home! I even found coloured feathers in the house one time so assume he had managed to catch a budgie. I didn't enquire as to whether anyone was missing one! He lived to a the ripe old age of 19!
If a cat is a skilled hunter a bell will make no difference I'm afraid.
I don't remember our other cat ever catching anything and she eventually got run over on the estate where we lived.

I have had cats for 40 years, mostly Siamese, and last year I bought a lilac point Tonkinese and after my previous two Tonkinese died. She is an absolute delight. I kept most of my cats in for various reasons and there were never any problems with them being indoor cats. If you start out with a kitten who has never been out then they are quite happy to be indoors. We play with our cat several times a day. She loves to play “fetch” with her toy furry mice and even puts it in her food bowl to get the flavour! She is affectionate, playful and very friendly with everyone who visits and has lots of confidence. The cons of letting your cat out are numerous in my opinion. Our garden birds are depleting in great numbers due to domestic cats. They pick up fleas which can lead to worm infestation. A neighbour would often complain of taking her outside cat yet again to the vet to get wormed. This cat would even bring dead rabbits to her doorstep. Vets recommend outdoor cats be wormed several times a year. I went to a cat rescue centre near me and I was asked if I would let a rescue cat out. I was told if so, they would not let me have one of theirs due to the decline in garden birds. I only ever let one of my cats out in the early days of owning a cat and he was a problem from the word go. He wanted to go out all the time and once arrived at an open door with a magpie in his mouth. I managed to shut the door quickly before he entered with it! In a nutshell I have never had a problem with keeping my cats indoors as long as you start this from kitten hood. If you are going to get a cat, I would recommend a female. I always found them much calmer than the males I had.

My cat is 20 now and rarely goes out.She was never much of a hunter,always brought mice in and let them go!I used to pick them up and take them over to the woods. I couldn't find one she let go and it ended up living in my cupboard secretly for several months.I eventually found it curled up in an old biscuit tin!

I have a half ragdoll and I adore him. We have masses of birds in our garden - woodpeckers, kingfishers, bullfinches - all v precious. But we find a noisy bell means he can’t catch birds unless they are weakened. Just be careful of traffic but I agree - a house cat isn’t for me.

I have a rescue Maine Coon like georgesgran. Kept indoors while young enough to breed very expensive kittens for her owner to sell - and dumped when that was no longer the case. She is gentle and affectionate; I have never seen her try to hurt a fly - or indeed any living creature; and is naturally indolent. She never ventures outside the garden, only choosing to go outside on fine, sunny days when she can go to sleep in a shady corner.

pen50

To be honest I think that magpies kill far more songbirds than domestic cats do. And I've seen a pack of gulls tearing a sparrow apart. It's very much a bird eat bird world out there. The predatory species used to be regularly culled but that doesn't happen nowadays.

Our local farmer put a Larsen trap on his land to trap the Magpies. I thought it was cruel ( I love corvids) but he said just see how many more songbirds there will be now, and he was right. I put an apple outside to feed a mother blackbird that was outside my house feeding her fledglings. A seagull swooped down and killed one of them. I still feel responsible for its death and have never forgiven myself. It’s buried in the garden .

Please be very careful about putting bells on collars for your cat.

There are a lot of urban foxes around these days and if a fox stalks your cat the bell will immediately alert its position to the fox and the poor cat will have no where to hide.

Cats make tasty meals for foxes.