Cats and Feeders?

Has anyone ever considered giving a spare feeder mouse to their cat? I'm thinking about it; one if my cats is from the Humane Society and they said she used to be an outdoor cat before we got her. We don't want to let her out though, because our neighborhood has a lot of other cats and she had a leg amputated as a kitten (she's fine, gets around great and it barely affects her, really,but we don't want her getting into a fight with another cat). She eyes my feeder mice a lot, although she knows better than to eat one without permission. At least we know if a feeder ever does get free, she'll get it before it gets into the walls.

I was just wondering what other people thought and did. I know it has all the same moral issues as live feeding with snakes to give a cat a live mouse, but she really seems to miss they prey response. We play with her with cat toys often, but she always ends up back at the mouse tank. It's just something that's been on my mind, made me wonder if anyone else has done it

Pretty sure she wants to bat them around and not actually eat them. I bet you'd end up with a dead, bloodied mouse sitting on your floor.

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I wasn't going to just let it lose on the floor, I probably would have put it in an enclosed area and watched the whole time.

I do know my cats, though, and while I believe our other feline Lulu would have just played with it, I think Phoebe knows exactly what they are for by the way she tries to hunt them-- I had to get a higher table to keep her out of them. Like I said, her original owners reported that she was a primarily outdoor cat, and all outdoor cats I know eat more mice in fields than food inside.

She's still gaining a healthy weight back as well, so I think she could use the protein, but like I said originally, this was more of a curiosity thing. Not saying I will or won't do it

I don't have cats, but I feed my ferrets the rodents I breed. They don't play with prey and are quick to kill them. Its rarely bloody too. They are very quick clean kills. The ferrets also patrol my rodent racks and are great rodent control. They are rather obsessed. Haven't had a chew out or attempt at escapes ever since I let the ferrets in with the rats.
The rats probably have figured out that its safer to stay in the rack than try to leave. Lol

If I had a cat, I would totally feed them rodents. Once in a blue moon I may give one to my dogs too. I also had a friend who picked up feeders from me to give to her cats. They didn't really play with the prey either and ate it as snacks.

In regards to moral and ethics, if its a quick kill and the prey is not unnecessarily suffering and the predator is unlikely to get injured, I personally think its fine to feed live. Like snake live feeding, feed the appropriate sized prey. You don't want to try something huge like a jumbo adult male rat for example.

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Our cats eat mice all the time but I always give frozen/thawed. Not sure how I feel about live...cats tend to "play" with rodents :(.

I have never given my cats any rats. Mostly because I don't want them more interested in them than they already are.

My cat just caught 2 wild mice that came into our house the other night(we covered up that hole pretty fast)....
all she did was bat it around and sit on it until it died and then continued to play with it by throwing it 3 feet in the air.

It wasn't a bloody mess or anything, but it was pretty awful for the mouse, I wouldn't want to put one of my own rats through that, it's not quick like when a snake kills. Cats take 20-30mins or even longer to kill prey, then they don't even eat it most of the time.


If I have a surplus of rats rats when they start producing though, I might give her a pre-killed rat to see if she'll eat it... it is the best diet you could give a cat, though I doubt she will.

I have some cats 2 females 1 male, my females are crazy about feeders (mouse, rats and even 1 day chicks), they're good hunters when there's some evasions, and they really like the moment when i feed my snakes.My male don't care about feeders.

It would really depend if your cat is a good killer/eater or not. My cat used to catch a mouse and then just start gobbling it down, it's quite messy feeding a fresh kill. I give her prekilled ones now, both to avoid the mess and because now she has gotten lazy, she'll catch the mouse, carry it around for a bit, get tired, drop it, catch it, start all over. You don't want mice running loose in your house and that's not a very humane situation for the it either. You'd have to step in and kill it yourself quick if the cat doesn't and it's not always easy to get a live mouse back out of a cat's mouth if you need to, trust me. I do give her live pinks sometimes but she eats them right away and it doesn't seem any kinder to freeze them first.

If you wanted to, go ahead.

I had a lady actually buy a colony of ASFs from me to breed for her cats.

Well....One day my cat got into my feeder room overnight and I did not know. He ate 32 ASFs by the time I realized he was missing....

Other than that, my snake room buddy gets a f/t rodent on most feeding days. He plays with the dead rodent for a while, eats it, then begs me for more. If he nabs a live one he's a really quick killer then plays with it. I really don't like wasting my live rodents on him though :cool:

My rat terrier is helpful at finding and flushing out any escapees from the rodent tank. Ranger likes to play with them and winds up traumatizing the rodent to death(no blood). The draw back is it can be difficult to get the rodent away from him so I've wound up with a couple dead feeders on occasion. He'll sit in front of a tank with rodents in it while whining and licking his lips.

Lol.

Rat terriers doing what rat terriers do best: ratting.

Love it.

I feed my bobcat hybrid a diet of mice and premium canned cat food. I wish I could get my other indoor kitties to eat mice, but I haven't been able to get them to accept it yet. It is the best diet you can give a cat; whole prey.

Like everyone else I agree that it depends on how fast and accurate she can kill. I know a lot of cats tend to play with their prey before killing it and you don't want the poor thing suffering for half an hour. Id try f/t first and see what her response is.

Oh, I feed f/t to my cat... I love my mice too much to feed live.

My cats (and dogs) are on a raw diet. When I started them on raw, they actually did eat whole (f/t) prey. They aren't on whole prey any more, but I have given them prekilled or f/t feeders if a snake refused. I would never give them a live mouse though, because they would not kill it quickly. They like the play more than the kill (it's not fun any more if it's dead!), and the animal would suffer. I'm not ok with watching an animal suffer like that. (Yes, it happens in the wild, I'm a biologist and actually have to see it with my own eyes. I'm not ok with allowing that to happen in my house where I have some control.)

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to add my two cents. I trained my youngest cat to hunt on live hoppers when I had a mouse colony for my snakes. He's not a fast killer, so I only did it a handful of times but it paid off. He's an excellent hunter now. I constructed a little arena of cardboard boxes, cut and tapped together to stand up, set Murry in there and the mouse after. A lot of people mentioned that whole prey items are the best thing to feed cats. The reason behind this is that cats have evolved to efficiently process meat, getting most of their moisture from their prey and various supplements from the prey's skeleton. Dry food diets try to replicate this by using a lot of vegetable based filler, vitamins and only a little meat product. Cats can't digest this nearly as well as whole prey. Point in case; I had a period of two months recently where I was buying very cheap food for my cats, with the result of my cats eating and eating but staying skinny. I was absolutely baffled until I researched cat diet and looked at the ingredient list on food bags. I switched brands and saw an immediate difference in their health. Once I start a mouse and rat colony again I plan on feeding the cats whole prey regularly.