I went to visit my sister for a few days. Now, I never leave the animals. Ever...so truthfully I expected the dogs to be bad and the cats to be pissy...(yes pissy...as in pissed off, pissed on, and pissed in your shoes...) It's a cat's favorite form of punishment and those of us who are honest about living with cats, have experienced such delights as cat pissy fits.
However, much to my surprise, then extreme concern, the cats seemed perfectly fine, as if my kids had paid so much attention to them, they didn't even notice I was gone. And I allowed myself to be deluded into thinking such a thing. Until about 5am this morning when I was awakened by a loud crash. That crash was the fishtank I raise mice in. SO here I am rushing around to gather up the mice....I never even stopped to think what I was doing. They are after all raised for the cats to eat...all the cats had done was get "take out" on their own....never the less, I rescued up the mice that were not already being consumed and fixed up the tank, swept up the spilled bedding and eventually went back to bed.
This evening I managed to rescue one more little mouse that was hiding out under the fridge. I still can't even really answer why....I do feed the cats, and my snake these mice...and I do feed them live sometimes, yet I found the whole "help" yourself thing a little distasteful.
I first started adding mice into the cat's diet at least 6 months ago when I was trying food to combat the FIP. I still believe strongly in the power of food (ie: proper nutrional intake for cats is all meat, since they are obligate carnivores and require no other food).
However I have to face the fact that I do feel somewhat attached to the mice.
This exerpt from wikipedia explains it very well.....
Obligate carnivores
An obligate or true carnivore is an animal that must eat meat in order to survive.[1] Hypercarnivores present specialized dentition for a meat-only diet. They may consume other products presented to them, especially animal products like eggs and bone marrow or sweet sugary substances like honey and syrup, but, as these items are not essential, they do not consume these on a regular basis. True carnivores lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of vegetable matter, and, in fact, some carnivorous mammals eat vegetation specifically as an emetic. The domestic cat is a prime example of an obligate carnivore, as are all of the other felids.
It does make me question the raising your own food dilema once again, but that can't be bad. I am personally not a vegetarian and do eat meat, and do not always question it's source, even though I am well aware that the way our own food animals are handled is not humane most of the time.
I do hand the mice in the most humane way possible, they are housed and fed extremely well. And I will try in the future to source my own meat more carefully when possible.
In the meantime so we don't have any more driveby looting on the mouse tank, the tank is now bunged to the stand.
And I will check my shoes in the am.....just can't trust those frisky sneaky felines.
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Ah, the sneaky intelligence of cats! I have had mine put toys in my shoes, thankfully they have never pissed in them. However I have had them get mad at me and pee on my clothes. I had one, she died last year at the age of 9, who peed in my bed! My husband had found her at the junk yard and brought her home, she was just a kitten, maybe 2 months old but not used to people. I worked with her to get her "tamed". I was just getting her to where she would lay in my lap to be petted when I had to go in the hospital and was gone for about 5 days. When I came home she showed her feelings by pissing in my bed. I knew why she did it, revenge! Luckily she only did it the one time. She did have a bad habit of peeing on the floor outside the litterbox, this went on for years, her urine would be bloody. I would take her to the vet and she'd be on antibiotics but it wouldn't help. Finally the vet said he thought she was just a nervous cat and that some cats will do that, pee blood, if they are nervous. She groomed constantly. I guess he was right because she did finally quit peeing blood all on her own. As far as peeing outside the litter box, I finally figured out that she wouldn't pee where she pooped, so as long as she had 2 litter boxes she was fine. The fickleness of felines! She pulled a great escape from the house last summer and got hit by a car and died. We live in the country on a dead end street and she had done this before and I would find her sleeping on our porch swing. This time though someone came to the front door and she must have run into the street to get away from the stranger and I think when he backed out he ran over her. I didn't know she was out there, I found her laying in the road about 15 minutes after the guy had left. She was dead. He must have really backed out fast to run over her like that. My husband felt terrible cause she had to have escaped when he left that morning. I learned a lot from her and she is missed. She was FeLV positive but symptom free.
ReplyDeleteI find it ironic that you saved the mouse from under the fridge to feed him later to the kitties. I understand why you do it but know I couldn't do it. I'll bet the kitties really felt like they had found a gourmet resturant for kitties. I can just picture them scrammbling around after the mice. What fun! They probably thought you were catching them to eat yourself.