To think I'm not a crazy person for not letting my cat kill a mouse?

[LokiBear]

My 6 mo kitten just bought in a mouse, still alive, and proceeded to to toy with it as cats do. I tried to get him and he shot out of the back door. I chased him captured my kitten, made him drop the mouse and then after checking it over, walked the live, uninjured mouse to a nearby field away from my furry monster! My husband thinks I'm ridiculous. I'm not am I? I understand cats kill mice. It is nature, I get it. That is fine. However, I can't sit back and WATCH them kill a little mouse. My husband is practically splitting his sides laughing at my 'stupidity'. Someone back me up!

out of interest..is there much left after you've shot a mouse?

YANBU; I've always rescued creatures from cats before they can do any damage.

Actually I once got my cat's jaws open and freed a mouse who was sitting on her tongue! It was tiny.

We save mice and birds from out cats if we possibly can. Ds2 heroically saved a sparrow baby from our dastardly cat's jaws recently.

We also managed to save a bunny (yes, a bunny!) from a cat in France this year. It was massive, dh scooped it up, marched down the road, and released it into the wilds

*the French cat was

Am I the only one here who has eaten something the cat brought in? Years ago we had a cat that was getting ambitious. One morning my dad saw the cat dragging a partridge up the garden - still alive but probably only just. Dad distracted the cat with kindly words and a tasty treat then quickly terminated the partridge. (He was a countryman and knew how to do this properly.) Yes we ate it. It was hardly damaged at all, just the odd claw mark.

I think you are fighting a losing battle, op

5Foot5 - when our three-legged cat dragged us a (dead) pheasant home, had it not been the fact that it was summer and therefore we had no cold place to leave it hanging, we would have happily eaten it. We love pheasant! There's an excellent You Tube video that shows how to get the good bits off game birds (essentially just the breasts) without having to do any plucking or gutting. It's marvellous!

If you are crazy so am I.

Your kitten has learned that if it wants to play with a mouse then it can't do it in the house - good thing to learn.

My old boy Charlie had never caught anything other than a wild fish finger (as in dropped down the side of the cooker) until I moved.

In the new place he discovered frogs and other delights.

He brought in a baby mouse. I had pet mice. The baby mouse was injured so I put it in a spare cage with food and water to die in comfort.

In the morning it was very much alive and had escaped.

three days later I had it trapped in the humane trap and was taking it to release when it escaped again, this time it ran in to the kitchen.

It lived there, invisibly for about a month. I never saw it, it never went in the trap, occasionally I would see signs such as tine footprints across the left over fat in a roasting tin.

On evening Charlie ran past me and out the open window, Miss Mouse the wild mouse's bum hanging out of his mouth.

Charlie obviously thought I'd fattened her up for him.

"Your kitten has learned that if it wants to play with a mouse then it can't do it in the house - good thing to learn."

I suspect it hasn't- unless it's a pretty exceptional kitten. I have had cats continuously for 40odd years, and not a single one has learned that. Or if they have learned it, chosen to act on it!

My old cat brought a lot of animals in over his 10 years (despite having had one leg amputated), including mice, voles, shrews, rabbits, pheasants, bats (?!), moles, rats and on one very memorable occasion he brought in an extremely pissed off weasel.

stillsquirreling the idea of a three-legged cat dragging a pissed off weasel in through your window has made my morning. Much thanks.

no, yanbu
we have food and a saucer of water in the shed for such eventualities

YANBU. My boss finds it amusing that I try to save alive creatures from the pets at work. Yesterday I stopped the dog eating a vole. I boxed him up to keep an eye on him and he died :( I think he was an older one and the shock killed him.

I have rescued a baby bunny before too, which was traumatic for the poor thing. Two cats and a Labrador chasing it. Lab got him a couple of times, then I had to catch it and put it in an out building so that it could recover as each time I put it down it just became a sitting duck. DP brought rabbit food to work for it (we use it in our pet rat mix) and I gave it a selection of greens and things but baby bunny died within hours too :(

I'd much rather they died in peace and without a cat or dog playing with them though!

It is actually illegal to release vermin into the wild. Mice, rats, squirrels, pigeons, etc. are all vermin.

We had a big old bruiser of a cat who used to catch rabbits. One day, as we were having Sunday lunch, he was seen walking up the drive with a rabbit in his jaws. Our friend insisted on rescuing the rabbit, found a shoebox, put airholes in and was going to release it into the wild when she left. By the time they left an hour or so later, the poor rabbit had died, presumably of fear! It would have been much kinder and caused less suffering to the rabbit to let the cat dispatch it quickly!

YANBU.

I've rescued frogs, mice, birds, one really pissed off shrew (the cats dropped that one, it was bouncing up and down with rage and screaming when I got there and the cats were sitting well back from it) and moths. One cat had a thing about sliding live mice across the wooden floor downstairs, and if the mouse lost consciousness would nip outside to get another one. I was forever finding concussed mice looking for the way out.

Flies I theoretically don't mind them catching, but even then I can't stand watching them torture and harass the poor bloody thing.

Mine are both kittens still but girl kitten is looking up to be a ferocious hunter. She has so far caught the biggest range of spiders and insect I've ever seen. Every morning I come down to a line of dead flies, spiders and moths by her bed. It's not looking good for local wildlife is it?

If the animal in uninjured then I always rescue it.

We have one cat that brings in something every other day. Mainly birds (a lot of baby birds too :( ), mice and voles.

In most cases the mice and voles survive, but on one or two occasions dcat has brought in one so clearly badly injured, I've left it so she can finish it off, which seems kinder than putting it back in the garden for it to probably die a slower death.

We haven't had any birds that have survived though. Either they're already dead when she brings them in, or they're so horribly injured that dh takes them off her and breaks the neck.

We have a particularly terrible time with dcat if it snows. We have a lot of neighbours with bird tables and dcat is pure white.

They don't see her coming at all in the snow, it's pretty much like a buffet table being layed out for her.

The last snow we had, she was bringing in 5 or 6 birds every day for as long as it lasted.

Completely reasonable and I can make you all feel better by something I had to do with a mouse that my cat bought in.

I was looking out the kitchen window and saw the cat flicking something up in the air and whipping it around etc etc. It became obvious that the something was still alive

I rush out [home alone] and shoo the cat away and see this poor little mouse crawling about on the floor. My evil cat had broken its back legs so that it could move but not escape

I went back to the house and grabbed a cloth and a paper bag and gently scooped up the mouse and rested him in the bag. He was 100% okay except that his legs were clearly broken.
My mum was coming over and I was fussing in the kitchen. No idea what to do, we were nowhere near a vets and I'm not sure what a vet could have realistically done because the mouse was so tiny. We concluded that the vet would have to put him down.

We're at least 30 mins away from a vet and don't want the mouse to suffer any longer so very reluctantly agree that we have to kill the mouse.

But how do you kill a mouse? Neither of us were confident enough to do it directly with a brick or something - frightened we miss and just cause it more pain.

In the end, this is awful and makes me so horrified just to think of it, my Mum ran it over with her car . Instant death, very very unlikely to be painful (so quick). Oh god, it was awful.

ABowlofPetunias, when we've had no choice but to dispatch a mouse we've put it in a clear plastic bag (to avoid mess), placed it on an outdoor path, & hit it with a hammer / other heavy object from a very close range.

It's hard to miss & the bag prevents splattering. Sorry, a bit grim, I know, but we've had a couple of cases, like you, where legs were obviously broken.

YANBU - I did the same thing the other week. Not my cat just in my garden and chucking it about in the air. Cats are cruel shits at times as much as I love them.

rumble yes, aren't shrews the noisiest little things! We always know when it's a shrew rather than a vole because of the angry shrieks.

When our cat caught a toad recently, we were alerted because it made the most extraordinary high-pitched screaming sound. Had no idea toads did that!

It was also squatting there with its arms covering its head in a defensive position, poor thing. Fortunately it was just fine & hopped off happily once we'd moved the cat indoors.

Our cat also eats butterflies - saw her in the garden the other day with a red admiral hanging out of her mouth! Horrible. She is the loveliest, purriest cat, though.

It is actually illegal to release vermin into the wild. Mice, rats, squirrels, pigeons, etc. are all vermin

No one here is releasing vermin, just returning them.

My cat used to
catch and put the live mouse in the bath and then watch it like a mouse velodrome.

Damn sight better than previous cat who just left the arse and tail beside the food bowl.

Yanbu, I have rescued endless, pigeons, rabbits, birds, mice, voles, toads and frogs since living here

I hate picking up the frogs and toads but as Loonvan says the scream is horrendous. I would rather get them to safety than listen to them being tortured!

My cats will catch anything that moves, so on the plus side its handy for the bloody daddy long legs and spiders at the moment......they don't stand a chance!