Do all cats bring you “gifts”

[Aple]

Friend is finding a home for her neighbour’s (who has died) cat. I like animals but my only hesitation is coming across a half eaten rodent in my home. It is a huge fear of mine. Do all cats do this?

There is another family who can take the cat (already have one) but my friend is offering him to us first. DD (10) has been wanting a cat for ages but we’ve just never got around to it

One of mine does in the summer. The other outgrew it.

No.

i have three.

one does it.

one brings me plastic.

one brings me nothing

Hmmm female cats are more likely to hunt and bring gifts. We put a collar and bell on our cat but she still comes home with some surprises. This is why I refuse to get a cat door! A live rodent is even worse. My coping mechanism is to (much to my shame) scream and barricade myself in another room until a child or someone more mature than me has dealt with it. I love our cat (not that she reciprocates much - she’s not the cuddliest) but if you travel often or live near a main road, it’s also yet another thing to worry about. I. Saying that, cats are comparatively low effort pets.

We have always had cats, always neutered toms. All hunters, but none have ever brought anything home. Actually that's not true, our Pads once brought home a plastic bag containing a fish fillet 😳

Some cats hunt and some don't, we've had both, some just want to be comfortable and warm and maybe chase a ball. I had a pair of feral kittens one grew up to be a hunter and the other one a lap cat!

Not all no. Some bring something every blooming day (especially if rural) and some never.

Mine very occasionally brings a mouse in (like, 3 times a year maybe) but it’s never half eaten, in fact it’s usually still alive as it’s more something to play with than eat (sorry!) and we can generally shoo her back out with it. When we have found a mouse, once or twice, it’s been dead but intact.

You can get special catflaps which won’t let a cat in if it has something in its mouth. I think it’s called Only Cat or something like that.

They soon grow out of it. Then they get lazy especially Tom cats. Having had various pets rabbits hamsters guinea pigs etc cats are the easiest.

Our cat doesn't go out unless we are there and only for a very short time and does have a cat flap which is open all day. She does bring us gifts: she brings us her soft toys (mostly a goldfish shaped one).

My girl cat does, but the boys don't.

I have no idea if that's relevant and if others have the same thing.

My 14 year year old cat started bringing mice in this year for the first time. So you can never say never.

My DCats have never done this. They bring me a cuddly toy mouse instead.

There’s no way of knowing in advance if they’re cold blooded killers or not.

We had mice, dead ad alive and a living frog once. Little piles of innards left on teh back door step. Dead mouse left in a wellington boot.

DHs cat brought in nextdoor's Sunday roast that had been cooling on the side with the back door open....

Some do, some don’t. And while it’s not the most fun part of having a cat, it’s really not that hard to deal with. Worst case, get a sheet of kitchen roll and put that over the top first so you don’t have to look at it for long, then use that to pick up the corpse and put it in the bin. Sanitise the area and job done.

We’ve had a lot of cats over the years, and the current one is 10 years old. We can go months without a gift, then suddenly get 2 in one day. Most of the time, he eats almost everything so there is very little to clear up. He has many good points that mean this is just a minor inconvenience.

Not all do, although mine does (a neutered Tom). He rarely brings anything in but leaves his gifts on the patio outside the doors. We back on to a churchyard so a great hunting ground. We’ve get everything from mice and other small mammals to birds, rabbits and the odd squirrel.
When he’s out the utility door is closed so anything he does bring through his flap is contained.

We’ve had our cat for 4 years, we’ve had 2 gifts in that time. We only let him out in our garden and he does chase things especially insects but it may be that we don’t get that much in our garden. He’s a neutered male. He also rarely scratches furniture preferring his scratching post. Altogether he’s generally well behaved.

Best place to ask is the neighbour who knows the cat. Mine are indoor but they sometimes bring me toy mice 😆

Mine does, but we don't have a cat flap, so he doesn't bring them in the house. Sometimes he brings them to the door and I'll refuse to let him in, he drops them a little further away and runs to grab it when I open the door!

Since our cat died, I have not once seen a mouse. When he was alive, we had mice. I swear he brought them in from the fields and created a problem. He was a sweet boy and didn't kill often. Once when DH was away with DC he brought me a rare and very cute river vole, very much alive. Dropped it in the middle of the living room carpet and sauntered off, as if to say, 'Bit of company for you.' He absolutely refused to help during the two hours I spent trying to catch it and set it free. I swear he thought we were having fun together playing chase.

@Aple We have 4 cats (mum and her 3 kids, all spayed/neutered)

The boy has brought home: bats, mice, birds (live and dead) - thankfully I caught him with the bat outside and managed to remove it. He also fights with neighbour cats and has come home injured a few times.... and he's very often absolutely FILTHY cos he's mostly white and likes to roll around in dirt, climb under cars etc

One of the girls, weirdly, brings home rubbish (bits of sponge, dirty rags etc) she also brings mice (sometimes alive, sometimes dead)

I'm a dab hand and catching them all: birds, bats and mice - it doesn't bother me at all

The mum doesn't bring home anything, and the largest of the 3 kids doesn't either

If you have a genuine fear then I WOULD NOT recommend getting a cat 😂 unless someone else can promise to always deal with the wildlife it may or may not bring to your door

My dad's bought fish skin lol and people's washing

lol what a clever kitty! 😂❤️

We have a proper hunter. She is a 2 year old rescue who was found on death’s door after complications from having many litters of kittens. She had obviously spent her whole life hunting to survive. Now she loves being inside and is the most loving girl - I think she is just happy to be somewhere warm. However, if she is kept inside with no instant access to the outside she will scratch absolutely everything until she is let out so having her as an indoor cat isn’t an option.

We also live next to a wood so she gifts us something from between 2 and 5 times a day! Usually mice but we’ve had the occasional small bird and, on one memorable occasion, a fully grown grasssnake! 9/10 of them are dead but never ever half eaten. I know she does eat them as I’ve seen her out of the window downing a mouse in 4 bites. Cats who bring gifts don’t tend to eat a bit of them first. The gifts she does bring are always intact so I just pick them up in some tissue. If they are alive, I trap them under a plant pot, slide a magazine underneath then release them. The few times we have ‘lost’ a live one in a room, a humane trap gets them and they can be released.

The cat you get is unlikely to hunt like ours but, honestly, the odd dead mouse is nothing.

Nope, he just took, took, took

Two cats: one fat and lazy, the other is a killer. Fortunately, usually mice not birds.

You can get cat flaps that stop them bringing stuff in - they are expensive though
OnlyCat – Microchip Cat Flap with Prey Detection – OnlyCat