Do all cats bring their owners "presents", especially birds?

[Heated]

Have been thinking for a while about a getting a pair of cats, rather than kittens, probably from a re-homing centre.

But as dh points out, cats bring home "presents" and as he knows I'm not overly keen on rodents but I detest birds, to the point I would say I am phobic.

So, I need to know do all cats bring home birds? Do they do it a lot? Is there any way of choosing a cat who won't do this or a way of dissuading them?

I mean they aren't presents...

ours bring in mice, shrews and birds. They both have safety collars and it has not decreased their hunting, both the girl and boy hunt. Infact I notice the femala catches the prey, the male pinches it and then brings it to us. The dog then tries to eat it, dd tries to photohraph it and dp shouts. I just drink wine and watch, occasionally jumping on the sofa screaming but taking care not to spill anything. The fish do nothing, boring bastards.

Twinset - pmsl!!

Our cat has brought in mice and (horror) rats. Luckily always dead by the time I see them. He tried to bring in a young blackbird once but I shouted at him so long and hard he took it back outside again and let it go and I think it got away.

He has also brought in frogs and toads but they are always alive (apparenntly they don't taste nice) and I've been able to rescue those.

My mum's cat used to bring in huge pigeons and rabbits, etc. But she was utterly fearless. RIP Tuppence.

Mine brings his prey to the garden but never into the house. A liberator (movement sensor bleeping type thing £10 at pets at home) he lost in 10 mins. The other two don't hunt.

So in 8 years of cat ownership never had a mouse/bird in the house!

They once went through a phase of bringing in the same ( I think it was the same starling) one morning I woke up and this bird was asleep on the pillow, next morning in the shower and that evening sat on the toilet.

Could not bear a rat in the house.

My cat used to bring me earthworms.

She used to wake me up in the morning and drop them on the bed for me.

Her favourite snack was house spiders.

No birds, or mice, though.

"By mabanana on Sat 01-Nov-08 23:34:58
They aren't 'presents' by the way. The animal isn't giving them to you, they are simply bringing their prey into their inner territory. "

(Incorporating your correction )

I always thought that, but on a previous farm where I actually fed the lone feral (female) cat (and provided tinned cat meat at weaning time once a year - I was a new ex-townie ) she would leave a sad wee row of two to four voles of some description, untouched (but dead) on my doorstep. In season, of course.

well, that's a good point, oldlady.

pepsi, our female tuxedo cat, has brought 'presents' in in order to eat them in peace.

i once got out of the shower to find her bolting away from a bi-sected mouse.

eeeewww.

I've always had female cats. Some have brought 'presents', some haven't.

One brought only robins and mice, always dead. She used to line then up neatly on the front doorstep for us. [ewww]

The older cat I have now only brings live things, but I think she thinks she's every animals mum. I briefly stayed on my parents farm with her (before I met Dh) and she'd bring baby rabbits back to the house, and put them in her 'bed' then mother them. Then she'd cry when we took them away from her.

She tries to bring birds and mice in now, but our younger cut thinks 'hmm..takeout' and then they don't live much longer.

cut???? cat

How could I forget about the worms? It is the time of the year our garage floor is about to be littered with remnants of earthworms they bring us. They have a definite system, guts by the front door, worms in the garage.

BTW, we had one male cat and two females. The male cat died several years ago, and we haven't noticed a drop in "presents" from the cats.

Don't know about frogs & toads not tasting very nice - not sure which of my 3 cats is responsible but I keep finding headless ones on the patio, yuk!!

My cat doesn't. She failed the "Hunting" module at Cat School, as well as failing the "Agility Class" (can not scale a wall to save her life) and didn't attend the Seminar on "How to Defend Yourself against Other Cats" (have spent a fortune on Vets fees when she has been injured in fights; she is now not allowed out at night).
When she was younger she brought in a couple of lizards but then we had her spayed and she just let herself go .... she's Garfield's long lost sister.
We believe she may have got lost and ended up at Dog School because she growls when people come to the door.
We think she is also a Cat version of the Shark in Finding Nemo - "Mice Are Friends". She LOVES cheese, but hates fish.
She's weird but we love her

My cat is evil

What you want is a Ragdoll cat

I have four. Our poor old tom who has had two accidents now mainly sleeps and keeps the younger ones in check.

The eldest female only catches twigs, and lovingly leaves them on our carpet.

The youngest boy catches rats, bilbies and mice but doesn't bring them to us.

The youngest girl catches everything and then tortures them by drowning them in her water bowl. Once she caught a rat and upon finding it too big for her water bowl dumped it in the toilet. I screamed the house down when it caught me unawares when I was lowering my nethers onto the toilet seat.

But don't let me put you off

BTW, they've never caught birds. We have a rescued house parrot and he's managed to evade all of them. Now they don't bother.

The parrot gets revenge by dropping things on them.

And birds are sweet. Nothing like those scary bloody butterflies, with their flapping wings and hairy bodies [shudder]

[grin[ arfishy one of our childhood cats used to catch squirrels. We lived in a semi-rural village- big fields and a wood opposite our house- plenty of variety.

He used to eat the main body of whatever animal, and leave the fur rolled up next to the tail and the feet. Usually in the conservatory.

We did also have a black lab who used to bring slugs into the hall to 'pop' them, mainly in front of my very squeamish sister.

arfishy my cat left the biggest rat you've ever seen under our bed... BLEEEURGH!!!

What's worse - it must've been there 3 or 4 days until i wondered what the pong was!

I have a slightly podgy, very lazy cat who never brings anything in.

IME young males are most likely to do it, but females hunt too.

Look for something resembling Garfield

One of our previous cats used to bring us all sorts of interesting things - half a sponge cake, a packet of out-of-date bacon, a pork chop bone (all, we assume from the bins). He never actually hunted anything living, as far as we can tell - though he assured us that the sponge cake in particular put up a tremendous fight, and he only won thanks to his immense bravery.

Of our current two cats, one has adopted ds1 as 'his' person, and brings birds and mice to leave in ds1's room. Given that ds1 has a somewhat lax attitude to tidying, I worry what I am going to find when I go in there to muck out!!

sunnygirl.

I think I've got ghosty's cats brother. We always joke that he missed the 'how to be a cat' lessons at school. Attempts to catch butterflies are always the best. He did manage to bring in a mouse once a couple of years ago, but the kind of 'flatness' of it suggests he might just be bringing in roadkill...

As for 'defending yourself against other cats'. Rule number one for ours is to run at the enemy and roll over. Next door have just bought a kitten. Our eight year old cat has been too scared to go outside since.

Seriously though, most hunting is done at night, if you can get a four-way lockable cat flap and set it so that they can get out but not back in again every night, then they have to eat the stuff on the doorstep rather than bring it in.

TheInvisibleGuyWentBANG your cat who likes to mother the local wildlife sounds utterly adorable

Only sloworms
Only endangered species are good enough for our cat!!

I did post about this a while ago but you need to praise your cat for doing this. They think you are the head cat and bring these things to please you. iIf you say 'yuck ,naughty cat' then you are showing your displeasure and they will do it all the more in order to get you to be pleased.

(I haven't read the whole thread, sorry if someone has already said this)

My dog has started bringing me dead mice since I have been pregnant, I have had 4 in the last 2 days despite her having a bell on her collar.