Question about cats hunting

[Meid]

Does your cat actually eat their prey?

I have had cats all my life and found that they will generally eat small things they catch such as bugs but last night my cat caught a rodent (large mouse or small rat) and I think she ate it. I saw her munching away and the next time I looked it was gone. All that was left was a trace of blood and no sign of any body parts.

I know it is natural but I have never seen a pampered pet cat do this before which got my curiousity.

Old cat ate all their prey and left one bit poss liver/kidney/bowel? Sparkling Cat brings them back whole and never eats any of them.

Sometimes and sometimes not.

The Lodger used to mainly play with his prey but sometimes would end up eating bits or the whole thing. It seemed to be independent of what meals he'd been given by us.

Who can tell what they think.

Maybe instinct occasionally drives them to get some nutrient by eating all or part of their prey if they're not getting enough in their food?

Just a thought.

Huntercat eats a lot of his catches, mice, shrews, small birds. Half a rabbit. No idea why as he begs for food all the time from the tins too. Didn't want his whole blackbird the other day though brought it in for me and I muttered gratitude and lobbed it back into the garden where he ignored it. But he has eaten a fair portion of pigeon before.

Next doors cat dragged a whole rabbit onto their garden table last year and lightly snacked on it for a week, yeuch.

My hunter cat also eats very small prey, voles mainly, and keeps birds and mice as gifts/war trophies.

Weirdly she's stopped hunting for the last few weeks, is it due to hibernation of prey?

My old Bengal ate most of his catches. Sometimes left 1/2 under the dining room table, or just left part of intestines . Nice. Current BSH cats never eat anything, these two don't catch much as they are restricted to our garden, previous one who was free range got a few mice/voles a week but always just left them by or in his food bowl!

My last cat ate everything he caught - birds, mice, rats, squirrels... despite having a full food bowl twice a day.

My sister's cat, a farm cat originally, would not touch a mouse or any other kind of prey if his life depended on it. She originally got him to keep the mice down in her flat, as it was infested with them.

No dice!

I doubt it was the liver they left - more likely the gall bladder. This is what DCat used to leave from mice and rats - she wouldn't actually eat the shrews, moles, birds and bats she caught. She was from a farm, and MumCat had obviously trained her to hunt very well :) Now 17, she retired from hunting about 6 years ago, when we moved away from the well-stocked allotments.

My cat mostly eats everything as he is very greedy. Sometimes we find bits of what might be a liver left behind. There was an occasion where he brought in a bird, ate the head and then went straight to his food bowl. He also left us a large rat on Christmas Eve I suspect this was because he was proud of his efforts. A few months ago he kept bring us frogs in the bedroom. Apparently they don't taste nice to cats so that was why we were getting them. We did not realise they played dead until the first one jumped out of the bin.

The tail less wonder catches the vermin and kills them. The lazy posh arrogant boy then eats the mice, he doesn't like rat.
The tail less wonder hunts for fun.

My late cat used to catch baby bunnies and leave them intact on the doorstep looking like a Clintons Card toy.....luckily we luffed her v much....

Just before Christmas one year, DCat presented us with our local robin. Very festive

Sparkly - that made me snigger! Sorry!

Our cats sometimes eat what they catch, sometimes don't! The middle one once grabbed a whole steak I was prepping in the kitchen and ran out with it to promptly eat the entire thing about 30 seconds flat!

I was rather hoping someone would snigger :) I remember at the time of finding said robin, I felt an odd mixture of pride at DCat's hunting, sad for the robin, and wry amusement at DCat's timing

Of all the 50 or so cats, or even more, I've had living with me, only two, to my knowledge, have hunted. One killed, but didn't eat, the very occasional bird. One killed and ate mice, complete with crunching noises and a final sort of slurp as the tail disappeared last - yuk.

I'm very thankful that I haven't had more hunters.

all of my cats have been hunters. And sometimes they eat the catch and sometimes not.

the children have all been giblets/tails/feathers under the table aware since being very small.

One of mine caught a robin too....couple of years back, but it had a ring on its leg from Stavanger. It lived to pose for christmas cards another day!!

The Lodger was a ferocious hunter but not all his prey were killed outright. I've spent more hours trying to track down smells in the house ..............