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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

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Original poster

dead baby rabbit in my bedroom

55 replies

maniacbug · 07/02/2014 05:51

We have three cats (technically still kittens) and are pretty rural.
Our middle one often wakes me up at around 5am, and when she's doing her deep guttural growl and scuffling about a bit I know she's caught something. Usually it's a mouse or a vole and I intercept if I can or (and I know this is probably bad) leave her to it and then dispose of whatever's left. But this morning, it was a whole baby rabbit. Christ knows how she got it through the cat flap. It was clearly dead but she hadn't started dismembering it or anything. I took it off her, closed its poor little eyes, wrapped it in a cloth and put it in the larder, behind a closed door so she can't get at it. My question is: what do I do with it?! If I take it outside there's a high chance she will find it and bring it in again. I can't put it in the bin, can I? Or the food waste. WWYD?

OP posts:

curlew · 07/02/2014 06:33

Just put it in a bin bag, tie it up and put it in the bin. Or do whatever you would do with a chicken carcass.

We live in the country,so I just tend to chuck them into a hedge so that they at least get eaten by something.

Original poster

maniacbug · 07/02/2014 06:58

Chicken carcass would go in the food waste, but that just feels... wrong.
Kids awake now and DS2(4)'s unhelpful suggestion was: 'you could just throw it in the pond'. Er, no.
I will be doing the outdoors disposal thing as soon as it gets light enough to see. Obvious solution, really, I am just not capable of rational thought pre-6am!

OP posts:

Contraryish · 07/02/2014 07:05

Ours go in the bin. Our old cat once brought in six in the space of two hours.

kaizen · 07/02/2014 07:08

I chuck dead rabbits into the stream near the house - my fat cat brings them in off Dartmoor. I have been known often to run down the path with one on a shovel in my nighty and lob it in before 7am. Off you go!!

cozietoesie · 07/02/2014 07:43

It may be your first but it won't be your last, maniac. Put it outside in a place that the DCs can't see it and it will be found by something.

Just wait until she brings you in grown rabbits - and thank your stars that you will likely never have a rodent problem in the house. There are people on this board who would kill to have a real mouser living with them.

Catsmamma · 07/02/2014 07:45

thank your lucky stars it was dead!

bag it and bin it. ....or scamper off to the local stream in your nighty as Kaizen suggests

kaizen · 07/02/2014 07:45

I still can't work out how a big fat cat can get through a cat flap carrying a fully grown dead rabbit. She must push it through first.....probably don't want to know.

cozietoesie · 07/02/2014 07:48

They manage somehow. The things that posters' cats have managed to bring home through cat flaps are mind-boggling sometimes.

snoggle · 07/02/2014 07:53

Yes just be glad it was fully deceased. There's nothing like a live wood pigeon on the end of your bed at 4 in the morning.

And how he got THAT through the catflap I will never know

kaizen · 07/02/2014 07:59

She brought one of the neighbours small furry pets in one night when I was asleep and it was dead on the rug in the morning. I was genuinely getting worried that I might find her dragging a dartmoor foal though the door in breeding season- she's getting on a bit now though, thank god

Contraryish · 07/02/2014 08:25

Ours brought a hare in once, I watched him do it. You could see the hare's back legs sticking out between his back legs as he went through the cat-flap!

FlankShaftMcWap · 07/02/2014 08:31

Yy to thanking your lucky stars it was dead! Two of my cats paired up and herded and exhausted rabbit onto our doorstep. I heard them meowing and went to let them in and was when a rabbit shot past me up the stairs followed by the cats. I chased them but lost them on the landing and never saw the rabbit again! We searched every room, cupboard and under every bed but not a trace was found.

I spent months expecting to come across a rabbit skull somewhere as I was sure they couldn't have eaten that bit at least but I never did. Poor rabbit.

cozietoesie · 07/02/2014 08:33

You'd have found something, if only a smear. He got back outside again.

That time at least.

Original poster

maniacbug · 07/02/2014 09:55

Ah, I see middle cat is merely an amateur! Though she definitely has the potential to tackle larger beasts in due course. Thankfully no small furry pets or foals round here... Wonder if she could take out a lamb?

Dead rabbit has been gently laid to rest underneath a hedge. (I wasn't quite up to the nightie/shovel/stream approach kaizen, but hats off to you!)

DCs wanted to see it and were totally unfazed; DD even declared that she was 'cross with (middle cat), but also quite proud of her'.

To be honest, I hadn't realised rabbit season had started already.
Bracing myself for more to come...

OP posts:

FlankShaftMcWap · 07/02/2014 09:56

I really hope so cozie, I've puzzled about that for years!

cozietoesie · 07/02/2014 10:24

Maybe an amateur but she's only young yet. Just wait until she's in her prime!

PS - you do realize that she'll teach the other two as well ?

Fluffycloudland77 · 07/02/2014 11:03

It sounds like you have an interesting summer ahead of you.

Birgitz · 07/02/2014 11:17

We lock our cat in at night (and she happily sleeps at the bottom of our bed) as we've been woken up one too many times with 'presents'!

DameFanny · 07/02/2014 11:22

I always put remnants and corpses into the food waste - it's all compost.

We had a live baby rabbit last year though. I managed to get it outside but not into the lane as I'd hoped - it struggled out of my hands and into a flowerbed. Where my neighbours dog made one mouthful of it. Sigh.

Shartibartfast · 07/02/2014 11:22

We had half a rabbit once (the bottom half, complete with fluffy ickle white bobtail...) I have no idea what happened to the top half, but the kitchen looked like something out of The Exorcist. Love cats...love 'em!

Shartibartfast · 07/02/2014 11:23

Oh, and also a live mouse dropped on my bed at 3 in the morning. cats remain downstairs now!

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 07/02/2014 11:30

Not sure rabbit season ever stops

Chopsypie · 07/02/2014 11:34

I was once staying with a friend she I was woken up by her shouting. Her cat had brought her 2 rats, and dropped them next to her. At 3am.

From then on she kept him in at night.

SecretRed · 07/02/2014 11:40

Oh God I am never ever ever getting a cat. Just reading this thread will give me nightmares

tibbysmum · 07/02/2014 11:44

we've also woken up to an excited cat playing with a (thankfully dead) rat on our bed at 4am. Ugh!

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