What to do when the cat gets a mouse?

[Italiangreyhound]

Cat got a teeny, tiny, mouse. I did an attempt to get him away but he was like a tiger. In the end we did get the mouse free, still alive, put it in the bushes. Not sure if it was stunned or injured.

Just not sure what to do when it happens again.

If I thought cat would kill it and eat it I would feel happier but just playing with it did not seem fair.

Nature is cruel!

If we catch the cat with a live mouse, we try and get the mouse off the cat (not always easy) and set it free.

I have been known at 3am, when I've discovered the cat has a dead mouse, just to leave him to it and clear up the remains in the morning much to dh's disgust

Seniorboy is no longer interested in mice and recent mousers have eaten the lot. (Or killed outside.) I'll confess to putting anything I find (if recently dead) down the loo - or if alive, fling it outside. They don't live long after a cat attack I think: as for birds, shock and filthy-mouthed bites usually affect them pretty quickly.

The one time recently that I found an aged corpse, it went in the bin. (I tracked it by smell to where it had run to hide from The Lodger. (I assume.))

Mice generally go into to stunned mode so I manage to scoop it up alive and well and evict it to the bushes out the front where the cats don't go!

Ugh, it is disgusting, isn't it? I have taken to barricading the kitchen door so that if the cat is out at night and comes back with a mouse, it can't get into the sitting room or bedrooms. I can (just about) cope with spotting a dead mouse on the kitchen tiles. I can't handle the surprise corpses that leap out at you from the kids' toybox or between your toes as you get out of bed. Worst was when the cat brought me a 'present' when I was actually IN bed - she thoughtfully pulled it under the covers for me.

If I'm around when the mouse is brought in, I distract the cat by offering food, then put a saucepan over the mouse (if dead). dp then has to deal with it

it's rare they are not shocked practically to death tbh, I don't bother to separate any cat from its catch....bundle the pair out to the garden and leave them to it.

otherwise you end up with an angry ct indoors and a half dead mouse to deal with.

any birds that escape are given the chance to fly away, or shut in a box for half an hour or so to recover and then dh will do the needful if required.

Clear up the stomach and smear of blood in the morning

My girl once caught one that came in through my patio door...downstairs in the bedroom. I was upstairs, and DD saw her with what she thought was "fluff and a lace" in her mouth! [boak] She then let it go and was chasing it around in circles!

DD said she then had it on my beautiful white eiderdown, paw holding it down

I called DS, who is a caretaker and was at work. I sobbed down the phone begging him to take his break and come around. He arrived with his caretaker broom and a shoebox, and dispatched the (now dead) mouse, which was so tiny I then felt really bad.

It happened in the garden so all your stories are far more dramatic than mine. My only real concern was the mouse!

Our cat used to mass murder any small animalis - his proudest moment was a couple of stoats. One day DH found a live mouse in his coat pocket - he'd been wearing it all day and not noticed . Thankfully he's lost interest in killing and I've got a humane mouse trap for the odd one he brings in.

Full grown stoats?

I found a dead, mauled rat on DD's bedroom floor the other day. Thankfully I didn't step on it.

Generally, when the cats bring in something live I will try and rescue the poor creature (much to the annoyance of the cat, who looks so proud of his or her catch) and put it in the garden. If they bring in a toad or frog, though, I tend to put the creature into a damp salad bowl with some foliage and release it into the countryside when I'm driving. At least they have a fighting chance of escaping my cats' predatory jaws that way.

We think the stoats were juveniles Cozie, as he got them both in one day . Then another time a whole family of bunnies...Thankfully he's grown out of it since he became a town cat. just the very occasional mouse.

Strewth. I was thinking you were giving house room to a young leopard there. Even juvenile stoats are no mean thing - they're fast and vicious animals: much worse that rats when they're cornered.

The last time I just shut them in the kitchen. It's awful but then to have a half-dead mouse in a lot of pain seems worse to me. I usually just find the corpses though. Mine loves moles.

Oh mine love moles too, Zen! I would pay good money to see how on earth they catch them. I mean, you don't exactly see moles wandering around, do you?! The last mole I had to rescue was vey much alive and scratched me to hell. It was HUGE!

They WAIT. For absolute HOURS. (Watching a cat on a serious stalk where they're really interested is illuminating - they'll just sit quietly....and sit.......and sit...... and sit......... Until the prey thinks the coast is clear and comes out.)

I'd love to see that, Cozie! I've come home from work before to find Millie the tortie staring fixedly at the bookcase and it's emerged there's a petrified vole behind there...I always get the impression she's been there for hours!

One of ours loves to bring in mice or frogs, usually at around our bedtime in the evenings. We catch and release where possible, much to the cat's disgust. We've had several cases where THE SMELL lead us to dead mice. The one time we virtually dismantled dd's room to find it.

We've never had a live mole fortunately. We did have a live bird once. Luckily DH was home to deal with it. We put it in a box for about 30 minutes and when I opened the box outside it just flew off.

We have a tonne of feathers outside our backdoor from when he caught a pigeon. I was hoping they would biodegrade or something but they have been there all winter.

Our cat is blind in one eye but it doesn't seem to hinder his hunting at all.

Oh and we've had a snake which was small (and we later found out harmless) but still very much alive. That one was fun.

Presenting a kitten with a toy snake is a moment akin to First Snow or First Look in Mirror. They quickly become blase but on first seeing them - Wow!

(If you can find one, borrow one of those Indian craft snakes that are made of wooden segments held together with a long strip of leather and which undulate sinuously if held in the middle. They'll go bananas.)

I remember as a child seeing one of the feral farm cats with a snake! It was tossing it up and batting it with his paws while leaping like nutcase! - and it was a big old snake! I assume it can only have been a grass snake as the cat was fine but it the biggest snake Ive ever seen in the wild in Britain.

Who can tell - cats are extremely good with snakes. You can clearly see from a kitten's first reaction that instinct is telling them precisely what they're dealing with.