Anyone else have a teeth chatterer?

[RubbishMantra]

I've never seen first hand evidence of this until Mkitten came to live with us. He does it whilst stalking flies! It's accompanies by a sort of whinge, very cute!

All of my Siamese have done it on occasion - when watching prey displaying. It seems to be something they do when the prey is out of reach and they know it: when they're on an actual hunt, it usually becomes quiet and deadly serious.

My rosiecat does it staring at the birds when she is indoors sitting by the patio door.

It's hilarious isn't it!

I've always wanted a cat that does this. When he does it, it sounds a bit like he's laughing

Ours does it when he's watching birds from the windowsill. He's a great hunter and the other hunty cats I've had in the past have all done it. You might have to get yours a collar with a bell unless you want feathery gifts on your doormat!

He did his first murder last night! A fly. Then he ate it, looking proud and disgusted at the same time.

Darling Oneago trapped a fly once and ate it without remembering to kill it first - and it buzzed away in his windpipe for about 20 minutes. I wish I'd had a camera back then to capture the embarrassed look on his face. Priceless.

@ your buzzing cat cozie!

He just killed and ate a daddy-long-legs. With apparent enjoyment. Tastier than flies perhaps?

No taste but an easy catch and swallow. Prideful probably isn't in it.

(Did he manage to swallow all the legs?)

I think he did swallow all legs - he munched the main body then snuffled about looking for any stray legs.

But cozie, how do you know what daddy-long-legs taste like: "No taste" Research huh?

Crikey, he's just caught another fly! Not just beautiful and charming, but he can also keep the house fly-free!

Hah! (They haven't got enough to them to taste, I reckon - just flitter noisily about and pretty well the only thing which would get my Siamese out of bed of a night.)

Oh Yes- you won't have too many flies from now. (But watch the china!)

Yep, my Daisy titters and chatters at the birds in the garden. We have a conservatory with no dwarf wall (i.e glass to ground level) and it's like the worlds biggest HD tv to my two!

Both of mine chatter - it's really funny

Kitten has proven himself to be an excellent bug killer - he has dispatched a fly, spider, dragonfly and multiple mozzies so far this week

He's ace

Can I borrow him? My two look vaguely interested but can't be bothered to chase or eat them when there are so many mice, shrews, rabbits etc out there.

Pains, only thing I actually want them to eat and they can't be arsed.

haha sure, for a small fee

My old 2 did this mostly when stalking birds or squirrels. Daft animals

cozie do they chatter when the bird is out of reach because they're stupid enough to think bird will fly closer?!

Mine do it while watching the birds - we call it tooth-gnashing

I've got 2 who chatter & one who doesn't

The littlest newest one (formerly one of the Ivy kittens) does it particularly well - I have a clip of her doing it but we can't upload those here, can we?

the one who doesn't chatter is the best flycatcher though

I don't think so, Super. I think it's more of a 'Boy if I was closer, I could really have that one!' excited announcement to everyone. (Who can tell what's really in a cat's mind though.)

My little black cat is chatterer. So adorable. My youngest dd loves him as he stalked and ate a wasp that was in her room. He did spit the wings out, though!

You could post a link to it if it's on Youtube TheOne?

Desmond Morris reckons it's them getting ahead of themselves and practising the kill bite before they actually have the prey. Mine used to do it when pigeons sat on the guttering of our second floor flat. Never actually caught a bird in his life, just mice and spiders.

I don't have a YouTube account, RM

No idea how to start one - is it easy?