Stopping cats from bringing prey indoors

[villagecorner]

How can I stop my cats from doing this? They wear quick release collars with bells already and are kept in from around 6 PM until it's light in the morning, around 7.30 AM. I had a dead mouse last night and a live one tonight which I spent an hour trying to catch. We've also had other mice, frogs and a slow worm in the last couple of months. I don't want to keep coming home to the bodies. Are my only options to lock them out all day or shut them in all day?

They are cats. That's what they do!

Well it's sort of what they do really.

You are doing anything you can do.

They are cats.

Was very impressed by the slightly traumatised wood pigeon our cat brought in. She had to get it through three cat flaps!

Its a gift!

Itsallgoing Your cat really, really loves you DS and DD are impressed

this is why we have never got around to putting a cat flap in the kitchen door....we have a porch, window always open if cats are out, so they can get back in, but any dead/half dead stuff stays out there.

if we're in, the top half of the kitchen door is usually open too, but then you hear them announcing if they have something and slam the top door shut

Yesterday morning I woke up to a decapitated mouse on the hall rug, and a very traumatised live wren flying around the kitchen. Mice I don't mind too much, but I was almost as upset about the wren as I was last winter when I found the robin from our garden lying dead on the doormat

It's the only thing I dislike about cats.

My mum used to awaken to the delight of rat's heads on her pillow.

One cat I had used to bring in worms and put them down just where my bare feet hit the floor when getting out of bed (mmmmm, lovely). Another would bring me lumps of bread put out for the birds, and leaves in Autumn - lots and lots of leaves. Both those cats are from the time I lived in central London so the prey:cat ratio was different; hence fewer birds, mice etc, and more strange stuff (a whole fish fillet once).

They are cats. You may as well let them in and out all night as you'll never stop them. Or move to a very urban area with trees. The leaf thing was delightful and hilarious.

MCat presented me with 4 dead stoats (yes really) over 2 days once.

Since he's been a town-cat, I've had 2 mice (one dead, one alive) and a frog. The frog screamed, I never knew they did that. but I do now

I get daily mice, shrews, birds and a whole large rat recently. Huntercat has also brought home rabbits, pigeons and unknowns where the entrails were unidentified.

Actually the greater problem is Feistycat who has watched him, learnt how to catch mice but won't eat them so let's them go in my bedroom where they run under the king size bed and pee and poo while we try and get them out with cereal boxes and broom handles.

I prefer the dead bodies. Far easier to deal with.

One theory is that they think you are a really bad hunter and will starve. So they bring you things to practise on.

Our old cat, a very competent hunter, top quality scavenger and beggar, and all around absolute pig, was quite.... rotund. Quite rotund indeed.

At some point, he realised that once he got his paws on a rat or mouse, simply settling his vast weight down upon the wee creature would result in not only death, but also a comfortable brain-eating position - rodent body under cat, head poking out between paws.

He tended to lose interest after the head was consumed, but being a thoughtful type, he'd invite us to finish up by delivering a headless pancake rodent into the living room roughly every day.

Never could stop him.

DHs old cat once brought us a pound of sausages stolen from a neighbours kitchen
and a burger stolen from a BBQ burned his paws in the process
and some nice slabs of kebab meat

and the various rodents

my thick cat catches goldfish

Talkin your thick cat sounds like a genius to me.
My thick cat catches socks. He steals them from the neighbour's washing line, or even her washing box.

He is jolly proud of his catches. I am less proud of him.

zebra
Except that they were our pet goldfish that we had bred and he left them dismembered on the door mat
the new fish have a safe barricade over their pond

Oh, so maybe not a genius genius then!

I do prefer the socks that thick cat hunts to the headless beasts that my other cat used to hide in our shoes.

Coolas, we had 2 of the stoats stuffed and mounted. Sometimes he sits next to them and reminisces.

I wish our cats would catch our fish. We have wanted to fill the pond in (except for smallish corner for frogs) but can't as it's full of fish. Everytime we force persuade someone to take a few, they spawn and have babies. Will the cats eat the buggers? They will not.

DD woke us up early last weekend to tell us there was a pile of pigeon feathers in the hall. On investigation there appeared to be no bird. I spent the following days on sniff alert in case it was rotting somewhere. Didn't find it so can only assume the cat ate it then took the rest outside.

Lots of mice. The last alive one the cat dropped at my feet then sauntered off.

One of my uncle's old cats used to bring in smoked salmon. In a packet.

I just get mice.

Mine old girl proudly brings back rabbits. After a short demonstration of how she caught them she leaves them close to someone so they can eat them. She likes to do this for guests - my mother and SIL weren't too impressed but the eight 11 year olds round for a birthday party thought it was cool.

After a polite wait (of about 5 min) she then starts eating them at the ear end with gruesome crunching sounds. Half way down she pauses and goes for a sleep before finishing in a second sitting.

By the end of the summer I had lost count of the amount of times I found a half eaten rabbit with its intestines spread across the kitchen floor. Even the children stopped commenting and stepped over them.