Bloody cat bringing prey into the house.

[Sparrowlegs248]

I have two cats. Cat1, massive, cPL cat, older. Doesn't hunt. Mice can run or stroll past him and he just watches.

Cat2 is 2 yes old. She brings mice etc in quite frequently. Sometimes dead, often alive. We have had to catch live mice loads if times. But now she has really honed her skills and I know has left at least a couple of live mice in the house that we've not caught.

We have a cat flap. I have said we should put the cats out before bed, then call them in at bedtime and lock the flap. They have a litter tray. Cat1 can go all night without using it. So cat2 should be able to. Dh locks the flap then cat2 goes crackers in the night so he let's her out but won't lock her out. So this morning l, a mutilated body and blood all over the floor. And an ominous smell when I used the grill so fairly sure there's a body in the cooker ffs.

Other than locking her in or out, is there any other deterrent? I'd just lock her in or out but bloody husband won't. I'd rather get up at 2 am to call her in than to catch a mouse.

At least its only mice ☺ Mine brought home all sorts, the biggest catch was a squirrel, seconded by snakes followed by rats and birds. Mice were the least of our problems. She stopped when all these creatures were down to a minimum or gone all together. She was 15 when she "retired" and left the hunting to the younger cats in the neighbourhood, though happily chased them off from her turf. She got to 19 before being pts and had a happy hunters life. The male cat rarely hunted though... he slept and cuddled dogs and humans alike!

I would lock her in during the night tbh and forbid dh to let her out during the night. If she is left out; she stays out and any prey brought back is rewarded, outside, before she is let back in. That is what we had to do to avoid half alive snakes on the floor trying to slither away with happy proud cat bouncing around it. If dh Does make the mistake allowing her in and out unsupervised then he needs to catch the mice roaming the house.

Luckily no house-mice (I think), Pony.

But MCat (my other cat) used to be a bit of a Vlad the Impaler during his teenage dickhead stage, and lived in the countryside. We'd wake up to live partridges running amok, mice in our shoes/pockets. Thankfully he stopped when he reached his personal best of 4 stoats over 2 days.

He never harmed the chickens though, probably because they were bigger than him when he was a kitten. He still does an excellent "Bwarrrrk chicken noise to this day.

We got a couple of mice when he became a townie, and that was it. Little M brought in a frog once, so he could gently pat it to make it leap, and they SCREAM! I was trying to rescue the daft thing, and it was screaming at me.

Frogs do scream! Old cat used to bring them.in often, live. And a large live fish on one memorable occasion!

Haha screaming frogs is a horrific sound. Especially if they happen in the middle of the night and you are alone in the house and just watched a horror!

Teacherbob does have a point. Some cats kill and if they are a happily owned, well fed cat, they do it for fun. They prefer playing with their new found toys in the safety of their own home and really, we just have to resign ourselves to being the clean up squad or keep them in all the time. We'd all rather they didn't do it, but it's a part of cat ownership.

I feel your pain, my cat is a hunter too, she's 11 now and still does several a week if she can be arsed. She likes live ones too and dh regularly has to pull out the fridge and kitchen cupboard plinths to retrieve them. She is kept in at night but still manages to find plenty of prey during the day so keeping her in at night might not totally solve your problem. The key we've found is restricting her movement after the cat flap so utility room door is kept shut unless we are around to check if she's alone when she comes in! I did think earlier on when I was getting something out of the freezer that there was a familiar smell coming from behind the freezer, sigh .....

Luckily, as it is now getting on to Winter, your cat's hunting is liable to slow down, in my experience.

Beyond that, you can obviously keep the cats in eight till eight, or something. I used to do this with my cats. Didn't stop them hunting/scavenging though. Memorably, during the curfew, they ate all the koi in the pond, and bought back numerous stuff they had stolen from neighbours, like bags of defrosting steak!

At the end of the day, cats are cats. Curfew would stop them bringing stuff in at 2 in the morning, though! Good luck - hope you resolve it.

The hunting has really increased in the last few weeks though, much more than spring/summer.

So.......husband locked the cat flap last night. Cat created havoc at 2am so he shut her downstairs. Got up this morning to find he had only half locked it, so she had got out but couldn't get in.

She was however hanging around the back door none the worse for it

I wonder if you were the kids that lived near me teacher? I'm still waiting on the parents to pay for our car repair about 20 years later. Little fucking gobshites with ineffective parents.

As for the mice OP, wankercat does the same. Keeping her in didn't help as she just learned to bring then in earlier.

I've posted similar before and a poster described her cat only being allowed n the front door so he could be checked for "guests". Apparently cat learned to keep mouse under one paw so he looked empty mouthed and the quickly pick it up and run in when the door was opened!