Which breed/colour of cat are best hunters?

[Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain]

Mine is a tabby white moggy. Excellent hunter, recently upped her game to rats!

previous half Siamese half moggy good hunter but preferred mice and frogs, scared of rats.

Half oriental white cat and sister black with white bits. Ferocious duo, apart from rats. One fell into the pond once as she was trying to catch fish and got tangled up in the net. Wood pigeons, mice, nothing was sacred. Had a white brother next door who was part of their hunting gang I suspect…

Tabby childhood cat, Tigger, not that big but ferocious rat hunter dead and alive, caught them daily much to the disgust of my mum. Once bitten by one, only time at vet, lived to 17/18 with no boosters.

Best hunter we had was a female grey tabby. She brought rabbits in and left a massive dead rat on the back doorstep. She also emptied a nest of baby birds after killing their mum :(

As a child we had rats get into gas fire and disused tumble dryer. From being brought in by Tigger. My stepdad beat the dryer with a plank of wood trying to get to the rat inside it, in the snow. With us all watching from French windows. Rat never found! 🤣

Awww poor baby birds. :-(

my white cat snowy apparently chased a baby squirrel into a pond, neighbors, and was in their garage catching mice, his black paw pads gave him away.

Tabbies do seem like good hunters.

Dryer was outside in garden.

White, black, grey, tabby all the same in my experience! Age and temperament much more important than colour. Even our white cat, which I would have thought is the worst colour for stealth, brings in a regular donation of rodents and rabbits.

My tortie girl has never caught anything in her life. She did once catch a bee I suppose, which she was quite proud of. Otherwise though, she prefers lounging on the patio!

I have a black cat who is quite good but lazy if being fed well. He has brought home mice, birds and a baby rabbit once. He is meant to be on a diet due to being a bit on the porky side but if we reduce his food he does a lot of hunting. If we give him the usual portion he tends to leave the wildlife alone. So in the interests of wildlife and neighbourly relations he is a slightly fat cat. I have no doubt he could survive in the wild though if he had to.

I had a ginger Tom who was a fabulous hunter - we live next to fields so had problems with mice getting into the house, which completely stopped when the cat arrived. Current tabby boy is much less effective - he can’t be arsed frankly.

Funnily enough of all the cats I've had my white ones are ridiculously efficient

My Bengal was a demon hunter in her younger days. She tried to bring down a muntjac deer that got our back garden once. DH had to grab her so the poor deer could escape.

My big standard moggy tabby of uncertain origins has always been a big hunter. Many rodents, birds and rabbits and generally eats them all. Except moles. Catches those but doesn't eat them. He's getting on a bit now though and doesn't seem as prolific.

When I was a child we had a posh pedigree British shorthair, white with black tips. He was a big hunter too. He was followed by a moggy who was a very dark chocolate brown, so dark he looked black but on sunlight you could see brown reflections and stripes. Anyway he was entirely useless. He would catch things but not even injured them and then let them go in the house. Many memories of trying to trap birds and rabbits to evict them and an understanding that mice would probably just be an ongoing feature of the pantry cupboard.

I posted a picture of him recently on a thread about getting rid of rats. He's 19 and now retired after a car hit him and fractured his pelvis last year. He was an excellent ratter. Neighbours either side love him because when other neighbours had a rat infestation we had nothing.

My teeny tiny tortie girl is a menace! She’s an absolute killer! Brings in birds (seagulls) twice the size of her!

Current tuxedo boy is a terror. He's only titchy but is totally fearless. Like an adorable black and white weasel. Wish he'd lay off the slow worms though.

My white cat was a demon. Wouldn’t think it to look at him. Likewise his white brother. Sister who was black with white bits equally as good.

He’s the same colouring as my Tilly! Photo won’t load.

In general, I get the impression that females tend to be slightly better than males and moggies a bit better than many breeds - though that is very dependant on the breed! Anything that's got a bit of the wilder breed in them e.g. Bengal, tend to be a bit better whereas I've never heard of a Persian who was a demon hunter. A lot depends on their upbringing of course.

Then again, these are very much generalisations! My exceptionally thick ex-feral, who we think was either ND or had been damaged when young, and showed signs of dyspraxia (from a cat point of view) falling off things, was a total coward and had the attention span of a paralytic gnat, turned out to be an incredible hunter when I had mice get in the house. Whereas his litter sister, who otherwise was a very normal cat, would catch them but end up losing them in the house.

A deer?! Wowzer!

Ha see even the posh pedigrees are good hunters!

Forgot to say. Both were black (though Girlcat is actually charcoal tabby) with white undercoats, and from their coats and shape we think there's a bit of oriental in there somewhere.

Tobias, typical tabby & white who spent 2 years on the streets as a stray so you would imagine was a good hunter by need, was hopeless when we had a mouse here recently. He would watch Girlcat stalking it with a slightly puzzled expression & show no other interest.

My little black Tomcat worked his way through the British book of birds when younger. He managed to catch a swift once (think he used to hide in our tree, waiting for them to perch) but the most impressive was a magpie. He’s sadly declining rapidly at the moment, will miss him dreadfully when he’s gone.

From my experience both males I had were good hunters and my childhood tabby male was an excellent ratter. He was found in a cardboard box left outside a restaurant, by my dad.

The feisty, bold, extrovert half Siamese half moggy (Felix) was a good hunter and he had an Ikea rattus white rat toy which he played with. One day he saw it and ran away didn’t like it, I think he’d encountered a rat outside, tried to catch it but it hissed or tried to bite him. He also went missing for a week think locked in a garage or shed. He must’ve caught stuff in there.

All cats need a hobby, his was bird watching.

Yeah the white and black and white sibling pair I had (siblings) were half iriental, had green/orange eyes and slightly oriental Jaw.

one once dropped a mouse down back of sofa, my live in boyfriend had habit of losing money down back of sofa from holes in trousers, pound coins. I pulled out its skeleton. Boy did I scream that morning!

I'm afraid I've never had a cat that wasn't a murdering little sod
Black, Grey, Grey tabby, pale ginger. Tortoiseshell and white, all very much of a muchness.
However my mum had a brown Burmese and that thing was in a different league 🙀