Cats

[mellonia]

Hi

I just want to say how much i love cats, i love my chooks but they can't beat my cats, my kits are truly amazing. Lottie who is fluffy like postman pats cat jess the double, and Emily who is black and gorgeous are black cats good luck cos my em is all black will she bring me good luck.

My mum has just got a border terrier puppy and although she is gorgeous she is really hard work, i have looked after twice now different afternoons to give my mum a break, and both times she has gone home and left me with a stonking headache, she is into everything all the time at 30 miles an hour. i just am not a doggy person, i find them too demanding, each to his own i know people tend to be really into dogs, but they are not for me. It wouldn't do for us all to like the same things. I can safely say i will never get a dog, i hope my mum copes with her cos i don't want to aquire her by default, she is really cute and i did say to my mum you can forgive her most things as she is cute.

Mellonia

[Mo]

Yes, I feel honoured when Pat-the -cat comes and sits by me. But if I'm out he has his own things to do.
The amazing thing is how relaxed he can look, yet spring into action. I walk round the garden and I could swear there must be three of him, cos I pass him, looking SO comfortable as I go up one path, yet when I walk down another he's curled up there too.

[saint-spoon]

Bill Oddie wasn't waxing lyrical about cats on Springwatch Gardens last night. If my memory serves me correctly there are 9,000,000 pet cats in Britain; each one kills an average of 30 birds or animals each year. That’s 270,000,000 dead things each and every year. Unfortunately it’s the rarer fauna such as song birds and voles that suffer not the rats and rabbits which are too big to bother with. It’s not the cat’s fault, we bread them into household pets without regard for their nature given instincts. I personally haven’t got anything against cats but I have found two dead pigeons and a blue tit so far this year. :cry:

[chickenchaser]

I love my cats and, happily, they are now of an age when they rarely catch anything. I must admit, though, that it was my parents cats, when I was a little girl, who nurtured my love for wildlife. I would never have seen half the creatures they caught close-up if we hadn't had them. Many of the four legged creatures they caught were set free unharmed due to their desire to 'play'

I wonder how many others on the forum were regularly awoken in their childhood at stupid o'clock in the morning by their mum to rescue a mouse or vole that had escaped from the cat and run behind the washer!!

Believe it or not, I didn't mind a bit

[wendy]

Missed this earlier. Busy on the other post.
I love cats also. We have had 5. I don't have any now as my road has got so busy and is a bus route now and I couldn't risk it and I wouldn't keep them in.
My last. Tally, was just like postman pats cat. She died when she was 21 and had all 8 dogs completely under control. Even though the three males weighed over 8 and a half stone LOL
Wendy

[misty]

My older cat is 11 and I don't think is quite recovered from a winter illness, but he is still killing his quota of rabbits, you know, the headless ones.
Our young 'Devil' cat keeps killing birds and I hate it. He has two bells on his collar so I don't know how he manages it.
I do think there should be a nation wide effort to capture and neuture (sp?) all ferral cats.

[mellonia]

I think about all the stray cats as well, and the irresponsible owners who don't get there cats neutered, with all those animal shelters that are full of unwanted kittens.

I do know that cats kill alot of wildlife my cat who is ten doesn't kill anything but my young cat does up to now about 3 baby birds, which i must admit i hate. Its a double edged sword as i love wildlife too, and love my cats, i really don't mind them killing mice as have a real phobia to mice in the house, and haven't had any since i have cats, thats when i first got a cat as had mice in a flat believe it or not upstairs, and moved to a scuzzy house and couldn't face mice there as well.

Apparently you have to feed the birds if you have cats as it attracts many eyes to send a warning if your cats on the prowl. Bill Oddie actually said that many springwatches ago.

Mellonia

[seahorse]

The only threat to wildlife here is from the seagulls I worry that Cerys fatty cattypus may be grabbed and eaten by one of the beasties!!! They are also protected by law...... Ive seen one nick the ice cream from a cornet..poor lady didnt even see it coming

[Richard]

It all seems to balance out I guess.
I can't 'hate' the fox who had a lot of my chickens a few years back when I have cats who kill not always to eat.
I also can't agree that cats catch creatures to play with them.

At the end of the day, they are quite irresponsible aren't they !!!

In fact I saw a Fox cross the Lane when I came home at 1am this morning - beautiful.

It also amazes me that Chickens and Cats have such small brains, yet outwit the human nine times out of ten.

[saint-spoon]

I also can't agree that cats catch creatures to play with them.

At the end of the day, they are quite irresponsible aren't they !!!

Cats aren’t playing, they are doing what they are born to do which is catch prey. It’s hard wired into their very being. They don’t eat what they catch because they don’t need to, the majority have got a warm home to go back to for a feed of high calorie chow. There is a theory that many domestic cats have actually forgotten how to make the killing bite because they haven’t needed for generations; hence mothers no longer teach their offspring the art. If we didn’t feed them they’d have to find their own food the population would plummet as there simply isn’t enough to go around.

[chickenchaser]

Well I didn't mean play as in Hopscotch.
I'm sure most people have seen a cat pounce on a mouse then wait until it moves just to pounce on it again.

My tabby used to take them to the bottom of the stairs and do this for ages until the noise woke someone up and they let the poor creature go.

Of course, once the mouse no longer moved, the cat lost interest and left it for dead.

[lou]

I love my cat too, i am a cat person we had a cat when i was growing up then when he passed away i got buddy who sadly isnt with us anymore he was my baby, and he came with me when i left home and then i got him a friend who is still with us- 'charlie' and as i speak he is curled up on the lap top case!

He is 11 now and very much like an old man and doesn't do much or go out as much as he did. However every spring he gets a young bird, its sad i hate it but i refuse to put a collar on him with one of those bells (anyone seen injurys collars cause cats)
He has got the odd mouse lately too i think we get them because of the chooks.

But i could never be without a cat in the house, i know that when the day comes that our dog passes away i wont get another one, she is like my 4th child i love her to bits but with a cat you leave the house without feeling guilty when you get those sad "am i not coming with you" eyes.

However i have seen my cat eat what he has caught not often but he has done it as i have watched in horror from the door. Does no one elses cat do this

When we got him he was 12 weeks and we lived just off the seafront so the only birds he would get was pigeons and seagulls he is a big cat and trained himself on large birds!

Sorry for waffling xx