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rabbit&bird&snakes on porch, he wont stop huntin, HELP!

post #1 of 6
6/20/10 at 12:14am
Thread Starter 
Ok My situation is this my male kitteh cat Skunk, {an 8 yr old Mainecoon if you need specifics.}

He will not stop hunting! every morning as I sit outside on the porch for a cup of a coffe and read the paper I've come to discover that he's leaving little presents all over the darn porch!

-last monday it was a garden snake
-Tuesday it was a rabit
-Wednsday was a baby bird
-Thursday was obvious the mamma bird as it was a huge bird
-Friday was a mouse
-Saturday was another garden snake

now I just don't know what to do..of course I quietly praise him for trying to obviouslly provide food for the family and stuff..yet there's nothing wrong with the cat food.

..it's just disgusting because I've caught him eating the rabbit and birds before ..is this normal? or should I be concerned that in some way he's becoming some rabid cannibal cat? Does anyone have suggestions about these crazy hunting habits??? should I just continue to burry the creature corpses and move on?

Advice would be apprenticed
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post #2 of 6
6/20/10 at 12:59am
does he eat the snakes?
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post #3 of 6
6/20/10 at 2:56am
If you are going to have an indoor/outdoor cat that is not restricted to an enclosure, then one of the things you have to put up with is receiving some unpleasant 'presents' from time to time. Hunting is instinctive natural behavior with cats, in the wild that was how they provided for themselves and the lure is irresistable.

You can keep your kitty from eating many of them by disposing of the corpses as soon as you find them. But some cats do like the taste of wild game, and I would expect that a cat that is hunting will eat some. Your cat can get parasites from eating them, esp. tapeworms from the fleas on birds and rodents. If your cat hunts you will need to de-worm them every few months so long as its hunting season, as my family has done with our cats.
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post #4 of 6
6/20/10 at 3:24am
There is no way to get him to stop hunting, it's just the nature of a cat. Mine left me a baby mole on the porch(Mama had been hunting it for days), of course I was happy with that since the stupid things dig up the yard. No one ate it so I'm assuming it was for me and Paul and Bobby(my 7 year old.) They do eat squirrels(last year) and Goldie Jr was eating a dive last year. One advantage of the cats is no squirrels or rabbits pay us visits anymore.

No matter how much food you provide them they will still hunt and possibly eat what they catch. I know mine will eat bird and squirrels I'm assuming saince I have found them doing that before.

As gross as it is it's part of having a cat outside. I made Paul dispose of the mole(which was completely intact.)

It's just instinct and there is no way to stop it.

Just be sure to worm him regularly.

Taryn
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post #5 of 6
6/20/10 at 3:48am
As long as he has a rabies shot, he's pretty much safe with hunting and eating the prey - its fresh meat and perfectly natural. My first cat hunted and killed and ate squirrels (and probably rabbits too).

But unless you start confining him outside, he's gonna hunt. The only one I'd be concerned with is the snake - there ARE poisonous snakes out there and one day he's gonna get bit - and in serious trouble.

So you can either train him to harness/leash, build or buy a cat enclosure for him to sit outside for awhile, or confine him to the house and not let him other.

Sooner or later he's gonna be in serious trouble and either hurt badly or die from roaming and hunting unsupervised.
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post #6 of 6
6/20/10 at 5:54am
Hunting is instinctive in cats although not all cats hunt.

I've a few hunters among my cats while the others are just too lazy to bother.

I've lost count of the amount of mice, rats, birds mine have brought in. Oddest "pressies" were a mole (where Tibs found that one is beyond me as I've never seen a mole or evidence of a mole in all the 10 years I've lived here) and a squirrel tail. Just the tail, neatly nipped off from the body of the squirrel.

I did get a Slow Worm once (we have a lot of these - not sure if you have them in America but they look like a snake but are actually a legless lizard. The Slow Worms do a great job of keeping slugs and other unwanted garden pests down.

We only have one venomous snake in the UK - the Adder and these are mainly found in the country, particularly where there is a lot of forestation or bracken. There are a lot of Adders in the Highlands of Scotland so anyone coming over to Bonnie Scotland for a holiday and intending going hill walking, wear a stout pair of boots that cover your ankles.

At least we don't have Rabies over here.

As others have said, just make sure you worm your cat regularly. I have found that as my cats have grown older, they don't tend to hunt anymore. The only one who is a prolific hunter now is Sparky and he's a young cat.
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