Cats eating Bugs as a regular food item

qtkitty

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I was responding to another thread and i got to thinking ... our Shadow baby is WIERD *lol*

She LOVES mealworms!! She used to fight for the food dish with the turtle over them. She would sit and watch while i gathered the newly molted mealies out of the mealworm farm we had and even grab my hand with her paw trying to steal them. Eventually i just let her have mealworms on a regular basis. Expecially after our turtle passed on and nothing else in the house ate the mealies. She got the just molted white ones(, because they have less exoskeleton. Excessive Exoskeleton can cause consitpation in reptiles and insectivors like Hedge hogs. ) so she only got a few per day maybe a tea-tablespoon per day all molted. She never had a problem with constipation. She is the only one who had the taste for them though.

We no longer have the mealworm farm since we moved, 100lb farms were a little bit accessive to move. So we left them behind ( i am really upset i did not find a buyer for them before we left, because around here 1000 Mealworms go for $15 and we had millions.)

Is there anything wrong with cats eating bugs?
 

jennyr

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Mine eat what they catch - flies, beetles etc. Dushka caught a huge moth once and it all vanished. I have never seen them eat worms, but you never know. After all, we eat seabugs like prawns, and some cultures eat worms and locusts, so I think it is all protein.
 

jcat

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Jamie loves bugs, and eats any he can catch. He goes spider hunting every day, and expects us to lift him up so that he can get the ones near the ceilings. I know somebody who regularly buys crickets for her indoor cats to catch and eat.
 

pat

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I am afraid my mightly hunters only play if they catch a spider, but flies they get tremendously excited about and go for


I didn't find any shrieking warnings on the web about not allowing cats to eat bugs
 

sharky

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My oldest has been eating bugs for nearly 17 yrs... Thinks to self should have let her do more maybe less kidney trouble now..
 

yayi

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Mine love to catch them, drown them in their saliva and then spit them out. I haven't seen them swallow any bugs. Perhaps, tropical insects aren't very tasty.
 

caterpillar

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Ugh, fly and ant season will soon be here. My cats are crazy about flies, too. They are so fascinated by them that they will climb up my drapes and walk across the drapery rod, trying to catch them near the ceiling.

QT, I'll bet our Punky when in the wild lived on a diet of bugs and worms. We have an orange tree that I planted from orange seeds. (After calling the agri dept. from the state of Florida, I find out that the commercial oranges are grown on grafted trees, and this tree is a wild orange tree (from a seed) and reverts back to its generic form. The tree never produced flowers so I don't know if it will produce oranges) Well, back to the subject. Punky loves to dig in this potted orange tree, which I bring in every winter, and I remember seeing some worms moving in the pot after watering. She makes a big mess in the pot and is definitely digging for something. This is so gross! I used some really good soil from the garden in the pot and didn't heat it to destroy the living organisms, like worms.

Also, Punky loves grass and flowers and tries to chew on my houseplants. Since she's strictly an indoor cat now, I remember bringing in a bouquet of flowers from outside and she followed me around the house, crying for the flowers. It was so sad.
I'll bet she misses the plants and flowers outside.

We saw Mooie catch a large moth or katydid (he caught it so fast we couldn't tell what it was) and popped it into his mouth. Bugs have excellent protein, btw.

Years ago, during a cicada invasion, my Mom's neighbors' cat had kittens and they were jumping in the air, catching the cicadas, and munching on them, wings and all.
 
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qtkitty

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Now that yah mention cats eating moths i remember cats at a gas station where i worked overnights they would go out and hunt the moths and eat them. Of course i am NOT bringing a bunch of moths in the house *LOL*... and crickets NO WAY !! I might start up a small mealworm farm again, i would love to have my Big one back WAHH.. maybe i can start a new one when we get the big building out back cleaned out...i could sell the little buggers to fishers * nods* ( and Shadow could have her mealworm fix back )

I will tell you though it scared the poo out of me when Luna caught a Wasp once and ate it before i could get it away from him.. He started drooling bad and foaming like .. i IMMEDIATELY called the vet all frantic .. they asked if he was breathing fine and acting normal and i was like yeah. They said to give him about 30 minutes and see and if he had any problems to bring him in right away. With in that 30 minutes he stoped foaming and did a lot less drooling.

*LOL* Yah should have seen when Shadow got a stink bug .. HAHAHA she got a rude awakening although she swallowed it down before she really tasted the little bugger .. but after wards she looked at me like OMG WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT UGH !!! MOM THAT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME. OF course i was laughing my kester off!!
 

cloud_shade

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Willow caught a fly in midair once. I had just settled down for bed, and she was running all over the place after this fly. I figured I'd be up forever with her jumping around. Then she caught it and ate it. I was so proud of her!


I never could get her to eat ants though. I had an ant problem at my old apartment, and I used to show her the little crawling bugs. She would look at me like I was nuts. I guess they didn't taste very good.
 

stmatthew

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When I was younger, our kitties would hunt wasps all the time. Butch--our black and white cat--would go around most of the summer with swollen lips. But it never stopped him. I always hated them trying to eat roaches...


Mashka hasn't really discovered bugs yet...but with fly season approaching... She will.
 

wellingtoncats

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Mine love to catch bugs as well. One of my kittens from a few seasons ago called Acorn once walked around with a Cicada in her mouth. It was digusting but really funny, at least it couldn't sting or bite her.
 

gilly

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Guinness likes those tiny money spiders. He will walk around after them until:

a) his breathing has suffocated the poor thing
b) till the spider plays dead
c) I have rescued the spider in time

Most of the time, when he has killed them he eats them!

He also likes chasing flies - I am amazed that he has managed to catch a few!!
 

nano

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Nano has grabbed a few flies. She keeps the windowsills clean, that's for sure!


The best "catch" is when I saw her leap off the counter, adjust in mid-air to turn her body around and then nab a fly with her paws before landing. It was a fairly athletic catch...

I just treat jumping for flies as the same sort of exercise you get with Cat Dancer. If I see her catch one, I give her three treats as a reward for the kill. So as long as she is having fun and not getting sick, I actually re-enforce the behavior and encourage her to do it.
 
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