Keep cats indoors!

[twentyleagues]

I have always kept indoor cats....My one exception was we had a Bengal years back. It was F2 and had a wild side. When locked up in house he licked off his fur until bleeding and kept licking.....We had to let him out. He did great for many years but eventually was hit by a car on my super quiet street. I have to say he always hunted vermin. Mice, moles, shrews and chipmunks. Since he passed my yard is overrun with moles. Yes cats kill birds. They also kill far more rats, mice and other disease carrying vermin so they are valuable as well..

The problem with the "vermin" killing is that you are introducing a nonnative predator, who's food did you just take away? A snake? Hawk? Owl? Fox? All native. Now your introduced predator is gone and you have a vermin problem...no you have lack of natural predator problem, because while your cat was killing "vermin" and song birds he was also killing natural predators by taking their food sources. This is why this is a huge pet peeve of mine! People just dont get the scope of their doings. The drip in the ocean that becomes the tsunami on the other side of the world.

 

[Ulu]

Will cats take over the world?



After my nap . . . on your pillow!

 

[Ulu]

Benny (above) was an outdoor cat. He disappeared, and my mrs cried as always.
Then she got a tiny new indoor cat.
Zoey:


Izzy is a tiny cat, though nearly 15 now. Pen shown for scale. Also to wake her up offa my pillow!


Zoey now, at age 2.

 

[skjl47]

some kind of feral cat campaign is in order.

Hello; A while back a community did have a feral cat program. The would trap the cats have them spayed or nutered and then released again. Did not make sense to do that to me.
Every spring I knock down robin's nests as they build them in my carport. Reason is neighbor hood cats, both feral and house cats, will climb onto my truck to get into the rafters. The robins sit on a fence giving me the evil eye while I knock down their partily constructed nest. They do not get it. One year they eventually nested high on the crook of my gutter down spout which was fine.

 

[Coryloach]

I used to have 2 dogs years back. They were great hunters. They'd walk in the house with a bird they had caught outside in the yard and start chewing it on the sofa. Many times the bird was still alive, once it flew all around the house as they hadn't got to kill it yet. Animals

 

[Zanzag]

My dogs chase cats out of my yard. Mostly just for the hell of it. Mothballs work to help repel

 

[squint]

When I was in the 4th grade or so, I let my new cat out for the 2nd time. It never came back home. Lesson learned.