Cats & Birds!........

[cat woman]

Hi, This morning we had a helliva commotion in our house, our youngest cat "Merlin " who is 11mths brought in an adult live MAGPIE, it frightened the living day lights out of my husband & I, the noise it made was incredible, Merlin was chasing this bird around the bedroom with my husband in hot pursuit to get to the bird first, it was mayhem, just what need first thing in the morning before going to work! The blooming thing was hanging off my brand new net curtains squawking for all its worth, my other two cats were wide eyed and bushy tailed. My husband managed to catch it and it flew off no bother, leaving a couple of feathers behind.  I'm glad not all my mornings are like that other wise I'd be a nervous wreck.      Has anyone had a morning like mine? with their pets bringing presents home for them.  :-)

[flump1]

cat woman I sympathise with you my sister has the same problem with her cats. All dressed up for a funeral with minutes to spare she is on her knees trying to catch the latest present from tyke who is about 18 months a live mouse!! Caught and thrown out this time it is usually rabbits they bring in live and kicking. We have had a magpie too. Our cats wore collars with bells as advice was given this would stop it , but it doesn't. It might be that they are competitive as you have more than one cat a train of thought shared by other cat owners. God bless cats!!

[Gilli]

One of my female cats once bought in a (live) pigeon once. That also made one helluva noise ...... Jez(ebel)'s black face had turned grey with pigeon fluff all over it, her sister Josie was also in on the act (her sister having done the hard work of catching). Morticia was jabbering away the way cats do, and my Merlin (who is a big girl's blouse despite being a large ginger tom) was just sitting there getting in the way, completely nonchalantly. That little episode took place in the kitchen ...... the left over mess was rather revolting, though the pigeon lived to tell his tale !

Morticia is now now more but Jez is still a frequent huntress at 8 .... usually birds, but also mice and other rodents from the field nearby. Thankfully for my sake she usually eats them. Have just acquired 2 more black cats, so have 4 black cats in total plus the ginger. The latest additions wear bells .... this hasn't stopped them catching daddy long legs ! Time will tell if they get competitive ....

[dmsjps]

3 o'clock in the morning several years ago and there was a huge commotion on the stairs, squealing and scrabbling around. I ran to the top of the stairs to find my black cat trying to drag a rabbit up them. The poor rabbit was screaming so loudly that I was crying at its distress. I managed to save it and it lived to see another day, but my cats are good, they'll trade me anything for some biscuits. I often think they only bring things home for me as presents, rather than for themselves, because they give them up so easily. They must think I'm a crap hunter or something, putting all that rubbish from the butcher on the table instead of the real mccoy!

 

The problem has been solved for the past 3-and-a-bit years, since I bought a German Shepherd dog. He lies by the back door and as soon as they bring anything in, he nudges them till they drop it, then wolfs it down in one go: no scrabbling and chasing, no distress, no mess to clean up afterwards - which was always the stomach for some reason, and the green bit attached to it - yak!

 

Bells never worked on my cats either.

[delilahcat]

I sympathise, catwoman - my cats also bring me little presents. Samson once brought a fledgling in and let it go so it was flying round and round the room. I rang the RSPCA for advice and they told me to take it in to them. So I spent 15 minutes chasing it round the room, finally it fell onto the floor, I dropped a towel over it, picked it up and drove to the RSPCA with it on the passenger seat. Halfway there it got free and started flying round the car! Apparently it did make a full recovery but I lost a few years off my life!

We also get mice, usually dead but one day Delilah brought in a live one. It was badly injured so rather than set it free to die a slow death, or to be caught again, I took it to the vet and paid �5 for it to be put to sleep.

Delilah has also brought a live bat in - that flew round and round the room until I was dizzy, but eventually fell exhausted onto a pile of CDs, so I was able to pick the top CD up and put it on the wall outside and after about 20 minutes the bat recovered and flew off.

It's the only down side of owning cats - I wish they wouldn't do it but what can you do?!

[cherrybomb]

One of my cats caught a Bat a few years ago, I could never work out how he caught it and managed to get it home without a mark on it.

When my oldest cat was a kitten she used to catch Butterflies in her mouth come to me and then open her mouth for it to fly out again, most of the time they were still alive.

[Mrs_Pegasus]

My cat also catches bats and on a regular basis.

A few weeks back, late in the evening, I am on the PC when she comes in and drops a live bat at my feet.  It hesitates for a moment then starts flying around the dining/sitting room!!  I hadnt a clue what to do, but she pulled the bat down again in flight! and I managed to scoop it up in a tea towel but be warned they will turn and try and bite.  Managed to get it out of the window and on its way but its not the nicest thing to face on a quiet evening!!

[londondave]

I would be concerned if a cat bought in a bat! I thought they carry rabies.

My Mums cat bought in a dead squashed mouse complete with mouse trap!! (YUCK)

[smudge]

Our Smudge used to bring in little titbits. But what made me chuckle was hearing the little birds legs go up the vacuum cleaner from under our bed! To think she'd probably been munching away whilst we were sleeping!

[Gilli]

LondonDave ..... I think most animals can potentially carry rabies, but so far as I know, there isn't any rabies in the UK !

[maggie01]

One of my cats did that years ago. He bought it through the cat flap and my kitchen looked like a war zone. There was blood everywhere. It was like a scene from the film The Birds. He bought in a rat once. It looked quite clean so I think maybe it could have been someones pet. He was always very pleased with his gifts.

[Guinevere]

My cat Sophie used to bring mice in all the time - always alive.  And then she'd just let them go! 
The best one though was one night when I was fast asleep and got woken up by a strange noise.  The bedroom door is closed but has a gap under it and Sophie's paw is frantically sweeping back and forth through the gap.  Sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor is a fairly large frog.  Now catching frogs is more tricky than you think (esp when half asleep!) because they stay perfectly still until you have the shoe box right over them, and them boing!  They're gone!  That was a fun few minutes!
My mum still likes to tell me the frog was really Prince Charming under a magic spell, and that I should have kissed it!

[missmooncat]

Cat Woman I wish i was there its sounds so funny! Can just imagine it!

My cat goes out when it rains and brings worms in!

[Limeycat]

My old cat, Roxy, once brought me a live pigeon - in thought the cat flap, up the steps from the kitchen, bounced through the living room, upstairs and presented it to me on my pillow.  Don't know who was more shocked, me or the pigeon - well, it WAS 3am!

Happily it live to tell the tale... unlike the mainy mice my present cats, Gibson and Gillie, present to me on a regular basis.  They seem to be practising dissection - some varied and interesting anatomical presentation... euck!

[lindapinda]

Hi Catwoman! My two babies are house cats,although they have both managed to catch a field mouse that was unlucky enough to enter their domain! My eldest Yasmin's big moment came, when he discovered a blackbird pecking at the INSIDE of our glass fronted fire door! T.G. the fire was out when it fell down the chimney! We hadn't heard the poor wee bird at all,but Yasmin just kept putting his paw up to the door and making wee ehh noises.! One very dusty blackbird was very relieved to be released two minutes later!

[Kilala]

I have been presented with the following over the last few years of cat ownership:

Baby owl, fox cub, frogs, toads, somebody elses kitten, hedgehogs, many birds- from wrens to a raven(!), a plethora of rodents- water voles, rats, mice, field mice, 2 hamsters, rabbits, the remains of a hare, live fish, grass snakes, a gerbil and a guinea pig.

The culprit was a beautiful black cat called Bugsy (Short for Little ******.)  Then he was attacked by a cat over the road.  I thought no more of it until he started getting sick.  He had caught F.I.V. (cat Aids) and I made the b*stard of a decision- I had him put down.  He wasn't actually sick, but he was knackered.  He would only go outside to do his business, then he'd be back asleep on the sofa.  This wasn't Bugsy, he never used to be inside.  I also did not want him to infect any other cats.

Now I have found out the cat who attacked him had it, the owners knew but didn't do anything.  He has now infected a few other cats in the area.

(On the bright side, I have never had so many birds nest in my garden as did this summer!)

[cat woman]

Hi too everyone who has responded, I have throughly enjoyed reading all the posts, some which made me giggle, and the one's who haven't got their little babies with them anymore thank you for sharing your poignant memories.  There has been so many Abers who have had to story to tell of what their little darlings have got up to,  I have never had bats or rabbits brought home, Merlin & Millie are always catching frogs and making the poor things squeal, my husband has to take the frogs off them, I cant bear to touch them, and we have saved a few mice's lives in the past, and I always feel sorry for the one's that didn't get away!

Kilala, your Bugsy sounded like a right little horror, bless him, I had a cat which died of Cat Aids, he was a big black sleek tom and it was incredible how quickly he deteriorated, I took him to the vets just thinking he was generally off colour, It was such a shock when he told us the results of the blood test they did, we had to have him put to sleep that same day, that was 12yrs ago and we still talk about him and miss him. We never knew how he caught the virus, we had another cat at the time we had her tested and she was clear and she went on to live to the ripe old age of 18 and a half.

Thank you all again for your posts, I'm sure we wont hear the last of our dear little furry horror tales!  :-)

[WendyS]

My cat bought home a live moorhen on one occasion from a nearby river, and also a live water rat which he dived in the water to catch.   His prime catch was a live 12" Koi Carp.  We didn't know where it came from so put it in our bath, intending to release it in the nearby river the next day but sadly it died overnight.  Probably didn't like the chlorine in the water .