Is This Normal?

[Auntiemoll]

I have a NINE month kitten who already is bringing to me mice,bird chicks, and full grown birds which he has caught and killed. Is this usual for someone so young.?

Although upsetting to see the demise of birds and mice I realise this is a natural instinct for a cat,just wish he wouldn't look so pleased with himself!!!

[daffy654]

My cats are brought in at about 10pm and not allowed out until 6am the following day.

[viv38]

Agree with you canary. It looks like this little monster has already got through a large part of the poor bird population and it's only nine months old!! If it was killing the birds I feed, it wouldn't make the next nine months. And I don't believe all that rot about cats not being responsible for the decline in song birds.

[daffy654]

Of course you don't viv38, you animal haters and abusers never believe scientific evidence that supports the opposite of what you think. And don't try and say you aren't an animal abuser, you just intimated that you would kill any cat you saw with a dead bird.

[woofgang]

To put it in perspective, at this time of year I find quite a few dead fledglings in my garden. My two large stupid dogs keep my garden cat free so it must be natural wastage.

[daffy654]

We have a nest in the eaves and the parent birds have already kicked out two of the chicks, we found one of our cats sniffing one of the poor dead things but we know damned well she didn't actually hunt it as the nest is 30 ft up a sheer wall. Neither of my cats has ever bought me anything dead or half dead.

[viv38]

You know nothing about me daffy and yet you say I am an animal hater! You're not an animal lover imo if you think it's OK for all this wildlife to be decimated by evil cats and this thing is only nine months old, imagine the damage it has yet to do! I love animals, but I HATE cats killing wildlife and yes, if a cat came into my properly killing birds, it would get short shrift and if you don't like that then tough!! And I stand by everything I say I DO NOT believe all that rot about cats not being responsible for killing millions of song birds.

Oh my you have got your knickers in a twist haven't you ...... ?!

I bet your apoplectic now ...... !!

[viv38]

Oh gotta go - baby crying

[daffy654]

Apoplectic, no, just laughing at you deluding yourself. haha

[Hypognosis]

The RSPB website also put forth the intriguing notion that House Sparrows have been in decline ever since we began abandoning horse-drawn transport. There was always spilt grain around feeding troughs, even in the urban environment. In recent years, farming efficiency has increased and the harvest is secure inside a grain silo with no spillage worth speaking of, so even the ones in the suburbs are probably dependent on garden feeders for >80% of their diet.

I am as fond of "correlation is not causation" as the next person but I would really like to see the decline in various bird species' populations and the greenfield housing development growth (since 1900) plotted on the same graph, just to see if there is any pattern or no pattern.

For example, if human population is increasing and more and more of us are putting out food for the garden birds, why are the populations of some species declining in spite of that? It's not as if the bird food is harmful to them, is it?