Does feeding a domestic cat blunt their desire to hunt?

Confine your cat to stop him bringing mice into the home

To rephrase the title, you might ask the following question: “Do well-fed domestic cats hunt as much and with the same conviction as cats that aren’t fed?” The best answer that I can find on this topic is from Dr. Jon Bradshaw in his book Cat Sense. He is far more nuanced in his …

Read more

‘Food preparation’ for easy swallowing by domestic cats is rarely seen

Cat hunting birds

In the modern world, as the pampered domestic cat is provided with wet cat food from pouches or dry cat food from bags, you rarely see them engaging in their own ‘food preparation’ so I’ll describe it here if I may. The point is that domestic cats are in effect scavengers, a behavioural trait …

Read more

New Zealand is banning cats from new communities. Thin end of the wedge?

Cats banned from new housing developments in New Zealand

The New Zealand website stuff.co.nz quite often publishes articles about cats and they are all negative. The basic MO is to get rid of them because their native species are being gobbled up by the evil devils. I get it but it is a bit OTT to an outsider. The Kiwis and Aussies are …

Read more

Why do domestic cats still wish to maintain a home range?

Domestic cat home range in Australia

The reason why the domestic cat’s wildcat ancestor maintains a home range i.e. a section of landscape that they call home, is because they want to protect a food resource. This makes sense. It’s about survival. The domestic cat, in a typical home where they are well looked after, has a ready-made food source. …

Read more

Feeding your cat well should reduce the area over which they patrol

Cat feeding

Indoor/outdoor cats do not need to patrol their territory in order to find food when they are well fed. But domestic cats still, instinctively, patrol their ‘home range’ (the area they call home). Domestic cats are attached to their territory as much as they are attached to their human caregiver. It’s about habits and …

Read more

Example of how a journalist carelessly distorts information on domestic and feral cat predation

Don't trust newspaper journalists to get cat predation rates correct!

I think that this is important. I have been digging around because I know that journalists writing for respected websites including news media website often distort the facts. They make claims and hard statements which simply are not true. They quote scientific reports but in doing so they actually misquote them. This is a …

Read more

We need to selectively breed moggies to reduce predation

Curious and seriously cute kitten

We know that most domestic cats are “moggies” i.e., non-purebred cats. They been created through natural selection whereas purebred cats are created through artificial selection a.k.a. selective breeding. We also know that domestic cats are wonderful predators. It is their raison d’être. They are built to hunt and kill. It is a problem for …

Read more

Poland puts domestic cat on invasive species database

Polish Academy of Sciences

Polish scientists at the Polish Academy of Sciences have decided to place the domestic cat on the database of invasive species in Poland. The domestic cat is, indeed, an invasive species in Poland as it is in the UK and the USA, for example. But these other countries don’t OFFICIALLY recognise that fact because …

Read more

follow it link and logo