Cat Malfunction

The best way, in my opinion to get rid of them is with some peanut butter in a spring trap you can buy in the grocery store. Poisons take a while and you never know where the may die. The smell will go away, but is not pleasant.

Your kitty is having fun. You won't be able to explain to her otherwise. Just check her carefully when she comes in that she comes in alone!

 

Peanut butter doesn't work. They love it but they can eat most of it without triggering the trap.

Use pepperoni. Let it sit out a day to get a little leathery, then firmly attach it to the trigger of the snap trap (those cheap wooden ones) so that when it is pulled it will set it off. This has never failed me.

If you want to humanely catch it live, get a very large bowl and grease the inside with Crisco. Then put a ruler "bridge" across to the bowl balanced so that when the mouse goes to the end of the "plank" over the bowl, the weight will tip him into the bowl where it's so greasy and slick he can't climb out. Bait the end of the ruler over the bowl with peanut butter.

Don't know how to train the serial killer to play with his prey outside and only present you with the bodies after the kill. Cats are food motivated and can be trained but it takes a long, long time.

BTW check out doggyspace.com and sign Digby and Dingo up. Ramses wants friends.

 

Keep trying the trap! Sometime is works; sometimes not. Do you have the right size? Is it a mouse or rat? Mice can get through unbelievably small spaces.


My kitty almost brought in a live chipmunk once!

 

It seems you may have conditioned your cat for this behavior by praising it for the kill. Could be wrong, but it seems to be logical. Maybe your behavior in how you handle the hunt could dissuade the cat from continuing the kill indoors. The best way I've heard to abruptly stop a bad behavior of an animal is to make a very loud unexpected noise, such as clanking pots together. In this way, you're not yelling at your animal or screaming at your animal while saying their name....which is bad and is usually counter productive. The loud noise usually stops them from continuing a behavior and I've found it to be very effective when managing my cat's behavioral problems. Right now I'm lucky to have no neurosis in my household excepting for me. So maybe before looking for a solution to the problem, you should try to recondition your animal to not present you with a problem by bringing the prey inside. Then maybe you can start to praise your cat while you and your cat are outside to recondition her/him to continue the hunt outside.

I'm not an advocate of outdoor cats unless they are in a closed pen and not let out during the day. Otherwise, they kill millions of migratory birds each year (hummers too). That's just a side thought. Don't think me rude for brining it up. If this matters to you as well, I have found it effective to let my cats out only at night in a fenced in pen. There have been no kills since inception of this.

Lastly, they do have humane traps in which you can catch rodents to release in a natural environ away from residences. They do have their place in the food chain and would be most welcome there. Which brings me to my last point that one should never use poisons to rid themselves of rodents since if they are able to get outside, they'll serve as a poisonous meal for a predatory species like hawk or owls. Poisons and wildlife aren't a good mix.

 

If you want to live trap the little sweetie, I've caught them with a coffee can. Tape the lid so it swings in and out. Put peanut butter on the inside of the can lid. Tape across lid on the outside midway so it swings in, but will hit the tape if it tries to come out.

Here in NY it is illegal to transport such critters so do not tell anyone what you are doing.

 

You've got a RAT! If it was a mouse trap, it won't be strong enough.

Also you need to put the trap with the bait at the wall as they mainly go along the wall.

 

Cripes! Sounds like a rat to me. I don't think mice get that big.

 

I agree. That's a rat. Too big for the bowl trick unless you have a really, REALLY big bowl.

Get a rat trap from Home Depot and pick up some pepperoni. Don't tell GF. Or tell her it's a rat and not a mouse; maybe she'll be less squimish.

BTW I had a pet rat. A hooded rat, bred for domestication. She was a great pet. But what you have isn't a pet.

 

I've rescued a couple of mice from my one cat. Not all mice have been this lucky. The ones he's caught when I'm not around have divulged a very odd fetish. One in which he find pleasure in eating just their heads and leaving the body remains for me. Twisted.

 

We have the same problem- the main mouser cat will drop at the door, but the smaller sister cat loves to play and brings them in... last one got lost in my office.....not fun...but several days later I found a dead one - by the bed.. so I am assuming it was the same one--- ha ha...

We did have baby possums coming up the kitchen drain and getting into the house - some plumber had fixed the drain years ago and left it open...
It is frightening when coming into the kitchen or bedroom and seeing a possum-- did NOT make my day.... broomed them out and when closing up the pipes, used steel wool as batting to discourge them...

 

That's typical serial killer kitty behavior. They like to play with their prey for a while before the kill. We once had a live bird in the house after not checking kitties mouth before she came in for the night.

 

My favorite Kliban cat mug:

"Love to eat them mousies,
Mousies what I love to eat,
Bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet."

 

it sounds like conditioned behavior to me! you praised her, she wanted to please more, outside catches started to come indoors.

as i have yet to have a cat who wants to please its owners, i'm at a total loss for what to tell you.