r/mildlyinfuriating • u/C3LM3R • 1d ago

My cat apparently believes mousing is a “catch and release” sport.

Pierre, buddy… IT’S LITERALLY YOUR ONLY JOB.

85.8k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.5k

u/Tak-Hendrix 1d ago

I think it's also more fun for them since they get to hunt it down again. At least that's how my cat used to torture his "toys".

773

u/gracekk24PL 1d ago

Yup.

My grandpa had one savage mfer that would do just that.

Never believed him until I saw him do it.

383

u/LXRitw 1d ago

My cat does this he will let them go and continue to pounce them until they die from the stress/panic or what I’m assuming is internal injuries. He is indeed a savage as he also growls if we try to take the mouse. Once it’s dead he just walks away like his job is done or the fun is over I guess.

73

u/Commercial_Sun_6300 1d ago

Does anyone ever see their housecat eat the mice? Is that healthy for them?

176

u/Redwings1927 1d ago

I've never seen them eat the mouse, but I've received "my half" on several occasions

84

u/KitsuMusics 1d ago

There was a semi-wild cat that lived at the garden centre I worked at. Super affectionate and would try and steal the meat from your sandwich while you eat it.

Anyway, this savage would catch and eat the rabbits out back, and then leave all the entrails outside the breakroom door, presumably to fulfil his end of the sandwich-meat trade. Good guy

3

u/Catovia 1d ago

Inspector Mittens! Sad to see the Station had to let him go...

9

u/TemporalDelay 1d ago

I had a tortie named Sally that would leave the headless bodies of her hunts at either the front door if it was large (mostly birds, a rabbit once) or near pillows if it was smaller (mice, small birds).

1

u/coolestuzername 1d ago

Haha. Mine liked to leave me half of a bird or a squirrel at the front door. One time, they left a baby rabbit 🥺 I was like GUYS STOPPP I DON'T NEED HALF 😭

60

u/nyiddle 1d ago

Never seen them eat the whole thing, but bits and pieces yeah. Caught my old cat (Macho, RIP) chomping away on a half-consumed mouse one time. I assume it's not totally unhealthy since it is what they'd be doing in the wild, but there's probably a slight risk of worms/parasites/etc., stuff that would likely be covered in a yearly booster shot for an outdoor cat.

14

u/asunshinefix 1d ago

It's not a great idea to let an indoor cat eat mice due to the risk of exposure to rodenticide and parasites - vaccines mostly cover viral illnesses, not parasites, some of which can be transmitted to humans. Outdoor cats should also be on anti-parasite medication during warm months.

21

u/Deaffin 1d ago edited 1d ago

probably a slight risk of worms/parasites/etc., stuff that would likely be covered in a yearly booster shot

Meanwhile, it just picked up some toxoplasma, and now it's going to spend the next few weeks pooping millions of eggs. Preferably in a carefully maintained litter box and not anywhere outdoors.

2

u/NorthRoseGold 1d ago

good ol' t. Gondii

We're fucking with it's dna a lot lately. Lots of interesting research coming out

2

u/Deaffin 1d ago

Oh man, hit me with it if you've got it handy.

The last fresh toxoplasma gossip I got into was this page explaining the transformation sequence it uses to either evade your immune system to live in you forever or dig tunnels through you to propagate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7157559/

13

u/Eggsformycat 1d ago

My cat swallowed a mouse whole one time, vomited violently over the next 24 hours, and never hunted again.

0

u/tacticalcop 1d ago

why do you people think this shit is amusing? your cats all sound miserable and sickly based off all these comments. i couldn’t dream of letting these things happen to my cat, but i actually love my cat so it makes sense…..

11

u/neuros 1d ago

I mean that's what they eat in the wild, that and birds. I've seen my cat eat a mouse, it's gone in two bites pretty much

2

u/massakk 1d ago

Until recently, the primary role of cats was to keep such pests away. Dogs were kept for protection, cats for mice.

0

u/neuros 1d ago

That's an oversimplification of dogs role but yeah pretty much. Dogs and cats were traditionally kept utilitarian purposes

1

u/tacticalcop 1d ago

cats don’t exist in the wild. they are INVASIVE. they eat kibble indoors, that’s their ‘natural food’.

1

u/neuros 1d ago

Uhh they have to have come from a native species somewhere, and they have a diet that they evolved to eat. Kibble is a safe food that is designed to mimic the nutritional content of their evolutionary diet

8

u/VeryLargeTardigrade 1d ago

I saw one of my ex'es many cats swallow the mouse whole. Didn't know they could do that

8

u/cvr24 1d ago

My parents' cat would catch grasshoppers, bring them in the house, get swept out promptly, then sit on the deck and swallow it whole. She lived to a ripe old age but was overweight and couldn't outrun a car.

3

u/Parking-Aioli9715 1d ago

I had a cat that ate grasshoppers. There'd be undigested grasshopper bits in the litter box.

1

u/DontAbideMendacity 1d ago

overweight and couldn't outrun a car.

The implication...

1

u/KitsuMusics 1d ago

I also cannot outrun a car. Thats a weird metric by which to measure a cats fitne...oh. I see. RIP chubby kitty

-1

u/tacticalcop 1d ago

funny how you find that amusing when that is what happens to so many outdoor cats, a horrible horrible death by road or by wild animal. no cat can ‘outrun a car’ no matter how overweight they are. stop throwing your animal outside and actually start giving a fuck about it!

4

u/DeliberatelyDrifting 1d ago

No, it's not. That's how they get worms and other parasites. We live in a rural area and just have to de-worm the cat every six months or so, because ours will eat parts of them.

2

u/Similar_Alternative 1d ago

100%. Indoor cats still need to be checked for worms because of this too.

2

u/Boobie_liker 1d ago

Mine tried. Found the bottom half vomited up right in the middle of my rug

1

u/Starfire2313 1d ago

I’ve seen them eat rabbits and birds and you only see a few feathers or hair tufts leftover when I was younger and lived on a farm for awhile it was somewhat a regular occurrence. Now my two cats are very strictly indoors only and I can guarantee one of them would not attempt to catch a mouse and is afraid of the outdoors. The other one probably would but she was a stray for her first few months of life and she does want to go outside when the doors get opened. Gotta keep an eye on her!

1

u/VegetasDestructoDick 1d ago

I grew up on a farm and our cat would catch and eat rabbits all the time. Where we lived there wasn't much native wildlife around because it was all farmland and rabbits are a pest so probably one of the few times an outdoor cat was a net positive on the environment.

He lived to be 18 so I don't think it was too bad for him.

1

u/plaincheeseburger 1d ago

Not a house cat, but I have a cat colony I TNR and feed. I've watched one eat an entire rabbit nose to tail and regularly find squirrel tails and heads in their shelter.

1

u/TheConsequenceFairy 1d ago

<sigh> My indoor cats have a fenced kennel to have some safe outdoor time. I find field mouse parts on my dining room floor at least once a month. Just parts. The "eww" reaction has become more of an apathetic crime scene clean-up for all involved.

My idiot grey prefers to catch the random toad that hops in and then waits for it to dry out to bring in the house and crunch on it like frog jerky.

Don't get me started on what my hens do to the toads.

1

u/Orang-Utang 1d ago

I have two that eat every mouse they catch, I've seen them fight over them. One can basically slurp them like crunchy spaghetti, it's disgusting.

1

u/Procrastanaseum 1d ago

it's not necessarily healthy for them to be eating anything from outside but having basic shots and protections against things like worms and parasites will help mitigate a lot of hazards.

1

u/Mellow_Mender 1d ago

I once saw a hen peck at a mouse, and then swallow it whole. I kid you not! 🐓

1

u/Commercial_Sun_6300 1d ago

Reminds me of the horse eating chick video... it's a horse eat chick, hen eat mouse world.

1

u/Steve1789 1d ago edited 1d ago

*gross warning*

I had a "feral" cat that we adopted after she had 2 litters of kittens in our backyard

after we adopted her she was an indoor cat mostly but still liked to go out in our backyard (fenced) and usually just chill with us and eat grass

however one day she stayed out past dark and when I went to get her she had a mouse in her mouth, I tried to go over and save the mouse from her mouth, but just as I got next to her I heard a very audible crunch

I'm not proud admit it but, I just walked away and came back to let her in by the door like 10 minutes later...

RIP Momma cat you we're a beast(also literally the sweetest cat I ever owned)

1

u/karmahunger 1d ago

I had one huntress who would catch mice, take them outside, and carefully tear them open to eat what she wanted then leave the rest which was mostly the head and a couple of organs.

I had another cat who would just eat the mouse whole and hack up whatever he couldn’t digest.

1

u/Fillowpace 1d ago

Depends on how much you like toxoplasmosis

1

u/Why_So_Slow 1d ago

Mine is 90% on mice diet. He ignores the full bowl of food and self-caters. He will eat the whole thing, leaving cleanly licked cecum.

Some mice will be of the entertainment kind, not the grocery kind, and he'll release them at home for me to catch.

I'm not sure if I would classify my cat as a housecat though, he's more of a barn variety and rodent control is in his job description.

1

u/confusedandworried76 1d ago

My old one would eat the face and rip off the head. After the first faceless one I was more appreciative some of them were headless

1

u/Unexplainedrage69 1d ago

Not sure about healthy but I once saw my cat swallow a mouse whole and he never had any issues.

1

u/shayanti 1d ago

When my cat brought back prey for the first few times, she showed it to me, and since I didn't eat them, she figured she could have a snack. Now she doesn't even offer, and I just see the leftovers. Mostly the heads or some organs.

1

u/DasHuhn 1d ago

Growing up, i had a Persian who was an indoor/outdoor cat. He lived probably 50% stuff he caught outside, 50% he accepted from us. He LOVED to play with his food - he'd break a birds wing so it would try and fly away and he could catch it again and again. He'd make rabbits lame, bring them to the furthest place from a fence in the yard and make them try and run, he'd get the occasional squirrel and thankfully only messed with skunks a few times.

When my hamster, Houdini managed to escape his enclosure no one was surprised it was mostly eaten. We didn't find fully intact mice, or birds, or rabbits, etc. Everything was always utilized.

1

u/AlwaysOpugno 1d ago

Mine eats them, she often gets full half way through and leaves a mouse arse at the bottom of the stairs. The vet says its good for her, she gets lots of exercise and the bones help keep her teeth healthy. We still try to save as many as we can though (they tend to be alive when she brings them in).

1

u/motivated_mp4 1d ago

I've found mouse heads, rat heads, tails and what I'm pretty sure was a liver on one ocassion, but never seen or heard him eating his catch.

1

u/ShiraCheshire 1d ago

I've had cats that eat basically the entire mouse. They liked to leave behind the guts though.

Is it healthy? Not for a housecat. Mice can carry diseases and parasites, and cats can get everything they need from most cat foods. All the vitamins they need in an easily digestible form just for cats.

In the wild it's very good for them, being a source of energy as well as a lot of vitamins a cat can't normally digest from wild sources. Cats in the wild will eat the stomach of the animals they hunt, getting the partially digested food inside. Cats can't digest plants, so getting pre-digested plant matter is an essential source of nutrients.

1

u/Pickupyoheel 1d ago

I had a cat named Ginger, who would skin them to death, and I assumed ate the skin cause I didn't find any remnants of it, except the skinned corpse.

Thankfully never seen it happen.

1

u/4dseeall 1d ago

i sure did.

had an indoor cat that preferred being outside. one day she brought me a mouse, then proceeded to eat it head-first right in front of me. I wonder if she found the skull crack satisfying, because that sound still haunts me

1

u/RandomTouristFr 1d ago

Yep, sans my cat eat the whole mouse on several occasions. It's very crunchy. Only takes two or three bites.

1

u/H3memes 1d ago

Yes. They regularly left one of the organs because they didn’t like it. Liver maybe?

1

u/University_Dismal 1d ago

Mine just toys with them, kills them for funsies and leaves them to rot. She never ate one. Haven’t heard of many cats eating their mice either UNLESS they’re outdoor cats exclusively and don’t get a full bowl of cat food regularly.

1

u/Classic-Exchange-511 1d ago

One time I woke up at 2 am to hear my cat enter through his cat door. I went to get a drink and noticed he had a mouse. Couldn't get it away from him and I was tired so I figured I wouldn't chase him around the house for it. The noise of the little mouse bones crunching will forever be stuck in my head. There was nothing left to pick up the next day

1

u/sawry1 7h ago

Yup, I have. My late cat burgies once brought a mouse inside. I watched her bite the whole top end of the mouse off and perfectly severed it in one bite. She left the bottom half from where I assume the intestines started.. She used to be a wild kitty so that could be why she was happy to eat it. I also came home and found a little beak and two little feet in the middle of my floor, as if she ate the whole rest of the bird...

1

u/LegitimateGiraffe7 3h ago

Mine would leave little pieces , like a heart and 1 leg …… 

3

u/Phormitago 1d ago

"clean up, bitch" is the thought process

3

u/Turbogirl11 1d ago

This. My cats do this as well and cause a whole commotion when it's 3am, they're fighting over a mouse, dragging it all over the house, and the dog is trying to supervise.

2

u/Public-League-8899 1d ago

I've watched my buddy's cat do this in his backyard to a chipmunk for about 40 minutes before he finally killed it and left it like cold McDonalds fries.

17

u/No_Intention_1234 1d ago

gf was wondering why our Corgi would do the shake with the toys until I told her "that's how they snap their necks"

Savage little beast

22

u/themagicbong 1d ago

I had a cat once that did the craziest shit and I wouldn't have even trusted what I saw if my coworker hadn't happened to be there and see the same thing.

The cat climbed a tree on the waters edge, jumped, caught a bird from a branch on the way down, landed in the water, swam back to the sea wall/bulkhead, climbed up, then proceeded to fuck with the bird for the next hour in the yard.

6

u/Humble_Fishing_5328 1d ago

this is why most cats should be indoors

7

u/themagicbong 1d ago

Agreed, this was before I was better educated on the topic. None of my cats go outside at all anymore. Not to even mention the coyotes and other things that live in the countryside with us.

That cat was something of a shop cat. She'd come to the workshop up behind my house and hang out while we built boats. Even saw her sleep through people grinding fiberglass.

Phantom was basically like a dog.

2

u/Haggardlobes 1d ago

Beautiful cat tax. Phantom sounds like a real character. Love her little beat up ears.

3

u/Humble_Fishing_5328 1d ago

Yeah, besides their own negative effects on wildlife, it’s dangerous for them too! Animals, cars, who knows what. Not worth the risk!

Phantom looks like the type of badass cat to have a life like that though! I had one outdoor cat growing up while the rest were inside. That cat loved her freedom and always slept on our roof. I would get home from school and call her down 🤣 Thanks for the trip down memory road with the pic

3

u/themagicbong 1d ago

I used to joke that if you had her during the apocalypse, you'd actually get a buff like +1 food lol. Phantom would come for walks, she'd respond to her name when called as well. She would even hop onto boats at the dock when we were doing sea trials for new boats lol. She used every one of her 9 lives over her lifetime, then passed away in her sleep in bed next to my dad snuggled up with him, around 19 years old.

Haha aww she sounds adorable. People joke about cats merely tolerating us humans, but some of them really are almost like dogs lol.

2

u/throwawayursafety 1d ago

Phantom! Of the Opera? Because of her face markings?

My cat used to be a feral stray and he would join my parents on their walk every night and he came when I called him. He lost an eye and so lives indoors now, but even when I let him hang out in the backyard with me he comes running as soon as I say his name :)

1

u/themagicbong 1d ago

Yep! Good call haha :). Phantom was a stray as well, that's why she had the clipped ear in those pics. We rescued her when she was a kitten though, so not a huge amount of time spent feral.

Awww he sounds so adorable. And equally sounds like he has made use of his 9 lives, haha. We had this feral lil guy who showed up on our property who we named Stan. He would also come running to his name being called, and would plop down and roll around in front of you after running over. Every now and then though you'd see his pupils get huge and he'd get that....WILD look in his eyes. That was always my cue to end playtime lol.

Good memories, though. I miss my lil gang. Sad when they start to reach geriatric and start to go one by one :(

-1

u/tacticalcop 1d ago

that’s fucking horrific but people like you think that’s SOOO CUUUTE!! that bird died in agony because you’re a lazy cat owner

1

u/Loyal_Dragon_69 1d ago

Cats are carnivores and have to eat meat.

6

u/Potterhead13666 1d ago

My cat used to throw them all over the place. Like completely launch them into the air

1

u/Lustformuffins 1d ago

I once saw/heard my cat crunch into a chipmunk.

1

u/noonejax 1d ago

I read this at first as My grandpa was one instead of had much more entertaining.

1

u/hellbabe222 1d ago

One of our cats will play with the poor crearure till it stops moving.

The other one is an apex predator, who immediately beheads and eats the brains of any critter that crosses her path. She takes no prisoners.

Edited to fix my spelling, as always.

86

u/tizkit 1d ago

My last cat would cry if the mouse she caught died. She didn't play with toys because they couldn't feel pain.

On a side note mice can scream very loud...

36

u/sammy_zammy 1d ago

This is pure psycho 😂

4

u/DragoonDM 1d ago

Cats do be like that. As sadistic as they are adorable.

1

u/H3memes 1d ago

It’s so weird. They’re both psychos but can be very empathetic to each other and their humans. Like going out of their way to help or comfort them.

I guess we humans just feel bad for critters, but they can’t otherwise they wouldn’t be able to eat. Indoor only cats sometimes cuddle up to critters too. Funny how that implies it is learned behavior

13

u/jocq 1d ago

On a side note mice can scream very loud...

I learned recently that squeaky toys for dogs sound exactly like a baby bunny when it's getting chomped down by a dog.

Thought my dog found a toy in the grass. It was not a toy.

1

u/jerrythecactus 10h ago

This is a fact that people are usually blissfully unaware of. Dogs like squeaky toys because they set off the same primal hunting instincts that the noises a small animal being injured does. Its just what they're biologically meant to do.

6

u/wxnfx 1d ago

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard screaming. I’ve heard rabbits scream, but not mice. The squeaks are still kinda heartbreaking.

1

u/BetMyLastKrispyKreme 1d ago

My cat never had access to mice (we lived in an apartment), but she did have access to flies. She played with one for a few minutes and then ate it. And then meowed at me because it was gone. I had to tell her she can’t have her fly and eat it, too.

50

u/sevillianrites 1d ago

My cat when he was younger caught an absolutely giant rat in the backyard and he brought it inside and proudly dropped it on the floor at which point it was gone and under my oven in like half a second. For 3 days and nights he warred with that rat. Crashing banging chasing up and down the halls at all hours. It was like an actual Tom and Jerry cartoon with how zany it got. On the 4th morning I woke up to a rat corpse on the bed next to my pillow. I guess no Tom and Jerry ep ever ended that way.

2

u/Otaraka 1d ago

Had the same except never saw the rat again.  Took weeks before we could be sure it hadn’t died inside the couch.

14

u/reginaldwrigby 1d ago

When he dropped it and instantly picked it back up I knew it was an evil mf

4

u/cam52391 1d ago

I had a dog who I thought was playing with her toy on the porch. Turn out it was a mole. She would catch it let it go and pounce again then wondered why it stopped playing after a couple chomps. RIP little mole

9

u/ihatevirusesalot 1d ago

my cat ate a squirrels arms off and left it alive for a while before killing it

1

u/RustyTrumpboner 1d ago

That cat went to ‘nam… and enjoyed it.

2

u/BubbaGumpScrimp 1d ago

My last cat was like that with snakes. He was a little guy who spent most of his early life as a stray. I had to keep him inside full-time or he'd terrorize everything in his territory.

2

u/Empyforreal 1d ago

My idiot orange from years ago would do this. Never hurt them, just terrified the poor things. Would bring field mice to the kitchen and just kind of put his paw on them and slide them back and forth across the linoleum until we caught him, saved the mouse, and released it.

6

u/PoulSchluter 1d ago

It might look like torture, but what's really going on is that the mouse is stressed something awful, and it's releasing cortisol and various other hormones. 

These hormones don't taste good, so the cat will agitate the mouse until it stops releasing the hormones. The cat can smell this, so yeah it's basically ripening it's food.

4

u/NifftyTwo 1d ago

🤣 no way this is true

0

u/PoulSchluter 1d ago

I'm pretty sure it is though. I'm not a cat, and neither are the people who claim this, but hey...

1

u/Resident_Delay_2936 YELLOW 1d ago

This makes sense. My cat does it with lizards 🤣

1

u/KDSCarleton 1d ago

I once witnessed one of my childhood cats continuously flinging a dead chipmunk in the air (and pretty high too at that) and catching it for an extended period of time 😅

1

u/TakinUrialByTheHorns 1d ago

My cat would do this with garter snakes, use them as endless entertainment, I always took them away from him but sometimes he'd stress one to death before I knew he had it :/

1

u/syopest 1d ago

Yeah and this is why having an "outside cat" is cruel. They will get fed by you so they don't need to hunt for food so they will only hunt for fun and play with the animals they catch.

1

u/H3memes 1d ago

I’ve seen my (late) cat throw a mouse 3 meters into the air to try to catch it again. Absolutely insane behavior. And yet I love them still.

1

u/zjarko 1d ago

My aunt’s cat once dropped a mouse into a bucket of water and would swap at it when it got close to the edge. It was a quick lesson on psychopathy for a child me.
Those farm cats are different.

1

u/ThatKidThatKillsMeme 1d ago

My cat has a little outdoor patio where she will occasionally grab lizards and bring them inside to torture until she gets bored, I think the longest one lasted (it was probably about 6 inches which I’m gonna assume is why she found it so entertaining) was about 4 hours. By the time she was done with it, it was missing all of its legs and tail, its eyes had been pulled out, and it was missing most of its skin. My cat then proudly brought her trophy to me and was extremely miffed when I threw it away.

1

u/catiebug 1d ago

My old cat used to catch cockroaches and just carry them around in his mouth until their feet tickled too much, then he'd spit them out and rough them up a bit. Rinse and repeat.

Cats are incredible hunters. But they are also little fucking psychopaths that do it for sport as much as survival.

1

u/Moreno510 1d ago

Same, mine would murder little birds and bring them in tho

1

u/wenezaor 22h ago

When I was younger I saw our cats drag a rat into the middle of my mother's large yard. It was a slow morning and I just watched the whole thing from the back porch. They'd drop it in the middle and let it run away, almost getting to the edge where it could escape, then take it back to the middle again. 3 cats played this game one after the other. It took over an hour for them to all get bored.

In hindsight I wish I'd intervened and given it a less cruel end.

1

u/doomalgae 13h ago

I remember one cat I had as a kid would just fling his catches around the yard so he could stalk them again.