Ethics are an illusion. Feed your enemies to the cat farm.
No. You aren’t supposed to feed your cat live mice or live food at all.
It’s a pet. Feed it pet food.
Cats can’t digest mice. That’s why they vomit it up.
They sure can. In practice there is a very real risk from poison the mouse may have ingested or parasites it may carry, and certainly the cat’s tummy could get upset if it isn’t used to that kind of food (lord knows even a new kind of cat food can make some cats puke).
But in theory cats can eat mice just fine, bones and all.
I can confirm, I’ve seen cats eating mice. That crunchy sound is not easy to forget.
You can go on YouTube and watch a cat eat a whole rabbit.
From what I’ve read, cat food often uses byproducts that can’t or wouldn’t otherwise be used for human consumption. For that reason, I think it’s more ethical to use stuff that would otherwise go to waste than to breed mice for them to eat. Plus, from my experience with house cats, many wouldn’t actually eat the mice, but just play with/torture them until they’re dead.
That’s my experience too. The cat beats the mouse dead, and I have to grab the mouae and toss it to the chickens.
One big reason not to feed live prey is that it fights back. Each feeding would be an opportunity for your cat to get bit, scratched, an infection, or maybe lose an eye. It could also make quite the mess of your house.
If you want to try feeding it more natural prey, it is available though places like RodentPro that we use at our rehab, and there are places that will sell whole animal pet food or zoo food. Just make sure it’s the right balance of nutrients for a house cat. I believe they need very high protein, IIRC.
All those foods would be still factory farmed, I suppose one could say, but the ethics and nutrion is at least a bit different as the sourcing of the proteins is less questionable and there would be no fillers or harmful ingredients like in commercial feed, especially kibble.
These things are tough. We have an old box turtle and I get him crickets sometimes and it gets him more active. He is old though so they live for awhile and we actually have to get these cricket cubes so they can eat and stay hydrated.
Why would you not feed them a dead mouse if you’re going that route. Hell someone I know with a snake feeds it frozen mice.
Live mice can hurt the snake, it also can make them more aggressive.
It’s just a thought experiment. I would never feed my cats raw mice but I got to thinking about the question.
3 of my 4 would be down for it.
#4 -
I used to feed my cat a quail and a half every day. It was from a grocery store so it was human grade food. The bones were easily chewed and he liked tearing it up.
If I feed my cats live mice, they’re going to starve.
I mean it’s more fun for the cat for one thing.
I mean my cats do both. That’s because the fields naturally habitat mice where I live so what the snakes, chickens and raptors don’t eat occasionally make they’re way into the cats habitats. I guess I could design a mice habitat to more aggressively grow them for the cats but I think growing food stuff for myself that they can also eat makes more sense (I.e. chicken, and fish).
Cats are cruel hunters tbh, I don’t mind just letting them play with non feeling things and eating prepared healthy meats instead that can be harvested in less cruel ways and do more for my food ecosystem too.
