“heater cats” lol!! One can only hope!
2 Likes
This is the season that rodents are trying to come into barns ( or your house) trying to find a warm place to spend the winter. Little Gretel has killed five big rats in the last week and a half. Not mice - she has gotten a few of them too to leave as a present. Nothing eats rat carrion so I have to throw them over the fence in the pasture. YUCK! I don’t know where the rats came from but the only good rat is a dead rat. She is starving for her canned food every day. Rat hunting is hard work it seems.
2 Likes
Good on you, 8ponds. You have a good set-up and you’re doing it right!
3 Likes
Isn’t that funny? My wee Ella who is half the size of each of my 4 big males is the one who kills the rats.
2 Likes
i’ve heard that the females are the better hunters. I wonder if there is a lot of truth to that…
1 Like
I was going to comment on that earlier when you mentioned your videos showing the females hunting.
Wonder if that’s because females typically have a litter to feed. And males just carouse around.
4 Likes
Not sure about all the big cats, but with lions the females do most of the hunting (and are usually better hunters than the males).
2 Likes
cat-cam review of over 300 photos overnight (motion activated!) showed many just-mouse photos, many just-cat photos and one extra special little series of pics of the big black female (Olive) with a mouse :). In the food bowl is the torti
one that escaped after only a week and a half from her cage…she’s alive and well and very stuck to here! She frequents the food station about every two hours. This is quite the action spot! The second photo is same torti (“Buttons”) and spotted Ernst, one of the two males. He is the most interested in food out of all of them…and seems to have found a cozy spot in the alfalfa shed. I’ve seen him in there a number of times.
8 Likes
In my spoiled indoor kitty experience the boys have zero hunting interest, and the girls are the ace bug hunters. Fortunately no rodents have arrived to test this theory, but the cats even know amongst themselves who the good hunters are.
My chonky boys wont even try to catch a cricket when they see that the girl kitty has it in her sights. They know she will beat them to it, so they give up and return to a sunbeam to snooze as she totes her prize around. I do love the “proud hunter” strut they do when they catch something.
2 Likes
I believe it to be true, probably because if/when in the wild they were the ones to teach and provide for the litter.
1 Like
Our current male barn cat is a decent hunter, but better at snuggling and sleeping on hay bales.
Dice was a formidable hunter of all species as a barn cat. Mice, rats, lizards, baby squirrels, gophers, birds…. The first day we released him he caught 5-6 mice. He was once witnessed leaping off a hose reel another three feet to catch birds in flight. Seriously quick and athletic.
But I would agree that the females are better overall. Dice was an anomaly in many regards.
2 Likes
In general, I’ve noticed that females seem to have more edge on them in personality and be more intense and males a bit more amiable and able to lay around more. It certainly applies with house cats. Maybe that carries over to hunting duties, too. With lions, it is the lionesses who hunt.
Of course, it’s a generalization. The fiercest hunter I have on the property is Bagheera, who is male.
2 Likes
I had a Bagheera once. 
