• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Had several indoor/outdoor cats though the decades and only one was a hunter that would actually kill. The other 4 were utterly harmless to wildlife. Not Ozzy.

    Picked him up too young to take home, but a customer of mine had 6 litters one Sunday morning. You can imagine how overrun and diseased that area was. But damn. He fit in my palm, was black and blue and white, and had no future. And we’d been talking about getting a cat.

    Long story short, took him to the vet; Hookworms, roundworms, tapeworms, fleas, black with ear mites, and feline leukemia. My vet gently suggested I put him down. She gave a 1-in-5 chance of surviving the cancer, probably die 6-months later anyway.

    “Got him for my girlfriend, we have to talk about this first.” She respected that.

    Jenny and I went in our bedroom and had a sit down. Well shit, the animal was so weak he could barely move. We decided to kill him. (I will not apply euphemisms.) And we cried. A lot.

    Came out to see what the noise was. We was chasing a moth around the lamp! First we had ever seen him move. “OK buddy, you got your chance.”

    Ozzy cleared the mice out of the walls a week after he got strong. Started eating the whole animal, later got picky and left heads and tails laying around. No more mice? He hunted the industrial area beyond our yard. Don’t know what he found out there, but he barely touched his cat food.

    He died in the street, as outdoor cats often do, but he got a second lease on life and Ozzy burned that candle so very bright.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Lmao, my cat got rid of all my mice problems in a month. Companionship + Pest Control package deal. Best deal ever!

    (She chases mice around but doesn’t seem to know how to kill, just keep pouncing until they are dead, but bigger mice sometimes get away. Didn’t matter, one month after I got her, zero mice in sight. Poof, gone. Still have roach problems, but sadly, cats don’t hunt roaches. Oh well 🤷‍♂️)

    • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Just this morning. Such a helpful kitty. Although the bringing to bed part could probably be skipped.

        • Scubus
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          1 day ago

          Inteoduce cabin spiders. They reproduce faster than your cat can get them, and theyll hang out where your cat cant get to them. They literally cannot harm you at all, and their population will explode proportionally to their prey, and it will go down when theres less prey. They are one of the largest consumers of other spiders too.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      cats don’t hunt roaches

      Mine does. I barely squish em myself anymore, I just warn them to get out before the cat sees, and I always find the corpse in the morning.

    • Aksangi@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      mine is dead afraid of anything smaller then himself for some reason. i still love him though

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      The mice can smell the cat and knows to stay away.

      When I was a kid we moved into a lovely house where I grew up, it was quite well ventilated, (when a gust of wind hit in a particular way, it would blow sheets of paper of my desk even when all windows and doors were closed), and we had to get mouse traps, these were the old classic type which snapped shut and broke the mouse’s neck, we would get a few mice every year.

      Then we decided to get a kitten, a lovely completely black kitten with thick but short fur and tuffs on her ears.

      We didn’t know it at the time but over the next 15-20 years she became a quite accomplished huntress.

      And we never had any issues with mice since though one mice that she brought home did escape into a hole inside and we never saw it again, probably because we just after that poured a concreate foundation through the hole.

      Not even when we got rid of the water melon my dad had placed in the foundation mold.

      • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Toxoplasmosis will make them walk right up to cats which can confuse the cat. -They catch it from the cat’s urine.

  • dumbass@leminal.space
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    1 day ago

    My old cat used to bring them inside alive to show them her toys then just drop it and walk off leaving it up to me to deal with the new mouse problem she created… God I miss that asshole.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      Mine’s the opposite, I’ve started just warning most bugs I see instead of squishing them myself.

      “You better get out of here before the cat sees you, nothing can save you then, and she will find you.”

      I save ladybugs, and one time a lizard got in and I saved that guy, but mostly though just the stern warning and I find their corpse in the morning.

  • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    My cat somehow managed to run a mouse up to the ceiling just yesterday.

    I have a wall tapestry that goes to the ceiling above a dresser, which is about 3.5-4 foot tall? The tapestry only goes to the top of the dresser, and the dresser is like 2 inches off the wall (old baseboard resistive heater).

    I woke up to the cat pawing at the tapestry, can’t have that. Turn on the light and see a mouse at the very top. Just chilling up there.

    Caught it and threw it over the fence into my dick neighbor’s plants, where they all go. (I have a really old house, this happens)

  • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Cats are nocturnal, so when you’re in bed at night; it’s their time to hunt. Toxoplasmosis can eliminate fear of cats in mice. Mice walking up to a cat or not being afraid will throw off the predator instinct.