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From: jla@inuxd.UUCP (Joyce Andrews)
Newsgroups: net.pets
Subject: Re: Better mousers??
Message-ID: <790@inuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Aug-85 09:04:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: inuxd.790
Posted: Sun Aug 25 09:04:59 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Aug-85 02:00:33 EDT
References: <247@drutx.UUCP> <1685@orca.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
Lines: 39

> Females are MUCH better mousers!  Males (especially non-neutered) spend much
> of their time roaming, and the critters they catch might be the neighbor's.
> Females will hunt in the barn and stay closer to home.  I've seen females
> bring mice to 3/4 grown male children, while their sisters were out hunting
> on their own!

I agree--females are MUCH BETTER mousers (and technical writers,
and engineers :-)--sorry, I had to put that in.  You were all
expecting it, anyway.)
 
> .....I think females become
> better mousers after they've had a litter.
 
Not true--spayed female cats hunt every bit as well as they would
if they were not spayed.  My two best mousers on the farm were
spayed females.  If they have their shots and a well-balanced
diet (I always kept good quality dry food available at all times)
and don't get pregnant and have to nurse babies they feel good
and have lots of energy for hunting.

BTW, one of those two best mousers (champions in a barn of 13
cats) was a humane society orphan who was raised on a bottle and
never had a mommy to teach her to hunt.  She didn't become a barn
cat until after she was spayed (it was her choice to join the
"hunt pack"--she got out there and started hunting and didn't
want to be a house cat anymore.)  Two other females, brought to
the barn as kittens and spayed after first heat, were not much
better than the tom cats at hunting.

> Cats are intellegent and complex creatures.  Some will make excellent mousers,
> others will simply cry at the door day and night until you feed them.  The
> way we used, which is only possible and humane in a rural setting, was to
> simply have lots of them, and let them hunt who would.

Well said.

                         Joyce Andrews
                         AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
                         ihnp4!inuxd!jla