On Jul 15, 5:40 pm, "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)"
wrote:
Marina wrote:
wrote:

There is something a bit horrifying about delivering a live mouse to a
cat (or pet snake) in a situation where the mouse has almost no chance
of escape. It reminds me of those "canned hunting" ranches, not that
I'm blaming the cat, of course.

They passed a law here a few years ago, banning the use of live animals
to feed pets. I've often thought about buying frozen mice for Miranda,
but she wouldn't know what to do with them. Oh, how I wish she'd have
had just one summer with Nikki on the island. Nikki would soon have
taught her what to do with prey.

She brought home a vole the other night. Didn't eat it.

Was it somewhere on this newsgroup, or on some TV program, that I
learned that although the "hunting" part is instinctive, a cat must be
TAUGHT to eat its prey? (They learn to use a litterbox a lot faster
when mama's around to teach them, too.)


Well, I have often said how surprised I was that Feather was able to
learn to kill mice when he had been raised in a mouse-free
environment. He went through a period of bringing me live mice, often
pretty much undamaged, of about eight months, until he was a little
over sixteen months old. Then he developed the killing nape-bite and
never brought in a living mouse again. I had heard, from reliable
sources, that they had to be taught and I was NOT about to bite a
mouse to show him.

--
Will in New Haven
"Max moved, gathering Ellie in one arm and urging her on.
Behind them Sam Anderson turned to face his certain death...
dropping to one knee and steadying his pistol over his left
forearm in precisely the form approved by the manual”.
- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
_Starman Jones_ (c. 1953)