AH crap!

"Bastette" wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:

It's not a good idea to keep prey species along with what will catch
them in
the same house. It's cruel, IMO.

I would never keep birds in a cage in my house with Boyfriend and I
don't
think it would be a good to keep mice, rats, or anything else that he
might
scare by staring.

Imagine that a tiger or lion is staring at you and you are in a cage.
You
might know that you are safe in there, but what if..

Or maybe you're not *quite* sure if you're safe. Maybe you're in a cage
that's
suspended from a pole, and whenever the lion bumps into the pole, the
whole
thing swings back and forth. One of these days, the pole and your cage
will
fall to the floor with you in it, and the door might pop open, allowing
the
lion to begin nomming on you.

Many years ago there was someone on this ng, briefly, who was very
irresponsible with her pets. For one thing, at first she talked about one
group of cats who lived with her. Then she moved, and gave the cats away.
Later she had adopted another set of cats. She seemed to live a chaotic
life, and so did her cats.

At one point she had a pair of birds - lovebirds, maybe - and their cage,
suspended by a pole, sat in a room that the cats were allowed in. It was
just as I described above. Those cats were *very* interested in the birds
and they would pace around on the floor, trying to figure a way to get to
them. They would jump on nearby high furniture and try to bat at the cage.
One time, the poster (forget her name) came home to find the cage lying
on the floor, empty. Turned out the birds were unharmed, and were perched
somewhere that was hard for the cats to get to. But did she then put the
cage in a room that was off-limits to the cats? No!

I remember posting something about it at the time, that made the same
analogy you did, about being in a cage with lions pacing underneath,
slavering at the thought of what you would taste like. It made no
impression.

One day, one of the birds dropped dead - of fright, no doubt. Only *then*
did this idiot finally move the cage into a closed room. But it was too
late. The other bird died not long afterward, probably of loneliness
Some people should not be allowed to have pets.

I know this was a long time ago, but does anyone remember this? Some of
you have been around here as long as I have (I joined in late 1999).

No I don't remember this, but I think it's a bad idea to keep a prey species
alongside an animal that would prey on them.
I would not do it myself - it must be horribly stressful for those who
expect to be eaten.


I could not even have a ginger cat. Why? Because my chickens would go
crazy, thinking it was a fox if it passed by their hut. They'd leap into
the air and almost knock themselves out on the wire and that's the level of
fright when a prey species sees a predator.