The two kittens I rescued from the APL have now doubled in weight and have assumed their jobs. They eat, sleep, attack the guards and help out around the plant. They love to sleep together in a little box that looks like somebody melted them and poured them into. If I'm working on something on my knees, they crawl on my shoulders and nibble my ears. They are just too cute and it has greatly boosted morale here. I have cameras that they trigger at night when they play and they stalk the walkthrough guards. The best part of my day is reviewing last night's video. I assume they will give as much attention to a rodent as they do to their toys.
That's cool. Our cat is much older and overweight but still likes climbing into impossibly small cardboard boxes. Can't kick an empty box aside without checking it first...
I have a favorite dog that jumps up from whatever he's doing to follow when he hears me headed down the stairs to the shop. Of course I'll only let him in when everything is off and the floor is swept. It'd be heart wrenching to see him get hurt by any of the stuff in there.
We've had shop cats for a very long time, and they have to work for their kibble. I've always been surprised that they don't get into trouble with all the machinery, they avoid big moving stuff. The also manage not to get little pieces of wire stuck in them, I wish I could avoid that. Dogs can't avoid getting swarf in their paws as well...keep sweeping for the pup.
We have packing line kittens. Part of the SO's herd of 12 cats. They move inside every fall when heating season begins. I've been worried for 20 years that one would get caught in the machine on start. So far, I've only heard a few serious yowls and seen a cat run REALLY fast. They stay away after start - no problems.
P.S. the food inspector doesn't like cats in the room - against some code. I have never seen any sign of a rodent in our packing house in 20 years and we have no poison or traps. When she wrote us up for an animal in the room, I asked if it was better to have mice and mouse droppings in the apples. I got no answer.
Get a few of those Klaxon vibratory warning buzzer fire alarm horns, the insanely loud ones. Mount them /inside/ the packing machine at strategic points they might want to curl up and take a nap.
Put the button for the buzzers next to the Start button on the machine - hit Horn button once or twice, wait for cats to scatter before hitting Start button.
If you have employees who can't grasp that idea, or you think an OSHA Inspector might wander by, set it up like a regular production line - the horns are interlocked with the Start button, which has to be pressed and held for a 5-second warning delay (timer module) before the main contactor pulls in and latches up. Bump the Start button, and you get a cat (and human) pre-warning horn blast without a start.
Problem solved, and without any mangled kitties.
Ask if she wants the kitties to wear hairnets. (Egad, there's a visual... ;-P
Cats like to crawl into warm spots when it gets cold.
We had Max, a half-Siamese, for many years until he was finally killed by a coyote in San Diego. Before that he'd traveled with us all over the country and lived with us in vaious homes. Cool animal. He used to play fetch with bottle caps and small balls of aluminum foil. And he liked to sleep curled around the top of my head.
When we lived in St. Louis one night he went missing. Apparently he had crawled up onto the engine of my Chevy Blazer when I go thome. I drove to school (20 miles) the next day, parked the truck, then returned home that evening. Looked around for Max when I got home as the wife said she hadn't seen him all day. Half hour later when I was calling for him, I found him in the garage climbing down from the engine compartment, with dirt and grease on his fur. He had ridden in the engine compartment, stayed there during the entire day, and ridden home. None the worse for wear. He used up at least one of his lives in that adventure.
From what I understand mousing is a learned behavior with cats. If momma brings a mouse back to the kittens then they learn that the mouse is food and will kill to eat. If they are not exposed to this, then they might play with a mouse like a toy but they are just as apt to let it go alive if they get tired of playing.
I'm not sure but if your kittens have not been exposed to the mice as food concept, you might be able to not feed them for a few days and then toss a mouse into a confined area with them or perhaps introduce them to a known mouser. I am not sure how that would work out.
Roger Shoaf wrote: From what I understand mousing is a learned behavior with cats. If momma
I have also heard that and I think that it's true, to an extent. Our cat comes from a long line of show cats that never got to be outside. So she was not exposed to hunting. We do let her out and I'll never forget the first time that she caught a mouse. Not having been trained in how to handle them, she was carrying it by one of its hind legs, with it dangling below. What a sight. She clearly had not been taught about hunting.
However, as time went on and she had some practice, she got much better at it and also discovered that mice/chipmunks/voles/birds are food. So she hadn't been taught but there was enough instinct there for her to bootstrap herself.
But she can't hold a candle to our previous cat who would catch and eat gray squirrels.
I take a fake mouse and tie it on a fishing rod with "Spider Wire" and they go into a frenzy. They have destroyed 6 or so of these toys...they shred them!
Other than the seriously over-bred types, all cats have a basic set of instincts that will come into play if exposed to rodents. How efficient they are varies.
You don't need them to eat the mouse (they kill it because it's what they do) and you don't want to starve them - are you at your best in an athletic activity when starving? Based on the cats I've known personally, I think they will do fine if there are any rodents to be had, especially with exposure at an early age.
The most efficient (in terms of time-to-kill) cat I've known was a mom cat who was pretty much always one bite unless bringing toys back for kittens.
The most effective (in terms of catching a rodent in the house) had no interest whatever in eating the mouse (she'd come put it on the food plate when it stopped be interesting, which was usually a few tosses into the air after it expired), but never ate one to my recollection. I know that she had to figure out rodents for herself.
The cats that were into eating prey often got off the rodent track and side-tracked into rabbits, etc. They also have more vet issues.
A LOT more trips to the vet! Our last shop cat ate critters and would get sick fairly often. Expensive! He never had another cat to train him, he was just a natural born hunter.
All the Burmese cats I've had (since they were kittens) have caught mice and birds (also a toad and frog, they weren't hurt) although they couldn't have been taught. We had mice once when I was a kid and I locked the cat in the kitchen for a couple of hours. He killed about six of them and left them in a neat line on the floor. We got him as a tiny kitten and he couldn't have been taught, either.
During one of my early "catless" periods..someone gave me a very very young abyssinian female kitten. Just had her eyes open, and was still on the tit. I bottle fed her until she was eating solid foods. Her mother for some reason, rejected the entire litter. Shrug
She was probably the Best hunter Ive ever seen. When she had her first litter..it came to the fore. Some years later..she met her demise by trying to haul a full sized jack rabbit..bigger than she was, across a street that had a pickup on an intercept course.
She was forever bringing snakes, lizards, rabbits, birds (including one of my neighbors racing pigeons..cringe) home. All nicely dead..thankfully. The 4' sidewinder would not have been fun to have alive in the house....
Very long legs, a solid sand tan in color..she would blend in to the local landscape and when she started to run..it was a blur. I actually saw her take down a jack rabbit..it reminded me of the cheetah. There was about 30 seconds of hard running by the jack...a tan bullet hit him and that was all.
No one ever trained her, it was instinctive.
On the other hand...Ive got cats that are so domestic that they couldnt stalk a food bowl. Though they all go nuts at the sound of a can opener...
Gunner
"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
True enough..if thats all you feed them. I feed em canned as a treat. YOu also know that dry is not all that good for males that have been neutered? They need a mix of wet and dry for optimum kidney health
Gunner
"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
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