Are we feeding this cat too much?

Hi,
We have am inside/outside cat who is a good hunter. In fact, over 3 days, I found a half eaten rat, about a 1/3 of a chipmunk, an un-eaten mouse, and a few feathers from some small bird. So clearly, he is being successful. He comes in the house as if he is starving, and begging for food, so we feed him, but then he doesn't finish the carcasses and leaves them laying around where they attract flies if I don't take care of them.

Is it normal for cats to leave their leftovers around? Can I feed him less inside? to incentivize him to eat the whole thing outside?

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi,
We have am inside/outside cat who is a good hunter. In fact, over 3 days, I found a half eaten rat, about a 1/3 of a chipmunk, an un-eaten mouse, and a few feathers from some small bird. So clearly, he is being successful. He comes in the house as if he is starving, and begging for food, so we feed him, but then he doesn't finish the carcasses and leaves them laying around where they attract flies if I don't take care of them.

Is it normal for cats to leave their leftovers around? Can I feed him less inside? to incentivize him to eat the whole thing outside?

We have 12 cats that are excellent hunters, far too good sometimes.  They kill everything.  They also leave carcasses everywhere, that's just what they do.  Ours still act like they are starving for cat food.  All of them are skinny, some super skinny.  I guess if we starved them down even more they would eat more of the dead animals but I think it's cruel when people expect them to just figure out how to survive on what they get themselves.  My own belief is that if you have an animal, you are responsible for keeping it healthy and happy.  It sounds like you are doing the right thing to me.  I just throw the leftover carcass chunks in the compost pile if no one eat them.  

In my experience, cats rarely eat the whole kill, unless they are desperately hungry. If your goal is pest control, they've done their job. And as Trace said, the remains can be buried to build the soil or added to the compost heap. A starving cat is a motivated hunter, but a less efficient one than a healthy well-fed cat. Plus feeding the cats is relationship building, and encourages them to stay around. I'd rather they hunted rodents on my land than on my neighbours!

I agree with Jane. One of my best mousers only ate the livers.

Cats are odd little beasts. Make a proud fuss over the kills, especially if they're of prey you want them hunting, and they'll often find a good spot to show them off to you.

I had a friend with a pair that we called zombie cats, they'd leave all sorts of rodent corpses missing the brains and eyes. Creepy!

I had a regular visiting hunter who'd court my bag of bonito flakes by making lines of tidbits left on my front door mat. A wing, a head or two, a leg, a tail, all from different creatures. She'd proudly meow at me about them, and then devour her flakes.

I think it's perfectly normal.

At my previous property, we had our cats conditioned (not trained) to come in every morning to be fed, and go out every night to have fun and whack rodents. This arrangement reduced the damage to the songbird population.

They would commonly leave trophies, whole or half eaten, on the inside step of the mud porch, as if they were showing off and/or providing for their cat tribe people. Naturally, this is where I stepped out, bleary eyed and coffee deprived, to feed the hounds and felt the "squelch!" of some corpse under my stocking feet. Bleah.

Thanks for all these replies :)

Sounds like the cat is being normal, and that I will have to deal with the leftovers... fun *rolling eyes, sort of half smile*