Anyone ever teach a cat that mice are made of food?

Our cat's mom is a barn cat (elsewhere), but somewhat strange circumstances led our cat to being adopted by us before she really learned to hunt for food. She catches animals on occasion, but she does not understand that they are made of food. She doesn't need to hunt, since she is a house cat; at the same time, she finds mice outside the house and sometimes inside. The bad part is that if she gets bored of playing with the mouse before it dies, we now have a mouse in the house.

Is there a way to teach her that when she is done playing, she can eat it? There are other cats nearby, but she does not hang out with the neighbor cats. This last part is sad because the neighbor cats are pretty chill and like making new friends.  How do I take over that role safely and effectively? Glove up and "butcher" the mouse in front of her and try to get her to eat bits of it?

You're just going to have to eat the mouse to show her by example.

I could be wrong but I thought mice had things in them that - in general - you do not want a house cat eating. Worms, parasites, etc. I think best for a house cats long term health is to not eat them. 
 

Edit: I just did one moments research and apparently if you keep on top of parasite treatments it's not a big deal. 

Time to upgrade to a house owl 

dculberson said:

I could be wrong but I thought mice had things in them that - in general - you do not want a house cat eating. Worms, parasites, etc. I think best for a house cats long term health is to not eat them. 
 

Edit: I just did one moments research and apparently if you keep on top of parasite treatments it's not a big deal. 

Toxoplasmosis isn't affected by deworming, is spread by cats eating rodents, and has been shown to have a strong correlation with schizophrenia. Causation experiments can't be done, you'd have to infect people with toxoplasmosis, then wait to see what develops.

I have no doubt that the schizophrenia link is real.

You are feeding cats too much if you have a mice problem.    

We have a pair of cats with genuine barncat dna.  One is quite the huntress and loves to bring stuff into the house to start an infestation (We had a mouse watching a movie with us last night).  The things she brings in are varied and just as often live as dead.  

They now have a curfew and I lock the pet door at night so that I don't have to deal with this at 3 AM.  

Sorry I don't have an answer to the real question.  We have gotten pretty good at capture-and-release (as a result of our cat's capture-and-domesticate plan).  I can share lessons learned on that front, lol.

Stop feeding them.

Even the last mighty hunter we had (who was either taught to hunt by his mum or learned when he was semi-abandoned in the NV desert for a couple of years) very quickly learned that those skill are much better deployed in hunting down and bothering your human to open another can of food.

In reply to bentwrench :

This may be it. The cat does not need to it the rodent because it has a bowl of yumyums available. 
 

our cat Tina, we got her at maybe a few weeks old. She was found on the side of the road alone and would have never made it. She didnt really learn how to "cat" right until we got another kitten(Gene bean)that was a little older and already was trained i guess, he helped her develop some.  Genie beanie the boy cat got outside and liked it, would not come back inside then he disappeared unfortunately. 
 

but now Tina is a great hunter. She'll berk up anything that gets into the house. I find it dead later. 
but that also brings up the "gifts" thing. How cats will deliver their "master" a kill. 
 

maybe kitty is just bringing you gifts. 

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to bentwrench :

This may be it. The cat does not need to it the rodent because it has a bowl of yumyums available.

maybe kitty is just bringing you gifts.

She definitely brings gifts and has yumyums, but I have also read that cats naturally hunt (play until things die), but don't eat them if they have not been taught that they are food. She just needs a teacher. I have had other cats of varying degrees of hunting skill, but generally, cats adopted into a house don't eat what they catch unless taught, and cats that have learned will eat what they catch regardless of other food available.

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I've never heard of a schizophrenic cat, but it sure would explain a lot of their behavior. 
 

The cats we had, to my knowledge, never left anything alive. Also, to my knowledge, never actually ate any of it either. One was a real scrappy street rescue named Sam. Once got a rabbit, hauled it up 8' of stucco wall to get through the hole where the AC used to be in the garage, and dismembered the thing under the shelving where all the big tools are. I miss that cat. But we can't have any because apparently I'm allergic now? Eh. 

I never had a cat, but my Huskies will kill anything that gets on the property. Mice. Rats. Opossums. Squirrels. Cats. Birds. I have found remains of all of those in the backyard.

They don't spend a whole lot of time with it either. It's catch it. Kill it. Toss it aside. Kind of like the rat terrier video on you tube. One time when mice got in the house I kept finding dead ones, uneaten on the kitchen floor still bleeding.

It is a rare mouse that survives any contact with a cat's claws or teeth. Mice have about a thimble-full of blood  in their whole body and a resting heart rate of around 550 rpm to keep it circulating. The loss of two drops of blood and a heart rate jump to 700 rpm tends to drive them into cardiac failure.

If you must try to tech them that rodents are food, turn it into a game. Keep the cat hungry and dangle the rodent by a string over the feeding area. He will eventually get a taste of the meat inside the yucky hairy bit and figure it out; you like bananas maybe, but would you eat through the peel to get it down. Switching them to a raw diet might also help the cause.

Our first two cats were indoor/outdoor cats and quite good at catching stuff and fooding it. Flip side is that they were also good at sharing the leftovers in the form of cat vomit or just half portions left on the floor. I would much prefer the whole critter to clean up.

Haven't had a cat that pampered/indoorsy yet. I had a spoiled princess of a cat that grew up around more than enough access to food that would still kill and eat things regularly. Some cats aren't so interested in eating prey but they mostly kill what they catch (unless they intentionally bring it inside and release it in front of you to teach you how to hunt )

NOHOME said:

Our first two cats were indoor/outdoor cats and quite good at catching stuff and fooding it. Flip side is that they were also good at sharing the leftovers in the form of cat vomit or just half portions left on the floor. I would much prefer the whole critter to clean up.

I will try dangling the next mouse over food, thanks. Heck, I should just try putting it on top of the food and see what happens.

In regards to half vs. whole, I agree whole is nicer. I did have her lose interest in one and it went for the couch (perhaps to die moments later?). I caught that one and released it in the empty lot across the street. There are places a mouse can hide in a couch that the cat can't get to, and with our kids, there is likely a pretty nice food supply for a mouse in places that we can't get to.

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

but that also brings up the "gifts" thing. How cats will deliver their "master" a kill. 
 

maybe kitty is just bringing you gifts. 

They actually do it because they think you're the kitten and need to be fed. They're also trying to teach you to kill.

When I was a toddler, our bobcat would hunt and come inside at ~3AM carrying his kill, lay it on the bed next to my head while I was asleep, and then sleep with me. Some cats are frankly just dogs with more personality.

The better thing would be to seal up the house so the mice don't get in. It cost me a lot of money for a company to do that, but there hasn't been a mouse in the attic or one in the house for the cat to catch since. 

They're disgusting creatures that spread disease. 

Have you're better half look up Hantavirus and see how quickly they agree to spending the money. 

According to my cat, mice are NOT made of food.  However, they are fun toys, until they stop working, which doesn't take very long. It's our fault that the toys break so quickly.

z31maniac said:

The better thing would be to seal up the house so the mice don't get in. It cost me a lot of money for a company to do that, but there hasn't been a mouse in the attic or one in the house for the cat to catch since. 

They're disgusting creatures that spread disease. 

Have you're better half look up Hantavirus and see how quickly they agree to spending the money. 

Same endorsement for the pro pest control. Last time we had mice, I tried to trap them and was not winning the battle. "Not cheap" later the local pest control came and sealed the house with caulking and steel wool and bait boxes and we have been rodent free until recently. The cat found one mouse and I know where this is going.

In reply to z31maniac :

Oh, I am familiar with the risk, but one of the walls they seem to come in at is under 6 feet of ground. I am not sure we are ready to tear the walls out, especially since the ground out here continues to settle.

barefootcyborg5000 said:

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I've never heard of a schizophrenic cat, but it sure would explain a lot of their behavior. 
 

Maybe you're serious, I can't tell.  After all, sarcasm doesn't translate on a web page.

We are talking about schizophrenia in humans. Toxoplasma gondii is a brain parasite of rodents. Since the parasite can only reproduce in cats, it has to get from the rodent to the cat. What happens (I'm not sure the mechanism is understood) is that the parasite makes the rodent attracted to cats. Mice and rats infected with Toxoplasma will actually seek out cats. It is thus well established that Toxoplasma affects behavior.
 

Toxoplasma lifecycle

Unfortunately, that effect as a brain parasite has been strongly linked to the development of schizophrenia in humans.

Living with a cat that hunts is a serious public health risk.

Overview of multiple studies.

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I wasn't being sarcastic. I read that as eating mice could cause schizophrenia, and the thread is originally about getting cats to eat mice. Anyway, I have yet another reason not to eat mice I'll now add to my list. 

barefootcyborg5000 said:

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

I wasn't being sarcastic. I read that as eating mice could cause schizophrenia, and the thread is originally about getting cats to eat mice. Anyway, I have yet another reason not to eat mice I'll now add to my list. 

The source of infection is not the mouse. Since the parasite can't reproduce in the mouse, the parasite is only infectious after it's shed in the cat feces.