Teleidoscope

Tue, Apr 17, 2007

Kitty Cuisine

Posted at 10:01 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

WARNING. Not for the squeamish. I'm not talking about Iams here. Or Meow Mix either. WARNING.

This is inspired by a post on John Scalzi's "Whatever" about his cat catching some baby bunnies. Which led to a comment thread about lots of different predatory cats and their quirks and habits..

Things I know my cat Dinah will eat:

Dry Iams cat food, an occasional small piece of ham or bacon, the juice out of canned salmon, chicken or water-packed tuna but not the actual meat or fish. The juice from onion leaves (she upchucks if she actually swallows any of the leaf, but this is shedding/hairball season so that may be why she wants the onions.)

I'm not sure whether dried organic catnip leaves count as a food, a condiment (they do give her the munchies) or just recreation.

I also have to be careful to keep anise flavored cookies stored out of her reach. (They aren't good for her, and they are MINE.) I haven't tried her with fennel leaves or anise

She will also eat Mice.

Dinah is an indoor cat, but an excellent mouser, Thank goodness! When we moved back home from Boston the house had been taken over by mice to a degree that was profoundly disgusting, but the only mouse I've seen on the main level in months was one that Dinah caught in the basement and brought up to the living room to eat. She has a special trilling meow that means "I am a mighty hunter and I have a mouse in my mouth", so I can often tell when her hunting has been successful.

She ate the whole mouse except a jelly-bean-like organ I suspect may be the gall bladder, which she frequently (usually?) leaves uneaten. Quite frequently the only evidence of a mouse that I find is a tiny blood stain and the gall bladder. She can be a very neat predator.

Other times I find partial mice on the bedroom or hall floor in the morning. She knows learned that mice on the bed are NOT welcome. (She still gets praised for catching the mouse, of course, and maybe a catnip treat. Even if I have to remind her about "No mice on the bed". See comment above about profound disgustingness.)

Sometimes the partial mouse is the front end, sometimes it is the back end. Sometimes she leaves the head, the gall bladdery thing, and a chunk consisting of the pelvis, hind legs and tail.

Partial mice vs mice eaten completely (except the gall bladder) do not seem to correspond to the size of the mouse. There is clearly something more subtle going on.

I clearly watch too much Food Network. I have this vision of a feline Alton Brown gesturing toward a chart of mousy cuts of meat and discussing what the different sections of the mouse are good for...

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