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Mouser Cat
The mouser cat discharged his part of the bargain those many thousands of years ago when farmers entered into a social contract with domesticated wild cats. The cat caught the rodents and the farmer provided protection and the certainty of food and shelter. Is it still worth considering adopting a domestic cat as a mouser, a cat that keeps the local rodent population down? We know that cats, domestic or wild, have an innate instinct to hunt, whether they are hungry or not. Farmers discovered this when they thought that keeping their cats hungry would make them better hunters - it didn't. There would seem to be two major factors which govern whether your cat
Firstly, cats differ substantially in their personal characteristics. Some cats will hunt incessantly and successfully. Others will barely get going. Take my girl cat. She will get involved initially in a hunt but lose interest. This is just a personal characteristic. I have, though, never seen or lived with a modern day cat that spends a lot of the time mousing. This is probably because there aren't that many mice around and the cats that I have lived with are not that way inclined. You can't tell if a cat is a keen hunter until you get to know him. The second factor must be the nurture element (the cat's early experiences) that creates a cats personal characteristics. Cats these days are often cosseted and are very comfortable. Scant motivation therefore to get off the backside to find food. The kitten will have had little training from mother. In short, this highly effective hunting skill is very gradually being "detuned" in my opinion. Although, there have been some very effective cat mousers. These relate to cats usually living some tens of years ago. The lifestyle of both humans and domestic cats was very different then - much more basic and natural, and therefore a more suitable climate under which the cat's natural hunting skills could flourish. Apparently a UK cat living in Lancashire (Northern England), over his lifespan of 23 years, killed 22,000 mice. That's almost 3 per day. It would seem that this cat relied on his hunting to sustain himself to a large extent. The champion mouser cat , however, caught an average of 5-6 rats a day for 6 years, apparently. This would have been a special combination of supply (of rats) and demand (the cats).
Of course, in adopting a cat you take responsibilty for her over her lifetime. You can't take a poor hunter back as unfit for purpose. So, I'd recommend getting some form of high tec equipment to keep the rodent population down or just learn to live with them. Better still take pro-active action and remove the source of the attraction for mice - accessible food. Sources:
From Mouser Cat to Cat Facts
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