4 ms·

"Most cats were considered working animals, and were expected to rid houses and barns of mice and rats" Cats don't generally hunt rats[0]. Before modern pest c

"Most cats were considered working animals, and were expected to rid houses and barns of mice and rats" Cats don't generally hunt rats[0]. Before modern pest control the working animal to kill rats was a dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier [0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00146/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00146...

rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> An animal shelter in Chicago has released 1,000 feral cats throughout the city to combat a rat crisis. ... >> While the deployed felines will sometimes kill rats, the mere presence of these repurposed alley cats is usually enough to scare off pests. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/chicago-feral-cats-rat-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/chicago-fera... To a rat, a house with a cat that probably won't kill it is less attractive than a house with no cat.
- zachmu 3y ago
  Unless the rat is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, which makes them attracted to the smell of cat urine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Rodents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Rodents
- eszed 3y ago
  Can confirm. We had a cat, at a shared house in San Francisco, which our landlord (mainly to be a jerk) forced us to get rid of. Rats immediately appeared, rummaging through our pantry and tearing up our clothes. I remember one cheekily glaring at me from a piece of furniture in the hallway. They were wood rats, quite fortunately, so kind of cute and not particularly disease-ridden, but absolutely a nuisance. I dutifully collected confirmation and quotes from exterminators, and forwarded them to our landlord, along with a note saying, "look, we never saw these while the cat was here, how about you let us send back the pet deposit you forcibly refunded [yeah, he'd known about the cat all along; he'd found a loophole, and I told you he was doing it to be a jerk], and we bring him back?" He did. We did. We never saw another rat.
mlhpdx 3y ago
Our farm cats certainly did hunt rats, and rodents were a far larger part of their diet than birds. Rabbits, too. Never a chicken (in the article) - I can’t imagine a cat hunting a chicken unless the cat was exceptionally large and healthy. We’ve also owned a couple “suburban” Chartreaux cats specifically bred to hunt rats. Fearsome beasts that hunted nothing but kibble in reality.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

>> An animal shelter in Chicago has released 1,000 feral cats throughout the city to combat a rat crisis. ... >> While the deployed felines will sometimes kill rats, the mere presence of these repurposed alley cats is usually enough to scare off pests. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/chicago-feral-cats-rat-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/chicago-fera... To a rat, a house with a cat that probably won't kill it is less attractive than a house with no cat.

zachmu 3y ago
Unless the rat is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, which makes them attracted to the smell of cat urine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Rodents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Rodents
eszed 3y ago
Can confirm. We had a cat, at a shared house in San Francisco, which our landlord (mainly to be a jerk) forced us to get rid of. Rats immediately appeared, rummaging through our pantry and tearing up our clothes. I remember one cheekily glaring at me from a piece of furniture in the hallway. They were wood rats, quite fortunately, so kind of cute and not particularly disease-ridden, but absolutely a nuisance. I dutifully collected confirmation and quotes from exterminators, and forwarded them to our landlord, along with a note saying, "look, we never saw these while the cat was here, how about you let us send back the pet deposit you forcibly refunded [yeah, he'd known about the cat all along; he'd found a loophole, and I told you he was doing it to be a jerk], and we bring him back?" He did. We did. We never saw another rat.

mlhpdx 3y ago

Our farm cats certainly did hunt rats, and rodents were a far larger part of their diet than birds. Rabbits, too. Never a chicken (in the article) - I can’t imagine a cat hunting a chicken unless the cat was exceptionally large and healthy. We’ve also owned a couple “suburban” Chartreaux cats specifically bred to hunt rats. Fearsome beasts that hunted nothing but kibble in reality.