Hello and welcome to the jottings of a farmer in Suffolk who, despite his best efforts is still farming...
We have been having some issues with our family pet cat over the past few weeks.
Although I am not a great fan of cats and would prefer man's best friend - a pint or possibly a dog - I was out-voted and Berti duly arrived. I must say that at times he is very good at soothing stress levels. Mostly because you have to put your own troubles to one side and feed him.
He is however quite capable of catching his own dinner, and many’s the time we have had to rescue what the RSPB call a 'prey item' from him. This led me to searching around on the web for a few facts. It would appear that according to the Pet Food Manufactures Association there were roughly about 7.2 million cats in the UK in 2008.
That is about one cat per ten people and these cats kill, according to the RSPB, 275 million 'prey items' per year. Now I cannot imagine that that particular organisation is worried about mice, but it is this rodent 'prey item' that Berti catches.
Beside it strikes me that someone's figures are wrong here as each cat must catch some 40 'prey items' each week, or about five a day for 7.2 million cats to catch 275 million 'prey items'.
At least if the numbers are true each cat is getting it's five a day food intake.
Still, I would have thought it was a simple enough premise for our cat to understand. We live in an old farm house, it is nearly always impossible to keep small vermin from getting into the house at this time of the year when the mice are looking for some warm winter shelter, and a ready food supply.
Berti's job therefore, in exchange for good wholesome mince and expensive biscuits, and my chair by the wood burner of an evening, is to catch these mice in the house to earn his keep.
However, has not grasped his role in this matter. He prefers to catch the mice out in the garden and bring them, alive and kicking, into the kitchen. This was exemplified last Sunday when just after my wife had dished up the usual Sunday roast, a certain kerfuffle caught my attention. I popped my head round the door to see the cat chasing one large mouse round the floor. I may have made some sharp exclamation, at which point the cat looked up at me, and the mouse escaped his clutches, and ran under the fridge.
Now years ago I seem to remember that fridges were quite small, but Steve, our fridge, is fairly big and is quite tightly packed into its corner, so forgoing our meal we had to empty the fridge and lug it out using brute force, dispatch the rodent, and re-stock the fridge and then sit down to a warmed-up luncheon.
It's always difficult to put a cat into the doghouse, especially as it looks cute, besides by the time we had finished lunch, the cat had eaten the evidence.
See also:
No comments have been made.