My new kitten, 10 months old, spent the first 8-9 months as an outside cat, and has now been re-homed with me where she only spends a few hours each day outside, and night-time inside. Last week she bought a sparrow home for us, but thankfully proceeded to eat it outside the window she uses for access.

Today she has bought us a baby squirrel to enjoy, but has left it outside the window and disappeared - possibly to find more!

Is there any way I can stop her from bringing these presents home? as I'm sure when she's bigger she'll have the strength to jump up to the window and bring it in the house, which I really don't want to have to deal with!

thanks

Other than keeping her indoors all the time (which is not natural) you can't. Keeping her in during the nesting season might help with the birds. Also, making sure she is in at dawn and dusk might help as these are the times that cats catch more prey. All cats kill things. It's the only bad thing about them and some seem to be absolutely lethal little buggers, unfortunately.

Wait till she brings in a live frog. Have you ever heard a frog scream

I don't know of a way to stop her.

You certainly shouldn't punish her, for paying you a compliment.

It's something you're just going to have to live with, until she stops doing it.

Just count yourself lucky she's bringing them in dead.

Mine used to bring in live birds.

The only way you can stop her bringing prey in is to monitor her entry every time - i.e. no cat flap, no open window, she has to 'ask' to come in.

Mine bring stuff in regularly, you get used to it (never thought I would say that). Just be grateful if it's a mouse rather than a weasel.

thanks all. She has decided to come back in with no more presents today, and has left the squirrel outside for someone else to eat!

I've read that getting a bell for her collar might help stop her catching birds/squirrels/cows etc so i might try that. My other cat, 4 yrs old, has a bell and has never bought anything home, so hopefully that's why!

my kitten is also 10 months old but can't catch anything due to the many bells on her collar, bet she hates us for that. so instead she's bought in a few live wasps which we've killed so that they can't sting her.

My cat wore a bell on his collar until recently but it didn't diminish the amount of prey he caught, so I ended up removing it as it was annoying hearing him jingling everywhere

Oh. Well, so far so good. I'm dreading the day she brings home prey.

Cows?

Is this a cat or a lion

Not sure yet, she hasn't fully grown! I can just imagine her hoisting a cow up by it's neck through the top window!

My cat Fred has brought home rabbits, mice, birds. He sometimes takes them in alive. He took in half a rabbit last week, heavens knows what he did with the other half!

I believe it's an instinctive thing for a cat to bring (usually) injured animals back to the den.

Mother cats do this to teach their kittens how to hunt and what they're suposed to be hunting.

I think our cats are confused that we're not out hunting so they bring us these things to try to show us how.

You need at least 2 bells preferably, somehow they can accomodate one, don't know how but 2 has definitely slowed up my cat's hit rate. He's sticking mostly to flowers this year. I must have a dozen red peones and one pink rose on my patio.

You will not win with cat collars and bells as we found out after we bought about ten only for them not to return with the cat "Jet". In the winter when the leaves fell off the the trees around our garden guess what was to hanging on some of the branches? They looked like Christmas tees the our cat had decorated early. Today our three cats have a harness and a lead that keeps them in our garden and so far we do not get the gifts that others have spoken about. This gift is the cat giving back to you in order to help you "The Provider".

My little darlings also love catching frogs. They make the most extraordinary noise. They would play 'tennis' and bat the frog across the wooden floors at night. We would wake up to the noise and try and save the frogs and put them back outside (usually to be caught again).

You can't stop nature!

This was my morning- at 5.30 I was woken by a loud cheeping noise from downstairs. I had one of my 10 month old kittens on the bed and the neighbour's cat (long story). The three of us rushed downstairs to find my other kitten with a bird cornered behind the bookcase. I turfed all three cats out of the front window and locked the cat flap -as I knew they would be straight over the fence and back in- before getting hold of the bird. I went out in the street (in a nightie and bare feet) and wondered around finding a safe place to put the bird. I then reopened the cat flap and went back to bed....

My boy's have 5 bells around their collars but it doesn't stop them. It would seem the wildlife around here doesn't understand the bells of doom! Mice seem to be the favourite catch at the moment. One cat does the catching the other the mauling

I find the most effective thing is a curfew as prey is most vulnerable at dawn and dusk. The cats don't normally get let out till 8.am. and they are almost always in before 8pm at this time of year. They are always kept in during the night, which also stops me having to go out in my nightie a la fitnessqueen

One morning last year I woke up with a dead squirrel on the pillow beside me and a very smug Buster pusscat sitting next to me and gazing at me intently ... I have never been so petrfied in my life ! He was such a proud pusscat, I'm not such a proud owner !

I know I shoudn't but I had to laugh at some of "presents" your cats have brought you ~ a dead squirrel on the pillow has to top the lot!

Bells & curfews MAY reduce your cats' hunting successes so are definitely worth a try, especially as it's baby bird season now.

Another way to reduce the drive to hunt for prey is to spend lots of time playing with your cats, especially games that invoke predatory practice, & then allowing them to "catch" something edible at the end of the session. Cats tend to go through sequences of food acquisition type behaviours ~ finding a suitable location to wait, finding prey, stalking, catching, batting about a bit, then eventually delivering the killing bite to the back of the neck. Cats tend to take prey somewhere safe to eat (& cats with young kittens take it back to the den for the kittens to practice on). So much as we like to think of the half-dead mouse or whatever, as a "present" for the owner, it's not really that.

However if you can find suitable outlets for these behaviours that don't involve live prey & that the session ends with the cat eating something (perhaps some raw, blood-temperature meat?), then it may reduce the cat's motivation to keep practising predatory behaviours quite as much. And if you combine this with dawn & dusk curfews & bells, you may find that you have less birds, mice, frogs, rabbits & squirrels delivered to your doorstep.

If a cat is an enthusiastic hunter, time is usually on your side.... in that you may just have to wait for the novelty to wear off. Three years ago my younger cats were each bringing in three items a day, now it's probably three a week. And my 14 year old who was the best hunter now spends 22 hours of the day sleeping and doesn't bother the wildlife at all any more.

Yes I agree ~ age, agility & "been there, done that" should all add to fewer "presents".

The cats I've had over the years have varied hugely in the prey they've caught & brought home, & the time they've spent in hunting actvities. I've had 2 or 3 day down to twice a year if the cat happened to stumble across an alread dead mouse! One was a completely rubbish (if enthusiastic) hunter whose speciality was moths & butterflies, solely because that's all he could catch But he still had great fun trying.

The current 2 female cats tend to bring in the odd live mouse, which inevitably runs under the fridge or washing machine so the cats spend 24 hours glued to the fridge or whatever. But the one time they managed to corner the mouse in the open, they both just sat rigid, staring at it, until my OH picked it up & took it outside!!

My kitten Cookie brings me half eaten slugs and my adult cat Muffin has been known to bring me a wasp or a fly and spit it out on my lap. Little Truffle tends to just bring me his toys

Thinking about it I'm quite lucky judging by some 'presents' on here! My OH's mums cat Misfit used to dig up moles and present them to her in the kitchen! Glad my three are lazy little devils and like to stay indoors

You need to sit down with Buster and watch The Godfather enough times so that he understands to the leave the squirrel as the end of your bed.

Otherwise, it'll be him who's swimming with the fishes.