The Neighbor's cat

[EggSighted4Life]

A well fed cat won't be bothered with hunting and the it's only little scurrying or flapping prey animals that produce the hunting reaction from domesticated cats. I've raised many chicken and quail chicks inside and our cats never worry them in the least, yet we've had a few mice come inside and they have been hunted down and caught by our two cats. And I would never have the cats in the same room when we let our finches and parakeets out for some exercise because their small size and furious flapping

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say...

My friends well fed cat hunts and brings him small birds and rodents all the time. Cat has access to feed 24/7. I saw a documentary where they strapped cams on cats to see their daily lives. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but... a percentage of cats still hunt, just for fun.

One night I saw two cats messing with a mouse/rat (I couldn't tell) but they just kept slapping it around and basically torturing it. Can't say those were well fed or not... but they were in no hurry to eat it.

 

[JaeG]

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say...

My friends well fed cat hunts and brings him small birds and rodents all the time. Cat has access to feed 24/7. I saw a documentary where they strapped cams on cats to see their daily lives. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but... a percentage of cats still hunt, just for fun.

One night I saw two cats messing with a mouse/rat (I couldn't tell) but they just kept slapping it around and basically torturing it. Can't say those were well fed or not... but they were in no hurry to eat it.

They might bring them in but they don't eat them do they? They present them to their humans to admire (or do they view us as their kittens?). This person had their young chicken eaten up. A feral cat might do that but a well fed house cat - I'd be very surprised.

Small scurrying rodents, lizards, insects, and fluttery birds (and insects) do make their predator instincts kick in. But we frequently have our quail running round the house (our daughter loves them) and have had chicken chicks playing in the house and our cats are barely interested. But if one of our cheeky (hand reared after being abandoned) finches decides to sneak out while we are changing food or water we do panic because it's instant - that prey drive kicks in and they are locked into their target.

And yes, the time it took a cat to catch their prey is how long they will play with it before they actually kill it. It must give the adrenaline time to settle or something.