Well, I haven't tried a lot of non-vegan food on them. However, both of them, when I got them, had to be transitioned from the food they came with, to the vegan food. So I fed a mixture of both and they would eat the vegan kibbles first. But that's probably just because that kind contained nutritional yeast which cats are known to love the taste of (along with garbanzo beans, tomato sauce and garlic, lol).
I have since switched them to food made with a cat-food supplement I bought online, mixed into different recipes the stuff comes with. The one cat seemed to like the homemade food more and the other seemed to like it less than the commercially-made vegan kibbles, though I'm discovering that she might be allergic to soy, so I'm switching them back to the original, commercial vegan food now.
I don't know whether they like the taste of the homemade stuff better than the meat-based stuff or not, because I never fed them side-by-side, but it probably varies depending on which recipe you follow or which cat food you buy, and I'm sure it varies from cat to cat depending upon personal preference for wet or dry food, and in my one cat's case, allergies.
does your cat prefer a vegetarian meal over one which contains meat?
Cat Vegans?
Yes, in the "real world" some animals eat animals, but I'm by no means proposing that we go into Africa - into the "real world" - and put all lions on a vegan diet. How "real" is the world in which domesticated cats live today? In the "real world," would your cat ever attack and devour a cow, or dive deep into the ocean and hunt down a 1200-pound tuna? No, in the real world, cats eat rodents, birds, and insects. Why, then, do we think that feeding them common cat foods Not made from rodents, birds or insects is Natural? Furthermore, if you're equating animals living and dying in nature with animals living in squalor and dying in the slaughter-house, then you simply are uninformed.
If cats are "obligate carnivores," then are we "obligate omnivores?" Are humans simply obligated to eat both plants and animals? I think you would have a hard time proving that this is so (as you would have to disprove my existence ; P ). I think that to many people, veganism is about reducing suffering, and while animals have the ability to feel pain, bacteria do not. I believe that there is a substantial difference between cats and bacteria... do you know something that I don't?
Cats' "social rules" - or ethical standards, I believe you meant - do not exist as they have no moral beliefs to which to be held. However, their diet is not their own choice, it is ours. It is our responsibility that all beings under our control abide by our ethical standards. People control their children's behavior until they are old enough to make their own decisions. Cats are not able to make their own decisions, and therefore rely solely upon us. Just because cats cannot be held to ethical standards - basically, cannot be held responsible for actions that, if done by a human, would be considered immoral - would you not prevent a cat from killing a baby (this has been known to occur by suffocation)? The cat does not know that what it's doing is "wrong." In your words "Everything dies, you can't prevent that." I don't think we could call the cat Immoral for suffocating the baby, and yet I think that we could probably All agree that it Would be immoral for a human not to stop it.
I'm not telling you to change your cat to a vegan diet if you find it so morally reprehensible.
Cats indoors or outdoors?
- Do you think that cats should be indoors?
- Yes, outside cats are likely to die in a couple of years. Unless you want them to die.
- Nonsense. Here in Britain, most cats (except for pure bred fancy cats) spend a good chunk of their lives outside, and most of them live to a ripe old age too. That is also true of the majority of domesticated cats worldwide, and has been so for thousands of years.
- I understand that in the USA it's considered the done thing to keep a cat cooped up indoors 24/7, and even to rip out all of his knuckles so he doesn't damage your nice new curtains, but fortunately most European countries have animal cruelty laws which prevent that sort of thing.
- It is mostly the responsible thing to keep a cat indoors unless supervised (you can actually walk a cat); it prevents a host of infections, diseases and injuries to the cat as well as a host of little kittens if the cat isn't neutered. I'll find a proper source, but I do remember reading somewhere that the average life expectancy of a feral colony cat is about 3-4 years. And please, to anon 217, please remember to be civil.
- A feral cat is a very different thing from a cat that spends some or all of it's life outdoors but has regular contact with a person who provides it with food and water, manages the flea situation and takes it to a vet both for checkups and if they notice any problems.
- any a pet cat have died an early death going outside. Also, I suspected that the questioner was a kid, so I wished to convey a simple message. Pet cats kill millions of birds (I saw an estimate of 50 million a year in Britain) even though they are well fed, which is another reason to keep them indoors. Finally, pet/feral cats are driving the other Wildcat subspecies extinct by competion and interbreeding, so the responsible thing to do is not let your cat outside.
- Many a pet cat have died an early death staying inside. What are you going to do about that?
- Far more cats have died an early age roaming outside unsupervised than living inside. What I'd like to understand is why it is considered the responsible thing not to let a dog out without some supervision (for its own safety), but so many people still consider it's fine doing it with a cat? I guess this is just another mystery of life.
- or one, unsupervised dogs can be lethally dangerous. As for the dogs intelligence...
- Granted, cats are less likely to be lethally dangerous, but you can still get attacked by a cat, just as you could get attacked by a dog (although the damage is not likely to be as severe, and it would be a minority of either species who would be likely to attack. Not sure what the comparative intelligence of cats and dogs has to do with any of this.
cats are more than intelligent
My family owns a cat shelter, and in our experience, cats are more than intelligent. While it may be true that whomever started this article wasn't truly concerned about the topic, just being difficult, they may have inadvertently had a point. In order to ensure that the neutrality and accuracy of this article is in full effect, it may be wise to have examples of perhaps studies or personal experiences with cats to ensure anyone biased against or for felines understands the entirety of the cat-mind complexity.
For example, we have known foster cats and stay-at-home cats we have had have learned from each other. Our stay-at-home cats 'taught' the fosters how to open cabinets and drawers that didn't have any handles, and the foster cat 'taught' our stay-at-home cats how do jump from our second story to a perch on the first floor. While it seems a strange example, the fact that they discovered these feats, when human children have difficulty with them, and the fact that they 'learned' from each other, despite being an asocial species, seems like moer than intelligence to me. It seems almost like an inexperienced hive mind to me. Anyway, please let me know what you think, thank you so much!
Cats are invasive animals!
The most relevant point about cats being potentially invasive is not that humans feed them, but that they tend to run away from home and breed like crazy, meanwhile engaging in large-scale predation and potentially endangering the existence of local species, which would be unfamiliar with the new predator. In other words, the cats feed themselves quite expertly--just as they do in the alleyways of most cities--and don't require anything in the way of human intervention other than the original transportation. Even in places where basically nobody lives, like many of the islands of the Seychelles, cats left behind by people attempting to establish settlements have driven several local species to the brink of extinction.
(By the way, you won't find that bit of info in the article about the Seychelles, and I'm not planning to add it. I just happened to hear some scientist talking about it on the radio the other day. As such, it would take more time to reference it than I currently have at my disposal.)
I guess the obvious difference between cats and cows is that cats hunt and eat other animals, while cows just eat grass. But also relevant is the fact that cats can breed much more quickly than larger species of mammals, such as cows. So if you combine the fact that cats are predators that can produce offspring numbering in the teens each year (and by the end of the year, the first litter will be producing offspring of its own) with the fact that you can leave cats to their own devices in most places and they'll get along fine without human help, you wind up with something that has the potential to seriously disrupt the local environment.
On the other hand, if you dump a small herd of cattle in a grassy area and leave them alone, they'll breed very slowly (and also, like all ruminants, reach sexual maturity relatively slowly) and at the same time be subject to the same predators that prey on other local ruminants--which doesn't seem like an environmental catastrophe in the making so much as a temporary bonanza for the local big carnivores. At any rate, it's true that cats aren't normally an invasive species, but this is mainly because there's hardly anyplace left on earth that can support animal life where they don't already live
Cats kill Spiders … and even Snakes
I thought it might be interesting to add that in some semi-desertique areas, cats are domesticated for their specific ability to hunt and catch scorpions,(which are a real danger). They are also known to hunt spiders (some of them are really dangerous where I used to live) and small snakes... I have never seen a cat catch a snake really... but for scorpions and spiders it's a really common sight. I know that we are not here to make a full list of the 100 species a cat can hunt but I thought that those where quite relevant since they are an incentive to keep cats in some regions.
I once saw an animal documentary in which an orange desert cat, which by the way looked a lot like a domestic cat, killed a rather large poisonous snake by using its incredible speed to claw it without getting bitten, so yes I believe it's possible to train a domestic cat to kill snakes.
I've owned plenty of cats that killed rattlesnakes. One method of hunting is to be fast, as previously noted. The second is to be patient and wait for the snake to try to escape and striking while it is uncoiled and unable to mount much of a defense. Pretty much any animal less than forty pounds is fair game to a sufficiently motivated cat.
I'd love to hear some opinions on this.