Having perspective Is a mental view..... Doesn't guarantee that a persons perspective is in the normal realm of schemes.
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feeding cats live prey
- Thread starter ben234
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Moreover, perspective, is highly relative to the beholder....... For a lion, a human is a prey...... It would be ok to kill any of us..... in my perspective, not so much :lol3:
What I am trying to say, I guess is, some have this idea that because some animals communicate suffering more..... Suffering is perceived as existing or not - a cat, a dog will scream, thus it suffers. A goldfish, a spider doesn't thus they don't suffer.... But really, who is there to say? Are we inside their minds and bodies to really know if there is suffering? Whose perspective are we taking into consideration here? OURS? or theirs? Whose is the valid perspecitve? Isn't it highly selfish to just take ours just because? :dk:
What I am trying to say, I guess is, some have this idea that because some animals communicate suffering more..... Suffering is perceived as existing or not - a cat, a dog will scream, thus it suffers. A goldfish, a spider doesn't thus they don't suffer.... But really, who is there to say? Are we inside their minds and bodies to really know if there is suffering? Whose perspective are we taking into consideration here? OURS? or theirs? Whose is the valid perspecitve? Isn't it highly selfish to just take ours just because? :dk:
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Despite being called out as "cruel" and "selfish" in one thread (I see "polite" is not universal here), I have never been one to shy away from philosophical banter.
So, would it be the potential for suffering or the lack of necessity of the killing that should cause one pause at the killing of insects and the like? Because, of course, this forum is about the positive aspects of raw feeding of previously living creatures to cats. Right?
So, would it be the potential for suffering or the lack of necessity of the killing that should cause one pause at the killing of insects and the like? Because, of course, this forum is about the positive aspects of raw feeding of previously living creatures to cats. Right?
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The moment we took animals from the wild and befriended them we changed the dynamic of the whole hunting and feeding process. We need to provide our animal friends with food and we are in a position to ensure that that food is humanely killed. So, yes, many here advocate raw feeding but I'm sure virtually none would want to see those 'previously living creatures' suffer unnecessarily.
As for the killing of insects, 'the potential for suffering' and 'the lack of necessity' both sound like good reasons for not doing it, to me. I really baulk at any unnecessary and/or painful killing of any living thing.
I do not see anywhere that someone called you cruel or selfish, catman. Carolina did state that it may perhaps be selfish of us to automatically take the humans perspective when we have no idea what the living creature that is being killed, inhumanely. After you stated your childhood experiences with the goldfish- you also then stated "probably wasn't humane to the goldfish, or healthy to the cat." Which is a cruel act. Those goldfish definitely suffered. Obviously you were children and didn't fully understand what was going on. But it was still a cruel act. Doesn't mean people are calling you a cruel person. Insinuating that you are the only one in this thread that has 'perspective' because you can differentiate between killing a cat and a spider in your post probably wasn't the best approach to having "philosophical banter" in a positive tone.
And yes, I agree, potential suffering as well as an unnecessary death keeps me from avoiding killing ANY living thing as much as I possibly can.
And yes, I agree, potential suffering as well as an unnecessary death keeps me from avoiding killing ANY living thing as much as I possibly can.
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All cat food is made from previously living creatures. They're carnivores; that's the way it is. The hope is that one's meat has been killed humanely. . .I know it doesn't always work that way, but it's supposed to. This particular thread is about feeding living creatures to cats. . .who will probably be tortured to death or even eaten while still alive, with no fair chance to escape or defend themselves. There is a difference between human slaughter and being gnawed to death by a clumsy housecat.
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Well, you could hope for that, but then you would be dreaming. Unlike spiders and goldfish, chickens and cows experience pain and so when your cat is munching down on someone's liver, it was the result of a recent animal beheading without anesthesia. If you want to criticize someone for animal cruelty, look for a farmer or a butcher. I'll stick to letting the graceful and talented cat (mine is not "clumsy") play with and then munch down on any fish or insect that suits his fancy. As for pests such as spiders and flies and mosquitoes and the like, the heel of a boot or a nice Windex bath is the best way to dispatch them.
I live in an area with a lot of meat packing plants, so I know a lot of people who work in them. Slaughtering methods are fairly humane. They don't behead them (mammals, anyway; poultry are generally beheaded, although occasionally electrocution is used). Cows and pigs usually get a bolt to the head. They're motivated to keep the animals calm and have them die quickly and cleanly because having an angry, wounded cow in your slaughterhouse can be a very expensive, sometimes fatal, mistake. Now, if you want to talk about how they're RAISED, well, I can agree that's not very humane. But Americans like cheap meat and there's no way to raise them humanely for cheap. How they're killed is probably the most humane thing in their lives.
Fish feel pain, too. All vertebrates do. How much/what kind of pain is felt by invertebrates isn't well understood, though. But since the person who resurrected this thread was talking about feeding live mice, I think everyone can agree that mice, as mammals, definitely feel pain.
By "clumsy", I mean that most pet cats aren't efficient killers and prefer to play with their prey.
Fish feel pain, too. All vertebrates do. How much/what kind of pain is felt by invertebrates isn't well understood, though. But since the person who resurrected this thread was talking about feeding live mice, I think everyone can agree that mice, as mammals, definitely feel pain.
By "clumsy", I mean that most pet cats aren't efficient killers and prefer to play with their prey.
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Although not a fisherman myself, I think most would disagree with the statement that fish experience pain, at least in the way that humans do. Removing a huge fish hook protruding from a fishes' mouth seems to raise no outward appearance of pain. Perhaps they experience "fear" if a frantic response to an existential threat is to be considered "fear." Snakes are routinely killed by the mice they are supposed to eat because if the snake is not hungry and the mouse is, the mouse will gnaw on the snake causing infection and eventually death. Anyone who keeps snakes knows this. If the snake is experiencing pain by being eaten alive, it does not respond to it.
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Well, that's the beauty of feeding raw meat you purchase yourself, rather than canned or kibble over which you have no control. If you can afford it, you can purchase humanely raised animals.
I agree LDG, but the affordability is quite an issue. I buy free range chooks for my furries as I just can't come at supporting an appalling industry. They won't eat other meats unfortunately. Trouble is I can't do that all the time. Their chicken necks are definitely not free-range, the Holistic and Nutra dry they get will certainly not be, and anything packaged or in cans definitely won't be. So I just do my best with the money I have.
While I'm also against just killing things for the heck of it, I do want to point out that when a pride of lions or a hawk or most any kind of animal catches their prey, they do so without regard to whether the animal is still alive when they chow down. So being gnawed to death is not outside the realm of what so called 'fair chance' wild animals have. Wild prey can be cornered, surprised, run up a tree, etc. Would that be considered an unfair chance?
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I'd worry about parasites and diseases. it seems like around here feeder mice and rats are bred and raised in bad conditions, but the only place around here that carried them got shut down because all of the animals were treated poorly.
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brutal lol
This is an interesting thread. Poor mice, right? We all know what cat food is made of, right? Many on this forum go out of their way to look for cat foods with no grain or vegetable matter whatsoever, which leaves... DEAD ANIMALS! Cats are carnivores and it's natural for them to eat prey animals. For that matter, it's natural for a prey animal to be killed by a predator and this is how virtually all prey animals' lives end in a natural system.
I suppose this topic reminds me of people who think it's cruel that I go hunting, but there they are chowing down on their chicken wings. What's the difference between the pheasant I shot and the chicken you're eating? Well, for one, the pheasant lived a natural, normal life out in the wild expressing all of its instinctual behaviours, was not pumped full of drugs or force-fed, and then died the way all pheasants do: it was killed and eaten by a predator (me). The chicken... well, it could have lived free-range on an organic farm where it got to be a chicken and live like a chicken should. Most likely it was raised in a squashed cubicle at a factory farm, was miserable and sick its entire life, and possible experienced the trauma of listening to a bunch of other chickens get slaughtered before its turn.
The point is, most people don't even know. They're so far removed from where their food comes from that they get all sad when a mouse dies, but they happily scoop pre-formed mashed up pate of hundreds of animals that lived miserable, unhealthy lives. They say such illogical things as, ''Why would you shoot a deer when you can just buy steak from the grocery store?''
Also, fair has nothing to do with it. I sincerely doubt there are people on this forum who only let their cat eat wild animals which it catches itself. If you're not feeding it domestic mice, you're pouring it kibble made of domestic animals.
The way an animal acts doesn't determine what kind of pain it feels. Nerve endings are what determine what is felt by the animal and the only way to gauge what they are feeling would be an MRI or brain scan during the experience to try and guess what's going on. Either way, we really don't know what others are experiencing, so I would simply err on the side of being humane.
I suppose this topic reminds me of people who think it's cruel that I go hunting, but there they are chowing down on their chicken wings. What's the difference between the pheasant I shot and the chicken you're eating? Well, for one, the pheasant lived a natural, normal life out in the wild expressing all of its instinctual behaviours, was not pumped full of drugs or force-fed, and then died the way all pheasants do: it was killed and eaten by a predator (me). The chicken... well, it could have lived free-range on an organic farm where it got to be a chicken and live like a chicken should. Most likely it was raised in a squashed cubicle at a factory farm, was miserable and sick its entire life, and possible experienced the trauma of listening to a bunch of other chickens get slaughtered before its turn.
The point is, most people don't even know. They're so far removed from where their food comes from that they get all sad when a mouse dies, but they happily scoop pre-formed mashed up pate of hundreds of animals that lived miserable, unhealthy lives. They say such illogical things as, ''Why would you shoot a deer when you can just buy steak from the grocery store?''
Also, fair has nothing to do with it. I sincerely doubt there are people on this forum who only let their cat eat wild animals which it catches itself. If you're not feeding it domestic mice, you're pouring it kibble made of domestic animals.
Fish don't outwardly express anything. For one thing, they don't have voices and can't make any facial expression, so what would a fish's expression of pain even look like? For another thing, the way an animal behaves when it's in distress depends entirely on what advantage can be gained (or not) from expressing pain, panic, or fear. For some animal, screaming in pain is a call for help or warning for other animals of the species. For other animals, showing pain signals weakness to predators and makes them a target.
The way an animal acts doesn't determine what kind of pain it feels. Nerve endings are what determine what is felt by the animal and the only way to gauge what they are feeling would be an MRI or brain scan during the experience to try and guess what's going on. Either way, we really don't know what others are experiencing, so I would simply err on the side of being humane.
In reference to the fish, it was actually just decided that fish Do experience pain. If I see the article again, I'll post it..
Big difference, Minka. Lions, tigers, etc. have to hunt for their prey in WIDE OPEN spaces/territories where their prey has places to safely get away and save themselves. Feeding domesticated cats mice, rats, bunnies, etc. by dropping them on the floor and say GO inside four walls where they have no way to get away in a natural outdoor setting is not what I call a "fair chance". Do you not think those poor little creatures are already stressed out because a giant human whom they already fear is handling them and dropping them to a cat giving the cat an fair and easy advantage. Not natural and incredibly cruel to the little animals IMO and I am totally against feeding live prey to cats as everyone already knows. :lol3:
I saw that article too.
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Is giving them a live mouse in an enclosed area any less fair than feeding them animals killed in a slaughter house? I don't think so. You could make the argument that they're better at humane killing at the slaughter house, but fairness is out the window. Fairness means that the cat has a chance of starving. After all, that's what happens in the wild. Either the prey dies or the predator starves. That's why we feed ferals.
So, are you against feeding cats pre-killed mice? I would consider that basically on par with feeding them commercial food made out of meat. Unless your cats are vegan...
So, are you against feeding cats pre-killed mice? I would consider that basically on par with feeding them commercial food made out of meat. Unless your cats are vegan...
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My main argument with live feeding is that pet cats are almost never efficient killers, and the animal usually suffers unduly, and unnecessarily, without any chance to escape. Pre-killed mice (and slaughtered animals) are killed quickly, and (if it goes as planned) without undue suffering.
