why do female cats make better hunters

[chausiefan]

Hello

Just curious why do female cats make better more capable hunters then male cats when they are usually smaller? Does everyone agree in most cases better hunters are females?

 

[vampirecat]

I have 3 cats, 2 girls and a boy.

Jake is the hunter he regularly catches mice and on occasion birds. So i guess it doesn't really hold true for my furry family.

I wonder what everyone else experiences are ? It would be interesting to hold a forum survey

 

[yayi]

IMO, hunting skills are learned at kittenhood and sharpened as the cat matures and strives to survive. I don't think the gender makes that much of a difference.

 

[jane_vernon]

Mothers have to be good hunters for when they need to find and kill prey for their babies as well as for themselves.

 

[maverick_kitten]

I've heard that females make better hunters for the reason jane vernon said above.

But in my house, Maverick (female) just tries to love and mother whatever she catches whilst Jupiter (male) will eat it! ewww!

 

[yayi]

Originally Posted by jane_vernon

Mothers have to be good hunters for when they need to find and kill prey for their babies as well as for themselves.

I agree and yet I've seen toms surpass the hunting skills of their mommy cats.

 

[goldenkitty45]

The females have to teach the babies and also be the food provider. So its kinda obvious why they are usually better - matter of survival.

And since the prey is small, a smaller and quicker cat would make a better hunter.

 

[arlyn]

My theory is based more on the observations of lion prides, the females make the kills and raised the kids, the males provide protection.
Feral cat colonies aren't much different in structure

 

[cflynt]

Penny was a hunter - she wouldn't even play unless there was a "kill"
involved - ie., plain string didn't excite, but put something to catch at
the end of it, and the toy was HERS.

Tigger couldn't hunt if her life depended on it. Quite literally. We
watched a mouse, trapped against the floor board by my husband
all set up for Tigger, jump off of Tigger's tail like a trampoline
in order to get over Tigger's head and down the stairs. Tigger was
much more interested in my husband's finger (busily pointing out the
mouse) and whether it would scritch her.

My husband finally caught the mouse.

Tigger did, ONCE, catch a mouse. My husband had been working
on wiring, and had removed a few of the basement ceiling tiles in
the lowered ceiling. That night, Tigger could hear a mouse
scrabbling across the tiles, and was following under, with her
head up, mouth open to yowl. The mouse --stupid mouse!--
ran into one of the (missing) tiles, fell down through the hole
and into Tigger's mouth!

Tigger dropped the mouse in her surprise. The mouse escaped.
We were laughing to hard to catch it ourselves!

So, some more anecdotal data - one female hunter, one female
non(Definitely!) hunter.

Edited to change "one female hunger" to "one female hunter" --
since I'm pretty sure hunger knows no gender.
Carol

 

[felicia's mom]

I also think it is because the females need to feed their babies.

 

[vampirecat]

Jake was born in a rescue centre so received no hunting skills from his mom cat. His are all self taught and instinct.

Izzy was a stray and has never shown any interest in hunting. She was not feral so i can only assume that she had been chucked out or maybe lost. She much prefers her dinner to arrive on a plate now, preferably haddock

 

[opilot]

Diablo was raised by me, by hand from week 5/6 (male). He was a hunter formidable from week 8! Climbed trees at night to get to birds, went for squirrels, rabbits (went down rabbit holes!!), and once a small duck (the duck won the encounter). He also was an aggressive dog stalker/chaser, and a fighter -
multiple fights for him *sigh* even though he WAS a fixed cat!! Now he's old grey and arthritic alas. Greatly slowed down.

Shebs, found stray at 12wsk (female) was a total house cat, and cannot catch anything for her life. She doesn't even KNOW what to do with a mouse. Once one ran over her back! Another time, we had a chipmunk that
Diablo brought in - she watched me chasing it with great interest - but didn't lift a paw, LOL!!

Lexi hunts, (female) only hunts birds - she brings in sometimes (2 inside a year) and I've seen her chase mice, but never seen her kill, eat or bring one home. Overall she's a soft little kitten who loves her DRY chow, and
a bit of wet on the side, if you please!!

So in my experience its the males that have been better hunters than the
females...

 

[chausiefan]

wow your diablo sounds legendary do u have a picture of him?

 

[abbycats]

My hunter of the mice that get in the house is Dion, my 3 year old male abyssinian. He is fast and unrelenting when a mouse gets in the house...The mice get under the stove and you can always tell when we have one in the house. Dion just sits for days waiting for his opportunity. He gets them everytime. The rest of my cats couldn't care less if we had a mouse or not... They are lazy......

Dion has ears as big as radar dishes.. no wonder he hears them so well....

 

[opilot]

For Pics of Diablo, see www.msnusers.com/CATpicssam11 He's the
last cat - the big black guy!

 

[mia's mommy]

Mia's never really had much of a chance to chase mice, but she once found a cricket that wonder inside and she kept batting at it til she beat it to death. We bought her a battery powered mouse but she doesn't like it because it runs over her feet sometimes.

 

[renny]

Well...of my 2 i would give Rambo the slight edge over Lucky. But they are both wholly incompetent hunters. When i first got my house the place was loaded with house centipedes so i would just let the monsters loose hoping they would do something about it. Lucky would watch (and once i say her trip and accidently squish the bug with her nose - that's the only kill to her record). I would find Rambo surrounded by squished bugs...but when i saw him hunt i realized he had just accidently stepped on them.

Luckily for them they are both cute! LOL

 

[girlieq]

Meow (female) would kill anything that moved. I was very thankful for my thick down comforter, but a bit sad that I had to use it during the summer in Colorado in our house without AC. Bed mice and all... Meow was allowed outside, and used to hang out in the bushes under my mother's bird feeder, and she'd kill a few a week. I saw her jump about four feet into the air to catch a giant moth in her mouth. She also caught birds that were just jumping around in the lawn.

Loki (boy) once found a baby rabbit in the window well. It couldn't jump out, because it was so small. We found them, because we heard the rabbit screaming. Loki was grooming it, and it was one seriously scared, wet rabbit. My kid brother, Loki's personal slave, tries to tell people that Loki was just trying to calm it before the kill, but it happend more than just the once. Loki is such a bad hunter that he rarely even plays with toys. He's a very dumb cat, though, in just about everything. Very sweet, though.

Bella (female) is a fierce huntress. I imagine that if she ever got out, there wouldn't be a bird or small rodent left alive in San Diego. She kills spiders and other gross things for me, but doesn't eat them, she leaves cleanup for Mommy.

Rowan (male) is absolutely hopeless. Apparently I'm no good at teaching hunting, since I found him at about 4 weeks. Bella has taught him quite a lot, though. He sometimes plays with fur mousie toys, and Bella taught him how to stalk up on the birdies outside (at my future in-law's) so they don't all fly away. I think that he's too sweet to actually kill anything, though. Even the spiders he's gone after he just bats around like a mousie toy, and if he's killed any, it's been accidental. When he gets excited, he has a little prancing jog that's absolutely adorable, but scares any sort of prey off.

 

[abigail]

Don't females do everything better?

 

[melissa harris]

Mu grandpa has been a farmer most of his life, stopping only because he couldn't physically do it anymore at 88. he has told me that the females are the ones who catch the rats. males normally don't bother trying to catch them because they are too viscous.
my old cat Muffin, she killed a number of mice in her life (she was on a leach too), while my cat Leo has caught 4 mice, and they are all still alive.
so I do think it is the need to provide for and protect the kittens