I have been blessed by the acquistion of a new kitten, after my previous cat died unexpectedly at 8 years old.
The new kitten is about 14 weeks old, and being curious (as cats are wont to be) she tries to eat everything - she managed to steal a steak off my plate last week when I wasn't looking.
What I want to know is there anything she REALLY shouldn't eat, in the same way that you shouldn't give chocolate to dogs, for instance.
Thanks in advance.
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Congrats A, I've only ever had cats, not kittens. They seem to adopt us. I think they pretty much know for themselves and when they do go wrong they're pretty good at throwing up. I wouldn't worry about it.
JH (alright!!! I'm John. There.)
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Cats will eat, or rather drink, car anti-freeze, which will kill them.
There have been instances of them going under cars to lick-up coolant which has dribbled out of an expansion hose.
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>> Cats will eat, or rather drink, car anti-freeze, which will kill them.
Ditto dogs. This really is a serious problem. Anti freeze is sweet tasting and sits on the surface of puddles. Both cats and dogs lap from the surface of water, and they can not tolerate chemicals of any kind, the liver is shot within hours.
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tinyurl.com/2wobja4
Since you have a cat you may find this of interest. There are others if you back up on the URL.
Pat!? You about? For you too.
John
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That's brilliant John, and I shall spend a bit more time on there later today:)
I think it's been covered really about cat's diets, and antifreeze is the big danger.
We have three, and two of them love something different but one will only eat food out of a tin that says Kit e Kat on it, no matter how expensive the alternative is either.
I have a 'simon cat' type video on email and will try and find out how to post a link to it up here because it's the story of our nights and a lot of the reason for my early rising too!
Pat
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They are wonderful little films Tooslow. Watched them all last night. They capture completely cat ownership and are also brilliant technically, each frame being handrawn. Best thing I have seen on the web for a long while - Thanks for pointing them out
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If this doesn't work Mods, would you remove it please.
tinyurl.com/2f7fonx
Thanks
Pat
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It isn't working - post the full link Pat !
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s100.photobucket.com/albums/m34/Veeeight/Truckfest2010/?action=view¤t=wake-up.mp4
There we are, thanks PU
Pat
hopefully they'll now work
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 2 Sep 10 at 17:06
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>> tinyurl.com/2wobja4
>>
>> Since you have a cat you may find this of interest.
Laughed 'til I wept. Thanks for the link. Tee hee!
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Onions, garlic and chocolate are all poisonous. They shouldn't have cooked poultry bones as they can splinter. Ditto fishbones as they can sometimes choke or get them stuck. Kittens are like toddlers so you have to keep an eye on them.
cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/humanfood.htm
I think caffeine is also bad for them.
Kittens will try and chew everything. Make sure you have a working RCD....
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>> Onions, garlic and chocolate are all poisonous.
That explains why the furry wastes of space stopped defacating in my vegetable patch for a while. I laid all the onions and garlic from the allotment out to dry there. Repels most things :-)
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Congratulations Alastair :-)
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The original cartoon is almost the best. Beautifully observed and SO true to the nature of cats. As someone observed - dogs have owners and cats have servants!
www.simonscat.com/catmando.html
View and enjoy
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The approach our cat takes is to have a go at carpets.... so you have to get up if you want to keep them in one piece. She doesn't do it often.
Lately, she's even developed a strange miaow noise that really does sound like 'where are you'!!! Very spooky.
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Never give a cat milk, only fresh water.
Despite the widespread belief, milk is not good for them.
Enjoy your puddy tat to the full..:-)
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That's the one I've been trying to get on here a couple of threads above PP:)
Pat
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Thanks all. Lady (as she is known) only gets water to drink. Useful info about onions etc - no more plate cleaning duties for her then.
If anyone in curious, she is named Lady after Lady Hamilton, Nelson's bit of stuff. I previously had budgies named Horatio, Horatio 2 etc.
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There is only one thing in our household which ever seriously endangered the life of one of our cats when she ate it.
My dinner! >:(
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I once lived in a converted apartment on a farm. One of the farm cats regularly used to catch carp at a carp farm nearby and bring them back. No idea how it managed it, the cats I've owned wouldn't go near water.
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Many years ago, SWMBO decided to have a slob night. Takeaway curry and a video. Ordered a chicken madras which I managed about 2/3 of, and plopped the plate down on the floor while I summoned up the energy to get up and clear the plates away. Heard a slurping sound, and looked down to see our (then) 12 week old kitten cleaning the plate.
Poor little thing was howling in the litter tray the next morning.
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Several of mine love water. They love drinking out of taps, the bidet and any other running water. Have also go a photo of one standing in the bath in 2 inches of water playing with the water!
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>> Several of mine love water. They love drinking out of taps, the bidet and any
>> other running water. Have also go a photo of one standing in the bath in
>> 2 inches of water playing with the water!
My mother took a 'timeshare' cat after Dad died. It liked nothing better than drinking from miniaturised garden water feature that sat in her hall.
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Ours likes the sniff/chew orange peal and also the smell of Olbas oil (not to drink!)
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If you want to make a cat really happy just plant a small patch of Catmint.
We call ours cat wacky baccy and they all love it, but watching the effect it has on them shows we have it aptly named:)
I do envy you having a kitten Alistair, we always walk around the Cat's Protection League kennels and see them looking lovely, but come home with the ugliest, old cat that no-one else would want!
Pat
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We went to the local animal home with the idea that we would bring home a handsome, young, black, male kitten. Somehow or other we ended up with a year old, straggly, grey and white and extremely moody female.
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But that's exactly the point bagpuss, you will go to heaven:)
I bet you already love her to bits!
Pat
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Well actually it was 6 years ago (doesn't time fly) when she started to turn our apartment upside down. Her name, ironically for such a moody creature, is Sunny. She is a big hit with the neighbours.
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Well good luck Bagpuss,
10 years ago we did the same thing and re-homed an 8 month old female from a cat charity.
Our previous two cats had been kittens when we acquired them and were both very tame and friendly animals. What I now know and did not then was that once a cat is no longer a kitten then its character will not change no matter what you do or how you treat it. It is the handling and association with humans as kittens that makes them amenable as pets. Our present cat is still the nervous twitchy creature she was when we acquired her. She does not like being picked up and regularly bite my ankles or anyone else who is passing. I doubt that we would have another cat but if we did I would be very wary of adopting anything but a kitten
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>>No idea how it managed it, the cats I've owned wouldn't go near water. >>
It's not that unusual. A cat can flip or scoop a fish out of water with its front feet, aided by its claws.
An example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CupKbqJM-jo
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One of our previous cats was a very large male tabby. He had a habit of eating absolutely anything edible that was left out for long enough for him to make a jump on the worktop, grab the food, and make a high speed exit through the cat flap - he had this maneuver down to a tee, and could do it at a speed that belied his size.
His finest moment came one Sunday when he came in through the cat flap bearing a large pork chop, still warm, albeit without gravy. Despite a few indirect enquiries with the neighbours we never found out where the pork chop came from.
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I agree you have to be careful with kittens, but older cats seem to be able to tolerate anything, if they chose to eat it (not antifreeze however - that's a real worry I'd never thought of before)
We have 4 cats and live in the country. They often catch rabbits and will eat the entire rabbit, fur, bones, claws included. If they get hold of the carcass from a cooked chicken they will happily crunch all the bones and leave a clean plate in minutes. Likewise a picked fish.
But some of them have odd tastes. One of ours craves cucumbers, and has to be kept out of the greenhouse.
I don't really believe the warning about milk. Farm cats have been stealing milk and cream for generations, and must be thoroughly adapted to it by now, just like northern European people.
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Milk gives some cats the squits. Not all of them. Some are more tolerant than others.
I knew a cat that was obsessed with sponge cake....
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Whilst not harmful to cats they have an aversion to citrus fruits. Can be useful as a deterrent!
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On the milk front. The Vet' tells me that the Labrador's (I know they're not Cats) can have milk without problems. However it is to do with Enzymes (or such other trickery that mere Builder's cannot comprehend!) that they 'get' from their Mother's. If they don't have milk for ages (?) then it can then upset them.
If you understand any of the above please feel free to rejoice. It has been a long day!
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>> On the milk front. The Vet' tells me that the Labrador's (I know they're not
>> Cats) can have milk without problems.
Dear Martin, you seem like a kind owner, much better than that nasty bloke who claims to love me. Can I come and live with you?
Love, wet kisses and paws
Fifi
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>> Whilst not harmful to cats they have an aversion to citrus fruits. Can be useful as a deterrent!
Ours likes Citrus fruit. Will even chew on the meal of an orange.
She also likes milk (we have goats milk) but only out of a cereal bowl normally, i.e. our left overs. Put the milk in her own bowl and she often doesn't touch it.
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Just goes to prove what quirky animals they are. Mine will run a mile if I peel an orange. A previous cat had an obsession with sultanas and would get quite agitated at the sight of fruit cake.
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Well I must have the fussiest cat. Will only eat one brand of cat food, albeit different flavours. Also one flavour of cat biscuits. Not interested in milk, cream, fish, chicken or anything else we've tried.
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Ours only like cat food if it's in gravy. It's the gravy she likes more than anything. If she's licked it off the rest of the food she might not eat it at all. *
Every now an again she decided she doesn't like one brand so we switch to another including supermarkets. Eventually you switch back. Maybe the food is changing but I'm not tasting it to find out.
* She no longer has all her teeth - probably explains the gravy. She likes meat, fish etc. too. And orange peel. And she'll eat sausages off your plate (in gravy of course) and has tried spicier food too. Weird cat. She also talks ;-)
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 4 Sep 10 at 23:04
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>> She also talks ;-) <<
One of our does too, and make more sense than people!
Pat
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She said where are you again this morning. Waiting for food. And I do mean it sounded like that in English.
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The main reason I can't bear Sarah Kennedy is the amount of time she spends talking about her ruddy cats.
I have nothing against cats, I've owned a couple and they were fine pets, but grown ups who try to anthropomorphise them are a bit of a worry to the rest of us......
:-)
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I wonder what the real reason is for her leaving...
I hope they put Aled Jones in that slot.
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I won't miss her. ( Or her cats ! )
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She can't string a coherent sentence together.
Neither can I, mind, at that time of the morning.
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>> She can't string a coherent sentence together.
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>> Neither can I, mind, at that time of the morning.
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I don't think one strings a single sentence, coherent or otherwise. Stringing is surely the process of joining several sentences together to make a thread, like this one.
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we could string up pedants tho, that would be satisfying at any time of the morning.
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Really Zero, I do feel a man of your intellect should start sentences with an uppercase letter... and to spell though as tho, while easily enough understood, could well be sending the WRONG SIGNALS to our idle and dissolute youth.
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Don't forget the treatment for anti-freeze poisoning - ethanol (ie, gin, whiskey, vodka) in a large dose. Much higher affinity for ADH, might save someone or something's life. Better a drunk cat than a dead one... ;-)
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...I don't think one strings a single sentence, coherent or otherwise...
A sentence is made by stringing a few words together.
Unless you're a Guardian reader, in which case a sentence is made by stringing a lot of words together.
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>> Unless you're a Guardian reader, in which case a sentence is made by stringing a
>> lot of wringly spleeled words together.
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I stopped having cats after my last stray was i suspect poisened .
But they will eat anything once, if it smells right to them and indeed will throw up if their gut rejects it.
I have had cats that loved porridge,garden peas,potatoes,etc so every cat is a different cat
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Cats - What shouldn't they eat? - Tooslow
