Are cats afraid of mice?

In our minds, cats are natural enemies of mice, and it is instinct for cats to catch mice. Cats in the countryside used to be very clever. They are masters at catching mice and protectors of food at home. I believe that students born after 1980s should have such memories.

In recent years, with cats becoming pets, cat families in cities are occupied by various foreign cats. There are many jokes about pet cats on the Internet. Now cats and mice are friends. Now cats are afraid to see mice. Cats nowadays don't know how to catch mice at all, and they can't catch mice. The banter scene really came true. It can be said that Britain is beyond our common sense. Why can't cats catch mice now?

I believe most people know that cats are common nocturnal animals. They are active at night, so they need strong night vision ability. Taurine is a substance that can maintain the night vision of cats. Such an important substance, the cat's own body can't be synthesized, and it can only be supplemented by external food, and the mouse is rich in taurine, so the mouse has become a link in the cat food chain. According to this knowledge, there are rumors that cats don't catch mice, because we have added enough taurine to their food, so they don't need this thing and don't eat mice.

Today, the pet doctor told you a rumor that the lack of taurine has nothing to do with the cat's lifestyle, not catching mice.

Why don't pet cats catch mice? It has nothing to do with taurine?

Taurine deficiency is indeed the reason why cats catch mice, but this knowledge point has always been pinched. In fact, when scientists explain why cats catch mice, they say there are many reasons, such as hunger, mice are easy to be preyed, such as cats' learning attributes and so on. Taurine deficiency is just one of them, because it seems more scientific to explain taurine deficiency literally, so it has been widely spread.

So what is the reason why modern cats can't catch mice?

Do not study:

I think most people will think that cats are born to catch mice. In fact, this is a wrong understanding. Cats learn the ability to catch mice from female cats, or know how to catch old mice with their agility by observing their behavior of catching mice.

For example, a common example is that a little male dog lifts his leg to pee. In fact, he was born not to pee. He learned it the day after tomorrow So you can see that many male dogs hardly go out. They don't lift their legs to pee when they are one year old. So he didn't see the movement, so he didn't have this consciousness in his mind.

But now most pet cats are sold to their owners when they are more than two months old. When I am with my mother, I basically live in a cage. Even if they don't live in a cage, they can't see mice. So they have never seen this kind of animal. How do they know how to kill them?

There is a group of interesting experiments abroad:

(1) Put a few kittens and mice that have never seen mice together. After a long time together, they will become friends. Just like many cat-owning families now have hamsters, many of them can get along well. Hamsters are sometimes bullied by cats, but they don't eat cats. )

(2) Put the kittens and mice that saw the mother cat scratching the mouse together, and they will soon eat the mouse. Even if the cat is not hungry, it will kill the mouse. )

③ Put the cat that can't catch mice together with the cat that catches mice for a period of time. Cats that can't catch mice will soon learn to catch mice and eat them. (For example, after a domestic pet cat becomes a stray cat, it will slowly learn to catch mice. But some cats are stupid and the success rate may not be high. )

No hunger:

The ultimate goal of cats is to eat mice, and the starting point of eating mice is because cats are hungry, or because food is not good, they need meat to improve their lives. Think about the food in our country before. Can I have cat meat? But cats are carnivores, so they can't live without meat, so they will try to catch mice to eat, satisfy their appetite and supplement taurine in their bodies.

But now pet cats, look at their fat bodies, and you will know how good their food is now. Their owners don't feed them three times a day, so they lack duck food. They are no longer hungry, so they won't have the foolish idea of hunting alone.

Rich in food:

Now cat food, all kinds of precious cat food, all kinds of nutrients, all kinds of snacks, dried fish, canned cat food, prawns, is taurine still lacking in such a comprehensive diet? Do you lack nutrition? The owner is worried that the cat will not be interested in eating a certain food for a long time. He will also change food once in a while. Do cats need mice to satisfy their appetite? The cat said, "no, no", and I lived a life of reaching for my coat and opening my mouth. I look down on you, everyone is shouting to beat the mouse.

Wild and hunting degradation

Cats, like us humans, will constantly evolve their own advantages, become better and better, and their shortcomings or unnecessary skills will gradually degenerate. After being pampered by us, in order to make cats more docile and more suitable for human feeding, people will constantly purify their genes in the process of reproduction, making their wildness and hunting less and less. Moreover, cats are generally alive in life, and several generations of cats have no mice, so the consciousness of catching mice has gradually degenerated or been forgotten.