Intestinal Obstruction: Mouse!

[John S. Fiorino]

My baby just had to have surgery to have a blockage removed from his
small intestine and it turned out to be the partially digested carcass
from a mouse he caught TWO WEEKS ago. Apparently my cat "ate the whole
thing" and it had formed a complete blockage, but it took two weeks
until it started to cause problems... (throwing up smelly yellow fluid
every few hours, lethargy...)

Is this common? I thought that "cats and mice" go together...

My cats are indoor cats and they catch a mouse about once a year. This
was the first one that they actually ate (that I know of) - I did see
some "mouse guts" that the cat had thrown up, apparently right after he
ate it. They usually just play with the poor mouse and I end up having
to throw the traumatized mouse outside.

Should I keep my cats from eating the occasional mouse? Or should just
cut the mouse up into little bite-size and easily-digestible pieces for
my kitties?? (jus' kidding...)

John

[NylaMelchr]

I never had a problem with my cats eating mice until my mom moved into a
new house which came with a barn cat. Mom felt guilty that Max was
allowed inside... so she let Boo (the barn cat) in. To make a long story
short... Boo taught Max the fine art of eating mice.

I try never to let my cats eat mice. I have them trained to the point
that if they have one they will wait a good amount of time cause they know
they will be getting a treat if they hand it over to me (and they honstly
do prefer soft cat food to fresh mouse... go figure).

Beyond the risk of intestinal obstruction... mice carry deseases, alot of
which there are not vacines for (or vacines that cause the desease too
often to be used in low risk cats). I would not let your cat eat mice if
you can catch them at it.