I have seen cats play with mice for hours. Releasing them, and jumping back on them. They enjoy it, but it is also a bit monsterous. I know I wouldn’t want to put a mouse in that spot for my cat’s pleasure. Besides, it was always my impression that mice bred as live food were not the healthiest and weirdly bread.

For me.the factory farmed meats win by a smidge. Industrial meat production sucks, but I don’t have to witness the animal abuse. Then I believe cat food uses meats/‘cuts’ that won’t hit supermarket shelves.

But neither is ethical. There is no perfect or right answer imho. Just personal preference.

Depends on the metric. If it’s lives taken, it’s more ethical for cat food. If it’s human suffering, it’s more ethical to use mice.

If I feed my cats live mice, they’re going to starve.

I mean my cats do both. That’s because the fields naturally habitat mice where I live so what the snakes, chickens and raptors don’t eat occasionally make they’re way into the cats habitats. I guess I could design a mice habitat to more aggressively grow them for the cats but I think growing food stuff for myself that they can also eat makes more sense (I.e. chicken, and fish).

Cats are cruel hunters tbh, I don’t mind just letting them play with non feeling things and eating prepared healthy meats instead that can be harvested in less cruel ways and do more for my food ecosystem too.

From what I’ve read, cat food often uses byproducts that can’t or wouldn’t otherwise be used for human consumption. For that reason, I think it’s more ethical to use stuff that would otherwise go to waste than to breed mice for them to eat. Plus, from my experience with house cats, many wouldn’t actually eat the mice, but just play with/torture them until they’re dead.

Why would you not feed them a dead mouse if you’re going that route. Hell someone I know with a snake feeds it frozen mice.

One big reason not to feed live prey is that it fights back. Each feeding would be an opportunity for your cat to get bit, scratched, an infection, or maybe lose an eye. It could also make quite the mess of your house.

If you want to try feeding it more natural prey, it is available though places like RodentPro that we use at our rehab, and there are places that will sell whole animal pet food or zoo food. Just make sure it’s the right balance of nutrients for a house cat. I believe they need very high protein, IIRC.

All those foods would be still factory farmed, I suppose one could say, but the ethics and nutrion is at least a bit different as the sourcing of the proteins is less questionable and there would be no fillers or harmful ingredients like in commercial feed, especially kibble.

These things are tough. We have an old box turtle and I get him crickets sometimes and it gets him more active. He is old though so they live for awhile and we actually have to get these cricket cubes so they can eat and stay hydrated.

I mean it’s more fun for the cat for one thing.

3 of my 4 would be down for it.

#4 -

I used to feed my cat a quail and a half every day. It was from a grocery store so it was human grade food. The bones were easily chewed and he liked tearing it up.

Cats can’t digest mice. That’s why they vomit it up.