Sounds logical, sure. But this is a claim we could test, so I have to ask: cite? Has anyone done valid studies comparing the reactions of mice to the smell of, say, a tomato or a room air-freshener to the smell of a cat?
And I believe Cecil skipped over one of the questions: “Why don’t they make rat- or mouse-flavoured cat food? — Simon Lord, Ireland.” Simon asked about mouse-flavored cat food, not mouse-based cat food. Leaving aside the question of just how valid the claim of a mouse-flavored Whiskers treat would be, why don’t cat food manufacturers have cans with “mousey delite” alongside cans of “tuna delite”? Or for that manner, why don’t they have “bird-flavored” treats?
My guess is that PETA would object and some pet owners might feel the manufacturers have gone too far, although it’s strictly a cultural phobia. We don’t mind killing a cow, a chicken or a fish but recoil in horror to killing mice or birds?
Since I was one of the folks Cecil asked to do some mass mailings and phonings of pet food manufacturers, I’ll try to answer one of your questions. (I can’t really speak as to the scent thing; you’d have to ask Cecil or see if someone helped him in more detail with that).
The responses I received back said essentially what Cecil reported - that there was no special reason that cats preferred the taste of mice over chicken, lamb, or human. Iams gave a lengthy response to me and said (in essence) they had no evidence that cats preferred mouse or rat flesh over their current mixtures - if cats did show such a preference, they would find some way to duplicate the taste to make food most palatable to cats. It was speculated by some sources that it could be possible that cat food is already made to taste like mouse, just that the manufacturers don’t put it on the label for the PR aspect. There is no evidence of that, however, and no one fessed up.
I had heard of a British cat food which, reputedly advertised itself as being mouse-flavoured or actually made of mice and rats. I didn’t find anything on that, and I have to assume no one else did either, since Cecil didn’t mention it. I did find a very interesting Ignoble Award paper on why things “taste like chicken” that talks a bit about what mice should taste like, which is available online and I recommend reading it if you’re interested.
This reminds me of a friend who refused to feed her cats anything beef-flavored, on the principle that cats in the wild would be able to catch chickens or fish, but not cows.
Last I checked, cats are notoriously bad readers, so I assume that the text on a can of food is primarily intended to attract the owners. I guess if cat owners felt that their pet rejected flavor beef and gobbled flavor tuna, this could affect sales.
So would a flavor of “orange juice” on a can of cat food sell? Probably not, although for all I know, cats might like it. But their owners are the ones with the wallets and can openers, and the owners probably don’t think citrus flavors appear to cats, so they wouldn’t even try. But it’s common knowledge that cats eat mice and catch birds, so it would seem logical to sell cat food with those flavors.
So the only reason I can think of that they don’t (at least in the US) is due to human super-sensitivity. It doesn’t take much to get PETA’s back up; rationality isn’t their strong suit.
Una – have you flushed your noisy toilet recently and had to count the cats?
I try to flush my toilet at least once a fortnight, but even then I don’t worry about the cats, as they’ve grown so large that I don’t think that even my pressure-assist model is going to drag them down to the magical sewer fairyland. Which could be filled with lots of juicy rats…
Improbable. Cats (the entire family Felidae, that is) lost their “sweet” receptors sometime 10-25 million years ago. I imagine they can’t tell the difference between orange juice and rocket fuel.
Why would they need to? The article makes it clear that there have been studies done to show the comparative reactions of mice without alteration to mice with alteration in regards their reaction to the smell and/or presence of cat. Clearly, this answers the question of whether or not mice react to cat smell.
So breeding specially modified mice caused interesting changes in how they acted. It doesn’t tell us how normal mice react to different odors. Once again, Cecil says
So how do we know that? Perhaps they have a stong aversion to all smells. Would they run from garlic or just cat smells? How do we know they have any aversion to any smells without testing different smells and seeing their reactions?
There’s a fair amount of research on mouse response to “predator odors”, including cat urine among others, but most of it is a) hideously technical and b) not freely available. In general, normal mice show aversive affects to “predator” smells and not to “neutral” smells (although I haven’t seen any tests of garlic specifically ).
On the “mouse-flavored cat food” front, during the course of my experiments I’ve had occasions to, er, heat-treat mouse flesh, and the smell was disturbingly edible…
Then what we need is a Cecil to dig it up and interpret it.
I know lion urine is sold as a deer repellent, but is there hard evidence that it works? And if so, is it the “lion” smell or other chemical products common to all urine (ammonia, etc.)?
We must assume that, for this study to have had any validity, there was a control where there were mice which hadn’t been altered, which acted differently to the cat. N’est-ce pas?
I read in a reputable science magazine, years ago, that some scientists with a labful of mice and nothing better to do with their time tested various yummy substances on non-lethal mousetraps to see which was most appealing to the cute little vermin. Cheese of all kinds was 'way down the list - at the top was peanut butter and gumdrops.
This might not be the best possible example, as cats are reputed to have an aversion to citrus, though none of the cites I found for this are particularly scientific or authoritative-sounding, so I didn’t bother to link them here. Orange and lemon peels are frequently recommended as a cat repellent [although I was surprised to stumble across an ad for citrus-scented cat litter, which I guess goes to show you that either the “cats hate citrus” thing is a fallacy, or that someone didn’t do much research before launching their product.]
Yet, though my dogs cannot be fully convinced that OUTSIDE is for peeing, I just found a power cord (not plugged in, or I’d’ve found the wee culprit) chewed on, despite its minimal caloric value. On the other hand, while one dog seems to live by the rule that what is inside is a pet, and another is averse to hunting altogether (she gets a look on her face that clearly says that hunting is gross), the third, and newest, follows neither rule, so any mousish rustling has been shortlived.
While we’re on the subject of mousetrap bait, I’ve found peanut butter works well, but it deteriorates (like chewing gum on the bedpost overnight) rapidly. The best all-round bait I’ve found is bread, cracker or cereal crumbs or pieces of nuts. They will last in the trap longer and don’t make such a mess that you can’t re-bait the trap after use.
Some types of cheese have a consistency that attaches well to the little clip on your standard-issue mousetrap. And after a little while they harden, making them one with the trap. There are probably other baits with such admirable traits, but I can see where some others (peanut butter?) might not. Granted, a hair-trigger mousetrap doesn’t require an especialy tight coupling of bait-trigger.
