Voles for Cat Breakfast

A dead vole

Our winter has been gloomy but relative mild, unlike a lot of the northern part of the country. One morning this past week while sipping my coffee and enjoying the view out the back porch French door, I notice a cat cavorting on the back porch.  It was Little Joe tossing something in the air which landed with a thump. Jasper, Harmon and Zeke were still in the house and begged to be let out to see what was going on.

Woodland Vole

Joe had captured and killed a vole.  I knew it was a vole because it was so much bigger and fatter than the little field mice - which are still resident in the barns. Satisfied that the other cats had seen his prize, Joe carried the vole off and promptly ate it.  A couple of days later Jasper brought another dead vole to the porch door, proudly displaying it for his brothers' admiration, then devoured it in front of them.  The amazing thing to me is that the cats ate the voles.  I feed these cats twice a day with a good quality dry cat food, which they seem to like very much.  Most of them do not like any kind of cooked chicken, though Jasper will eat bit of raw beef trimmings. Most of them like canned tuna fish but neither Zeke or Pippi touch the stuff. But they will happily eat a mouse or a vole, bones, hair and all, leaving just the intestines behind. No accounting for taste.

Voles can do a lot of damage to the roots of plants. I've lost a lot of perennial flowers to voles who I suspect live under the back porch all winter feasting on my expensive bounty.