Posted on 04/25/2022 10:09:56 AM PDT by nickcarraway
When Tom Radcliffe owned three Carmel-area pet stores, customers would often complain about how finicky their cats were. “They’d say, ‘My cat doesn’t like tuna, my cat doesn’t like chicken,'” said Radcliffe. “I thought, ‘Why don’t they make cat food out of mice?’ Cats eat mice. Ask Tom and Jerry.”
Now, after selling his stores and enlisting some expert help – including friends’ cats and animal nutritionists with Ph.D.s – Radcliffe is making cat food out of mice. In the process, he catapulted himself during a shaky pandemic economy to the forefront of what appears to be a burgeoning business opportunity. And his canned product, Mouser, has just become available around the Bay Area.
A month after its commercial launch, Mouser is for sale in pet and feed shops in California, Arizona and Nevada, and Radcliffe expects to expand to Oregon, Washington and Idaho as early as next month.
At Pets and More in Campbell, one of numerous Bay Area stores that have just started carrying Mouser, manager Erin Lee said customers have reacted to the product with surprise – and interest. “They pick up a can or two,” Lee said. “Right now it’s more of a novelty, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Their cats like it.”
Radcliffe, 55, started building his self-funded business just before the pandemic and has had to navigate regulations and nutritional standards, along with distribution and supply chain issues. “I feel like a mouse in a maze,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Wild cats consume a large amount of insects for protein.
Living exclusively on rodents is a myth.
A full sized NYC rat or field rat is in nearly even terms with an individual cat only large males will tangle with them. If you have a pack of cats they will team up on a big rat just like their lion cousins pretty impressive little creatures I’d never let one live in my house as I don’t abide by letting an animal defecate inside the whole litter box thing is gross. My dogs know outside is their head call area or they get the hose again.
I used to get defective chicks at the poultry farms for my boas. Free food.
ground rabbit as dog food is a thing too.
That’s very interesting and don’t recall ever reading about large scale “rodent farming”.
Cats also in urban areas decimate the wild song bird population. Country cats are so spread out the birds have a chance to out breed the egg thieves. I count two right now on my security cams they come out of their hides once the sun sets mostly. Both are females I think they showed up a few years ago and I started leaving water out and made blanket nests for them in the workshop I leave the door up about 4” they come and go as they please never once seen a rat or mouse but routinely get the remains dropped right next to their water bowls I read it’s a offering of exchange or respect.
They decimate wildlife period.
How do you think petco gets all it’s mice and rats for reptile feeding they don’t catch them off the streets. More like breeders with a couple.hundred animals not the giant feedlot set ups with tens of thousands of birds. The concept is the same though. Dense cages with same sex offspring in a cyclical feeding and breeding operation. Mice are not all that cannibalistic if they are all same sex and aged. Rats are harder to breed they will eat each other so individual caging is needed stacked and packed is the way to go. Just like chickens which are dense packed in individual cages they can barely turn around in. Same concept same reason for it chickens are cannibals.
Beagles will tear up some rabbit ground or not. The very sport of beagling is named after the breeds purpose to hunt down and chase rabbits back to their borrows then dig them out and all their kits too. This is why beagles will chase any bunny or squirrel till it caught or they drop from.exhaustion. If caught you have seconds until that rabbit is dead and starting to be eaten it just a beagles way. They also make great bird dogs they will go after ducks with a vengeance. One of the better breeds super sweet with kids too. I had one growing up she was a rabbit assassin par excellence.
Love beagles but they seem to stink and do they ever shut up!?
Mouse parts is parts.
ROFL!! Thanks for the laugh!! They are always welcome!!
There’s a part of the book “Never Cry Wolf” by Farley Mowat where he describes seeing wolves apparently eating nothing but mice for extended periods. As an experiment, Mowat lived solely on mice for a time to see if it’s possible for a large mammal to survive on such a diet. He needed to eat the entrails along with the meat to get sufficient fat, as I recall.
There are a few recipes in the book.
My sister once gave me a beach towel with that cartoon on it. Wish I still had it. Wish I still had that sister, too, in fact I miss her more than the towel.
Have you ever smelled mothballs? Did you have to lift up his little leg?
Sometimes there need to be substitutes (foreign and domestic) But squirrel balls just won’t fit in a mouse.
5.56mm
I helped a guy get into business many years ago raising rodents for the zoos. He had a really great business until he decided he could wipe out all his competition by starting a price war. Epic fail!!! North Texas Mouse Manufacturing -— I still have the t-shirt.
I like it—have a patent yet?
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