Anyone disagree with Bill Mollison on cats?

Do your chickens really love possum? Really?

Our chickens are vegetarian now after I once fed them a dozen raw sausages and one stupid chicken looooved them and ate them all up. She died. I was a newbie and thought they'd ignore them and scratch them into the dirt, blood and bone for the oranges. I have learnt chickens don't regulate their food well - and they can't poop meat well, which is understandable really. In the wild a chicken would eat a few slugs, not a cow rump. At the time I was also buying them cheap nasty feed from City Farmers that contained "restricted" meat products though - ewww, they are so much better off vegetarian.

But onto cats ... I think cats have a purpose in a permaculture system. Perhaps not so much in a rural Australian setting, but in my backyard suburban setup a cat is a very effective way of minimising the rats and mice that love our chicken coop, mulch pile and worm farms. Our little female cat is desexed and is a ratter. In the warm months she brings in a ton of kill. She does get the odd honey eater or dove, but she prefers mice - they get eaten all up except for the tail and feet. When she passes away I will buy another cat - which I will desex - for the very purpose of eating rodents and snakes.

I figure no system is perfect. My cat is actually extremely valuable in my permaculture system. Despite her very effective pest control, our garden has frogs, wild birds and lizards. Certainly far more than any of the other backyards in our sterile, manicured street. Secondly, a house just isn't a home without a puss lying on the sunny back step. And, um, I can't think of a third reason to keep her (so I guess that breaks Mollisons "3 uses" rule) But she is so valuable in these two uses I think she's worth it. That's still more useful than some of my ex-boyfriends were ;P

 

More uses for your cat:

Her poop adds fertility to your garden.
She keeps any one species from exploding in number and becoming a pest.
she provides companionship
she provides entertainment
If grass starts growing in your garden she will eat some

 

Greenmama,

Your comment about ex-boyfriends had me chuckling for ages!!.

You do make a good point about location. I could see circumstance whereby a cat would be a useful addition in a design. I could probably design an elephant into my system being on 75 tropical acres something impossible in your situation.

When we had a cat on our property I could see the damage it was doing and the wildlife it was scaring off but it pales into insignificance compared to the havoc cane toads have reeked. The damn things even climb into pot plants and destroy them. We can't have a pond anymore.

Now if cats would hunt cane toads I would become a cat lover overnight!

Cheers,

 

I like my indoor pet cats from an aesthetic perspective. I like to think "quality of life" is part of permaculture, and my pet cats add to my quality of life. They have no other function. The outdoor cats chew the heads off some mice, but I think native snakes and other predators are probably better for rodent control than cats.

5 cats: 2 outdoor, 3 indoor, all sort of imposed on me by circumstance.

A cat lover (substitute babies for this childless woman )