I'm roasting a chicken for dinner tonight and have just gone into the kitchen to check on its progress.

I have a range cooker with two ovens side by side. As you stand looking at the cooker, the hobs are on the right are over the traditional oven and the plate warmer is on the left over the fan oven. The chicken is in the fan oven (you have to know all this to get the picture background for what I'm about to write).

Hedwig loves chicken. She will eat it hot or cold. She will fight for a piece of chicken. She is currently lying diagonally on the hobs facing towards the fan oven with her front paws outstretched in front. According to Hedwig, that chicken has her name written all the way through it!

Hodge loves fish - tuna and salmon in particular - and ham.

Spitfire used to love apple crumble and evaporated milk. She would literally shake with excitement when the evaporated milk appeared. She also liked spicy sausages (especially the Greek sort) but hated plain pork ones.

Colditz loved rabbit.

we used to have to put my husband's 19 year old cat, Speedie, outside anytime we were preparing, cooking or eating poultry of any type. He was known to open the oven before... Mother-in-law caught him just as he was ready to jump up on the inside of the open oven door...OUCH!

And when we had him, he was completely deaf and mostly blind, so you couldn't yell at him to leave something alone. The only way to get his attention was to stomp on the floor in a very non-gentle way.

Speedie LOVED his poultry!

Minsky, as mentioned before, completely loses his dignity as the ruler of the entire neighbourhood if there is a chance that he may be allowed a drop of honey. All my cats love chicken, but they very rarely get any; I have to be cooking it for someone else, and there has to be enough left over for all four of them, or Heidi won't get a look in, being the smallest. They will also go for fish skins and the like.

Chomsky, mind you, will eat anything, up to and including leftover curry (not that he's allowed to, but he has a way of making off with things he's not supposed to have!). I am convinced there is some labrador in his ancestry somewhere.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Remember, it's what Jim Slip used to patch his DNA when there wasn't enough left over from Minsky.

Skiffle tends to be picky and prefers things that come out of boxes or tins labelled 'cat food'. She's been known to refuse chicken, steak and bacon rind. She's not averse to a bit of tuna, pilchard or a fragment of crisp. Her tastes have broadened somewhat since Diesel's arrival, as D. will try almost anything. Skiffle seems to think that if Diesel eats it, then perhaps it must be suitable for cats to at least try.

Diesel is fond of melon, and will lick and nibble at the rind once I've eaten the flesh. (I'm not letting her have any before I've finished - I like melons).

They both like yoghurt and creme brulee, but are only allowed a small taste, because I don't want to spoil their teeth. Likewise, Krissy's cat, Lindisfarne loves doughnut but isn't allowed much.

Both of my cats can detect the opening of a tin of tuna within a 20 km radius.

Other than that, Macduff will only eat cat food and only very expensive cat food at that. Grublet is not so picky and loses all vestiges of her dignity for crisps or chips. She's also fond of pasta, which I've never heard said of any other cat. Grublet is one of a kind alright.

My other cats are odd in their tates.

Crickett and Scooter both LOVE dairy...especially Scooter. If you're eating cereal, he'll sit near you looking at you with "puppy dog eyes" and the second you put the bowl down, he will actually push you out of the way to get to it. And yogurt is his ABSOLUTE fave...especially vanilla custard style.

Loki is strange because he loves salty things. Popcorn, peanuts, french fries, and especially shelled sunflower seeds. I caught him knocking over the salt shaker one time, rolling it around the floor to get more out. We have to really watch him!

Odin is insane for fruit of all things! Dried cranberries, dried apricots and figs are his favorited dried fare. But his absolute favorite (so far) are strawberries. He'll literally try to rip them out of your mouth! If you open a pack of fresh strawberries to wash them, he comes walking down the hallway with his nose sniffing high then he does the shark circle, pawing at your legs because he wants one so badly. He even loves frozen fruit bars...even the tangerine kind. I've never heard of a cat that likes citrus!

Our old cat (deceased) Murphy wouldn't eat any human food. And you could tell that he found it incredibly undignified to do so! When I was young and poor, I was waiting for my paycheck to come in and I was out of cat food. The only thing I had available in the pantry was a very expensive can of pink salmon that I had been saving for a special occasion. So I opened it and plopped it in his bowl and he wouldn't touch it! Well, he touched it enough that I couldn't save it and serve it later. I was so mad! But he was always that way. Wouldn't eat anything unless it came from a dried bag of catfood. Even wet cat food was beneath him for most of his life until he got ill and that was all he could eat. It was funny though. He used to give the other cats these looks of total disdain!

Ain't cats funny, though?

Definitely (resigned expression).

If ever cats try to ctch the chook whilst it's in the oven, then just let them and turn the oven up high. Problem solved!

Kaz is a dog lover, isn't she....the traitor!

Actually I don't really mind cats that much, but I do prefer dogs. But any animal that sits on top of the oven is just asking for trouble.

The most amazing cat I ever knew went by the name of Jelana - she could play soccer with a flower pot!



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Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.

Dave R - are Their Majesties not behaving themselves, then?

Got in at 9 this morning (record?)

Minsky comes and goes, Heidi has stayed inside and has decided she can trust wiggly fingers.

Klinsmann refused to pass through the door to come in, and sits at the end of the garden sulking. He'll get hungry.

Chomsky ran out the door because I was behind him and also refuses to come in if I'm there. Haven't seen him since. I'm not so sure about him. I sent Minsky out with specific instructions :-

a) Do NOT be territorial with Chomsky (I have long wondered if this was part of the problem).

b) Please teach him some basic real world cat stuff while he's out there.

If Chomsky fails to turn up, should I leave the door open for a while or leave it shut for fear of ffrogs & toads (non-gutter variety?)

I'll be off for some cat litter in a minute. If any of the ladies refers to me as Mr Marshmallow ---

Come to think of it, 'chicken' and 'cats' are well combined in the above post.

How long should you wait before worrying about cats? Jack didn't come in last night, so I was up at 4am calling him. He has never stayed out all night before and I assume that he got stuck in a shed or garage. I got to work and printed loads of flyers asking neighbours to look in their sheds, cars etc. I went home at lunch, and there he was, large as life and twice as ugly, fast asleep in his bedroom. I can't believe that I asked him where he had been, and actually expected a reply

I can. Klinsmann went off for a day and it was me that got concerned, not Sarah.

The only reason you didn't get a reply is because cats think they should never have to give excuses, are offended, and sulk.

Sarah ---

Minsky is on patrol.

Heidi is cracking up. I went down a while ago and she hissed at me; then miaowed to be stroked. She was happy to be stroked, but somehow not consoled. I think she basically does not mind me but resents that I am not you. Dim but nice. Just now I went down and she vanished from the drainer and into a Heidi hole by the settee; long time since that happened.

I go down every hour or so to check the doors, but Heidi doesn't want to go out even when I put myself on the other side of the door from her to make sure, and K and C are nowhere to be found.

Anyway I got the cat litter. They'll get hungry. No tiger videos though ---

The cat called Pyewhacket who lived with my family back during the first half of my childhood once ate a complete tin-full of baked beans: My mother was called away from the kitchen to deal with something or other elsewhere in the house, just after she'd opened the can, and when she returned it was empty... Pyewhacket was on the opposite side of the room by then, trying to look innocent, but the orange "moustache" that she'd just acquired was a rather obvious clue...

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"God rot Botchkamos Istochnik!"

Given the subject title and the fact that this thread has so far been almost entirely pro-cat I'd just like to redress the balance a little by reporting on my various chicken activities.

Willow (the Welsummer hen) sadly got cornered by a wasp (she's very afraid of them and, when I found her, was running to and fro between the corner of the henhouse and the fence unable to grasp the simple fact that had she instead walked quickly straight ahead she'd no longer be cornered and moreover the wasp would probably have lost interest in the game anyway).

Marcia and Judy the two Marans are both broody and show no sign of emerging from their respective dark corners for some while yet (probably after 14 days when they finally figure out the eggs they're sat on aren't actually going to turn into anything other than a very bad smell).

Margaret the Warren is sulking again, having had the hosepipe turned on her last evening (entirely in fun; she failed to see the joke however). The rest of them meanwhile are happily scratching around in the orchard, or were when I last checked a few minutes ago.

I should perhaps add that all of them are named after the various ladies the writer Richard Brautigan dedicated his books to (just in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't but hey)