For the past several months, logistics have been such that there is a shortage of wet cat food where I live. The grocery store shelves have been bare for at least two months. Cats are picky. Have they always been that way? What did ancient Egyptians feed their cats? Did they cook food for them?
Edit: I just wanted to thank everyone that commented. I may reply directly with additional comments or questions, however all of you have educated me and I appreciate all of your answers and comments. ❤️
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Until fairly recently cats everywhere mostly hunted their own food, as well as often being fed scraps. In some books you will sometimes come across mentions of "cat's meat" which was trimmings and scraps not considered suitable for humans, as well as things like meat from horses (in areas where people did not normally eat that) and the heads and other waste from cleaning fish. In 1800's London it was common to see people, known as "cat's meat men" pushing small carts full of skewers of meat (mostly horse meat from horses too injured, old, or ill to work) selling door to door.
Some Egyptian tomb paintings depict cats hunting small animals, or being fed bits of meat or fish. And some cat mummies were buried with mummified mice as apparently their own personal grave goods. So, it's likely that care of cats in ancient Egypt followed the same kind of pattern seen in other more recent cultures. Where the cats hunted the bulk of their food, but depending on the attitude of the people they lived with, would also be fed scraps, or even the odd tidbit from their owners own plate.
I love the wide range of knowledge people in and adjacent to anth have 😂 this is wonderful.
I don't actually work in anything at all related to anthropology. I just read a lot, on a very eclectic variety of topics. And when I saw the question I remembered reading about mummified cats buried with mummified mice, and about "cat's meat men" mentioned in some books (I think Charles Dickens is one author who mentioned them though I can't remember which book) and I'd seen a picture somewhere of an Egyptian tomb painting that had a cat in it. So I spent a little bit checking to make sure I had the details correct before posting.
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That's really interesting!
The way we care for our cats today is not the same way cats were cared for in ancient times. Cats domesticated themselves. Egyptians had a farming culture & stored grain and other crops. This stored food would have attracted rodents and other pests, which cats would have followed. Given that cats & humans do not compete for the same food source, humans allowed cats to stay.
Not only that, but cats also realized that they had plenty of food in human settlements. There would not have been a need for humans to feed the cats themselves. It's only during more recent times that we've cared for cats in a way that makes humans the provider of food for them. Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about how her family got a cat because they had a rodent infestation in their house. Barn cats still exist for a similar purpose: to keep rodents out/thin the rodent population. For city/suburban dwellers, we tend to have cats as a companion pet. If we have a rodent issue, we have the option to hire an exterminator to help us get rid of the rodents and plug up the ways they got into the house in the first place.
https://icatcare.org/advice/the-origins-of-cats/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-house-cats-158390681/
The way cats are cared for in the places most redditors live is not the way cats are cared for in much of the world.
I work in developing nations, and in most of the places I’ve worked (outside cities) the way cats are cared for is more akin to the old ways, not the wet food and cuddles approach common in urban and suburban parts of developed nations.
Even in developed nations outside northern Europe and north America cats live alongside people in the more traditional way. Istanbul is famous for its large, free roaming cat population who are affectionately with humans but don't have owners. I've seen the same thing in Morocco and Greece. They're fed scraps and leftovers and given shelter in cold weather, and people generally treat them well, knowing that they play a valuable role in pest control.
Here in the UK (and I presume across Europe) "farm cats" are still a thing. These are populations semi feral cats encouraged to stay on the farm by providing supplementary food. They'll roam freely and will normally use barns and outbuildings for shelter, and will often seek out human interaction, but they live independently. The supplementary food ensures that they don't move on when the rodent population istoo small to support the population, and they'll normally be checked out regularly by a vet.
In the US farm cats are also very much a thing in rural areas.
If you are concerned about being able to feed your cat during food shortages, then I hear you. I have been keeping an extra bag on hand since the pandemic began and rotating it out with the fresh bag. Up until just the other day, I sometimes felt I was being too cautious. Then I was suddenly confronted with empty store shelves and only one bag left of the only dry catfood my cat will eat! He is very good at catching and eating gophers and it is a skill many cats don't learn. So he is worth every penny I spend on him.
Cats cannot make many amino acids necessary for their health like dogs, humans, and omnivores in general can. They are true carnivores. So when there are not enough gophers to keep him happy, he will beg for something more. And I prefer my animals to not endulge in that kind of behavior. Again though, his talent at safeguarding my food supply (avid gardener) is beyong value. So, he gets cheap canned tuna intended for humans as he will not touch wet catfood. He gets canned condensed milk, as it is super thick and he loves it in the winter. He also adores a beaten raw egg with just a few drops of water added to make it thinner and easier to lap up.
I would try those three (eggs, canned milk, tuna) to see what your cat will eat. You might be able to stretch one of these by sneaking cooked rice into it. That is what I intend to do if I suddenly cannot get the dry catfood.
Have you read the translations of Lu Yu's poems about his cats?
No, but I gather I ought to!
Gophers! Thats amazing which region of the world are you in?
West coast of North America. Gophers do a lot of damage. They can eat all of the roots out from underneath a fruit tree, they can chew through thick plastic pots, and if you are not careful, you can break a leg when a foot falls into one of their tunnels. I grow a lot of my food and protecting my garden from gophers is a contant battle.
Ancient Egyptians utilized cats in many ways, as votive offerings, pets, and as beings to worship in their own right. As cats were mummified in massive amounts for offering purposes, cats were raised and kept in "catteries" until they were euthanized. Genetic studies show that these were in fact domesticated cats, more closely related to today's cats than their wild counterparts:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426309/
This writeup in the McClung Museum's page about Cat Mummies notes a possible contemporary secondary source Diodorus of Greece, writing that even during times of famine temple cats were fed: https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/2001/05/01/cat-mummies/
It would appear as though at a certain point, cats with ritualistic or cultural value which were kept in closed or semi closed environments likely at least had their diets supplemented by humans, though I am having trouble finding any research that has looked into specific breakdowns of food, such as strontium analyses of teeth. That may be a good avenue for you to pursue to search more.
Mice. The Egyptians harvested grains that undoubtedly attracted mice. This is probably why they came to be signs of good luck and we're worshipped. Many animals that are considered "good luck" have similar relationships with humans, like ladybugs! They eat the pests that consume our food 😋
When I lived in a poor area of New Orleans, cockroaches. We gave them regular cat food but they didn't need as much as they were hunting at night. My first cat got cancer and I wondered if it was from eating the roaches (we were new from Canada, had farm cats and didn't know better), because presumably they would've been poisoned by anti-roach traps.
Anyway now I live in Korea, there are so many street cats that I sometimes go and feed them bits of meat and fat, and the restaurants put food out. You could ask around at restaurants where you are, might make some friends!
I’m sorry to hear about your first cat. I really appreciate you sharing your experience. You’ve lived in several interesting places. Did you have cats when you were in Canada? We live in the US, but western NY where the snow is so deep that the cats don’t go outside. They’ve caught a few mice and birds, but definitely not enough to keep them fat and warm without coming in the house in the winter.
Thanks. Yeah we always had cats on the farm in Canada, really miss having one around, they really are great little friends! They would always stay inside in winter too, in summer we'd let them out when they wanted to go out but I think we kept them inside at night.