So I have outdoor cats, but I live on a farm and they generally take care of the mice problem. I've been hearing all this talk of outdoor cats living shorter lives so I've been wondering if I should try and make them be more indoors more often? Is this a good idea?
It’s a nice thought, but it won’t actually do much to prolong their lives. Outdoor cats die young because of exposure to parasites, poison, disease, cars, predators, and all sorts of other risks. It’s not that they just live a harder life and die younger cause their bodies wear out. Things outdoors are just straight up more likely to cause their death.
Every time your cats are outdoors - especially if you’ve got anything down to try to poison the mice they’re hunting - they’re exposed to those risk factors. Sadly, keeping them indoors ‘more’ is only going to marginally decrease their likelihood of running into dangerous things that could kill them.