cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/science@slrpnk.net/p/1972992/do-cats-fart-an-investigation-into-the-mysteries-of-feline-flatulence
Dogs are constantly passing gas. So why don’t cats seem to?
In a foundational 2001 study, a group of brave researchers in England collected and sniffed dog farts. The team found that the concentration of hydrogen sulfide in those farts correlated with worse odor rankings.
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Why had I never heard my cat fart? Dogs are such prolific farters—so why aren’t cats?Thankfully, I haven’t noticed excessive farting in Archie. But I still have questions. Is my cat farting more or less than a small dog, say, a Chihuahua? What do cat farts usually smell like? And at what point is some farting too much farting?
Jackie Flynn Mogensen is a breaking news reporter at Scientific American. Before joining SciAm, she was a science reporter at Mother Jones, where she received a National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications in 2024. Mogensen holds a master’s degree in environmental communication and a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences from Stanford University. She is based in New York City.
Mine never makes a sound, but it’s deadly and the dog usually takes the blame.
ᴮᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ʰᵉ’ˢ ᵘˢᵘᵃˡˡʸ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵘˡᵖʳⁱᵗ
If you have to question whether cats fart, you don’t spend much time around your cat. It might not be very often, but you’ll know when it happens.
I mean, it is my first cat and we have him now for 4 years, but I cannot say I ever heard or noticed him farting.
That said I never had the thought he wouldn’t fart at all. If everybody poops then everbody farts as well.
Anyone who has adopted a kitten knows they fart. Those first couple days / weeks while their guts settle is awful
My black cat used to fart every time we picked him up. Did we stop picking him up? No. Did we vomit? Yes!
If you yoink them off the floor and cradle them in your arm, there’s a 10% chance you’ll smell a fart. Especially if it’s a kitten.
I changed my boy Ralph’s diet and for a few weeks when he let one go you didn’t even have to be in the room to notice. A few times I went in search because I thought for sure he shit himself somewhere.
Lol that’s horrible. The author of this article says that dogs are prolific farters but I’ve had two dogs and neither farted super often. Definitely not denying it’s happened but it’s not something I’ve noticed that much and especially not to the degree you just described!
Our dear departed boy, Leo (he was FIV+ and had some major digestive issues, hence the box label). I still have the box saved in my shed…
When I was a kid we had a cat named Blossom because he was always “blossoming”
😭❤️
When my cat had stomach issues and was put on a prescription wet food she got very gassy. Picking her up made it worse. She’ll still let one out every now and then but it’s not nearly as bad as it was. Those were some stinky toots.
I have to assume the article author hasn’t spent much time around cats if they thought they don’t fart. Dog farts might be louder, but cat farts will peel the paint off your walls.
Protein farts is nasty.
This one definitely does.
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How can I get some money to fund a dumbass study like this?
Not all knowledge needs to be profound to be worth studying. This idea that science wastes so much money needs to die.
Surely there should be a limit.
The problem with this attitude is that it presupposes that scientific discovery is linear, predictable, and evaluable without context or scientific knowledge, from an armchair.
For all we know, a study like this could accidentally reveal something about gut health in cats, which later is confirmed to be true about humans, which later is combined with other knowledge to treat bowel cancer.
When you devalue “dumb” science because you judge it at face value, you devalue all science. Republicans are very fond of doing this also and it’s helped create more scientific ignorance in the public and it has made less funds available for science.
There’s nothing more worthy of having money spent on it than science. You’re obviously not a scientist, and even if you were, you cannot predict the future or know what you don’t know. Scientific knowledge is like a giant puzzle and we don’t know what all the pieces are ahead of time or how they fit together.
There is. You won’t get much money for a study like this but you also don’t really need a lot.
I’ve already got the cat. He has indeed farted. What do you suppose that is worth?
Shockingly, scientists do not receive a blank check and then only provide the word yes or no as the result of their study.
Excellent. That’s your initial observation. Now formulate a testable hypothesis, operationalise your variables, design a controlled experiment, collect sufficient data, replicate your findings, and submit your results for peer review.
Get back to us when you do.
Sarah Palin? Is that you?
Mine do, usually close to my head
Someone is fishing for an Ig Nobel.
One of our childhood cats would fart if you picked him up. They weren’t very stinky so it didn’t do anything, but he kept hoping.
Sheesb, ‘passing gas’. Around here we pass electricity instead. It’s much better for the environment, and your pet lights up when they do it.
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