We tend to think that cats are playing with the prey, but that’s probably not what they’re doing.
Some cats are not very experienced hunters, or their mums may not have been particularly skilled hunters themselves (as it’s the mum that passes on their skills to their kittens). So a cat may see something they want to hunt but may be uncertain about the hunting sequence in terms of watching, stalking, chasing, pouncing and then killing the animal – so they may not get the sequence right.
"A cat may catch their prey but then, due to inexperience, be unsure what to do with it next."
A cat may catch their prey but then, due to inexperience, be unsure what to do with it next. So rather than killing the animal, they do something else instead with it – batting it about or throwing it around – so we think this kind of behaviour may potentially be a displacement type behaviour.
Another thing we think may be going on here – but we don’t fully know for sure – is that what they do with the prey when they’ve caught it is probably dictated by necessity. Cats are very risk-averse and very motivated to defend and protect themselves and avoiding being injured is a big part of this and is very important to them.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/P8bd6dTcbd0?wmode=opaque
So if they’ve caught a mouse it could potentially give them a nasty bite which could then get infected, or a bird could easily blind a cat with its beak. So a cat might appear to ‘play’ with an animal by pushing and poking it or throwing it in the air to tire it out and also to disorientate it, which would make it easier to kill.
Also, what can happen is that the animal might die of shock whilst being manipulated by the cat, saving the cat the effort and risk of actually dispatching it. Bringing prey home would further disorientate it by taking the animal away from its typical environment – making it easier for the cat to manage as well as the prey having less chance of escape. When appearing to ‘play with a mouse or a bird', the cat may actually also be evaluating the animal to risk assess how much of a danger the animal might be to them.
"A cat might appear to ‘play’ with an animal by pushing and poking it or throwing it in the air to tire it out and also to disorientate it, which would make it easier to kill."
There’s also a chance the cat could be bringing the booty home to share it, as it were, but we really don’t know. What a cat does when it’s hunting may appear cruel and horrible, but we believe the behaviour serves an important purpose for the cat in terms of helping the cat to protect itself, or may sometimes be a function of a cat’s that’s not very experienced or skilled and doesn’t fully know what it’s doing.