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My cat ate a squirrel's entire head...
- Thread starter two fingers
- Start date
slobake
resident ... something
Wait, he didn't eat the squirrel's nuts?I am as serious as I can be.
When we got him, he was the neighborhood wimp. Other cats would beat him up and take his lunch money for fun.
Well, he turned a corner and toughened up. Now, he not only guards the yard from other cats, he takes out squirrels, mice, moles, and even a few full-grown rabbits have been dragged to the front porch by our guard "dog". He has also taken down quite a few snakes, some of them venomous. These days, he's the neighborhood bad@$$.
But yesterday he did something I have never seen before. He had killed a squirrel and dragged it into the breezeway. And there he sat eating its head! I was loading groceries and other supplies into the house from my truck so I was going back and forth for a while.
And, sure enough, he proceeded to eat the squirrels ENTIRE HEAD! Skull and all!!!! Gone! I have never seen anything like that before. I won't get into the ugly details. But let's just say the cat ate every part of the head. Every. Single. Part. Then he left the shoulder-down thing laying there for me to clean up. (We are all here to serve him, after all.)
What's funny is that he is the sweetest and most unassuming looking docile cat for the most part. But he's a sleeper. He'll take you down..... and apparently eat your head.
So, pretty much all I have left to do is ask the obvious question.
Is my cat a zombie???
He may have been saving them for later. When he took a break, I took poor Mr.Squirrel to the woods for a proper burial. The Fingers girls preferred it that way.
This thread is awesome. I will try to not spoil the awesomeness with my nerdy techno speak.
Cats are dedicated carnivores (obvs). So when they eat in the wild they will typically go for the most nutrient dense parts first. Brains, eyeballs, tongue, and the attendant glands in the head are VERY nutrient dense. Squirrel bones are also soft and easily chewed and digested. So there is rich calcium content in that skull, too. So the fact that your cat went straight for the head of a small rodent is no surprise. To your cat, that’s some good eating.
Had your cat been truly feral it would have saved the lower parts for later. But as a domestic it was expecting you to eat them.
Larger cats will go for the innards (liver, heart, kidneys, stomach contents) of larger prey first and then work on the head and muscular content (scraping hard bones for calcium).
One of my cats has severe food allergies and requires a raw food diet. So I switched them all to raw food. The results in health have been nothing short of amazing. But raw food is expensive when bought from the store. So I started making it myself. My research led me to all these little factoids.
Now once every six weeks or so I grind up 40 pounds of chicken meat, bones, liver, and eggs with added vitamins and minerals (B, E, Taurine, and iodized salt) and stock my freezer.
f
Cats are dedicated carnivores (obvs). So when they eat in the wild they will typically go for the most nutrient dense parts first. Brains, eyeballs, tongue, and the attendant glands in the head are VERY nutrient dense. Squirrel bones are also soft and easily chewed and digested. So there is rich calcium content in that skull, too. So the fact that your cat went straight for the head of a small rodent is no surprise. To your cat, that’s some good eating.
Had your cat been truly feral it would have saved the lower parts for later. But as a domestic it was expecting you to eat them.
Larger cats will go for the innards (liver, heart, kidneys, stomach contents) of larger prey first and then work on the head and muscular content (scraping hard bones for calcium).
One of my cats has severe food allergies and requires a raw food diet. So I switched them all to raw food. The results in health have been nothing short of amazing. But raw food is expensive when bought from the store. So I started making it myself. My research led me to all these little factoids.
Now once every six weeks or so I grind up 40 pounds of chicken meat, bones, liver, and eggs with added vitamins and minerals (B, E, Taurine, and iodized salt) and stock my freezer.
f
I am a little surprised a squirrel could be dumb enough to get the chomp from a housecat.
I’ve seen a number of squirrels go down by the claws of house cats. They are remarkably fast predators when their instincts kick in.
f
My cat did the same. Lots of headless bird, chipmunk, squirrel, etc. carcasses around my back yard.
Based on the number of things that they will stalk and (probably) kill and eat, the common house cat is the most prolific predator on Earth. No other land predator even comes close. Be thankful they are as small as they are; if they were the size of, say, a leopard, there'd be nothing else around - including us....
Cat's going feral. I had one like that as a kid. It got to where the lady across the street wouldn't come out of her house if my cat was in her field hunting gophers. She thought he was a panther (he was pure black) - 3 feet long nose to tail and over 20 pounds and not chubby. His head was the size of a large grapefruit. Good enough cat, but when he was done being petted move away or get injured.
Um....your cat is......AWESOME!
If he fathers kittens put me down for one. You take Paypal right?
If he fathers kittens put me down for one. You take Paypal right?
I once got courted by a largish Siamese who would leave surgically eviscerated birds mice and other small rodents on the ground at the door of my truck. I would look at those carcasses and be glad that cat wasn’t my size.
Oh I didn't need a "solution" to what isn't a "problem".
I was just wondering if this is a common thing.
His "castle" is our almost 5 acre yard and surrounding areas. But we take good care of him. He lives the good life.
I'm a little late to the party. I'm not sure how common it is, but I had a cat that did the same thing. Well, maybe, I never actually witnessed it. She would bring us little "gifts" all the time. Squirrels, moles, rabbits, birds, etc (Including a $1800 Macaw. Long story.)
But every one of them had the heads ripped off. I never really thought about what she did with the heads of the animals, but, sounds like what your cat is doing.
Oh I didn't need a "solution" to what isn't a "problem".
I was just wondering if this is a common thing.
His "castle" is our almost 5 acre yard and surrounding areas. But we take good care of him. He lives the good life.
Oh, sorry, I thought you didn't want him eating squirrel heads.
Squirrel brain gravy is a tasty delight. Not as popular as it once was, though.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
