Cannibal cats?

mrbrown69

Might seem a stupid question but are cats known to eat newborns? one of the feral cats out back gave birth to a litter of 4 yesterday, didn't give them much chance of survival because they rarely do especially with the heavy rainfalls...anyway got up this morning fully expecting to find dead kittens, and there was one at the back door...with no head! had been bitten right off with no sign of said missing head, another was dead in the box at the far end of the garden with a leg detached, no sign of any more.....few months ago from a previous litter there was another dead kitten missing a leg...seems very odd, we ruled out rats as there's so many cats knocking about we haven't seen a rat in years

Profiler

Without knowing too much detail my first suspicion would be the culprit is a fox.

mrbrown69

A fox? hmm ,,,have never ever seen one knocking about, but in the early hours it's possible I suppose

SillyMangoX

Male cats are known to kill new born kittens to induce females back into heat. it's horrible but it's natures way

Rommie

Sounds like a tom cat to me, have seen it happen a few times and the culprits are nearly always toms. Though sometimes even magpies and crows can attack and kill kittens if they can get at them.

chris_ie

SillyMangoX wrote: »

Male cats are known to kill new born kittens to induce females back into heat. it's horrible but it's natures way

Yeah happened to us. Our female had a litter when I was younger. They were kept in the house and we kept our males outside at the time. Got home one evening and somehow the male had got into the kitchen, wee bodies lying around the place and blood on the floor Was horrible, I was young at the time. The male cat sitting calmly on top of the fridge. I think one kitten survived and maybe 3 or 4 died. Was just a single bite to the neck.

But we couldn't blame the male cat, as you say it's nature. We were just annoyed he managed to get in.

mrbrown69

Could be any of the above but a quick search of google tells me that mother cats can and will sometimes eat their kittens, and in some cases with cats can be habit forming and will happen time and time again

dodderangler

Believe it or not but most animals in animal kingdom do in fact eat their young
My ferret done it and some dogs will do it chimps do it and lions also so I'd say the mother done it
Usually happens with young mothers with their first litter
Ferrets are probe to it on their first litter and also cats aswell
It could've been a young mother first litter
Also they will do it if they feel that their young is too weak and easy prey to other predators

SingItOut

Yeah I took in a stray cat who did this to her kittens, she ate ones face off, then did the same as yours did. Wasn't a nice scene to see at ten years old she was the only cat i've ever seen do it

Graces7

Brings back memories of Siamese breeding days as this happened with one queen of mine. Yep, head first to be eaten...

ryan84

Can you trap her and get her neutered. They eat them when either they are unable to care for them or they know the kittens won't survive.

Not nice to let the poor cat have litter after litter that she can't support. Too many kittens born each year and not surviving or living in horrible conditions.

Pebbie

Hi mrbrown69, mother Cats are known for doing this, some times it's because she senses there is something wrong with the kittens and she knows they wont survive or it's her first litter and she is scared and inexperienced. I think you should seriously think about having her spayed, there are organisations out there who trap/neuter and release feral Cats, grand she had the one litter but after that, that's when someone should have intervened and got her spayed. Yes male Cats can do that to kittens but it's a lot more rare than what people think, they will also do it when the kittens dont belong to them.

mrbrown69

Hi yeah, this is not this cats 1st litter...she's one of the older cats and has had many a litter, always been an odd cat in that she'll move in on other cats who've had kittens will take over and "adopt" them if you will.....but this eating is a new phenomena, we've had cats in the garden for years never see it before, neutering is an obvious solution if she can be caught

ryan84

Where are you based? there are quite a few cat rescues that do tnr now and will be able to loan you a cat trap. Just need a bit of nice smelling food to get them in.

mrbrown69

D10 .....spaying/neutering these cats is something we've discussed many times but never got round to for one reason or another, there's maybe 7 or so cats knocking about the garden most female so it's something that really needs doing....over the years we've brought quite a few kittens to shelters, those that survive the early difficult stage but like I say most will have disappeared or been found dead.....although they're regularly fed and have shelter they are wild animals not pets so we let nature take it's course and try not interfere in "saving" newborn kittens, but yeah it really should be stopped from source

ryan84

"We can estimate that there are approximately 731,148 free living cats in Ireland. We can also estimate that 180,000 kittens will die in Ireland each year. Many will die a slow and painful death from starvation and illness. "
http://www.anvilireland.ie/cats.html

These animals need you to interfere. We had exactly the same situation. The change in the cats since we had then spayed is really noticeable. We feed them once a day and in return the keep all mice away and other cats too.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Feral-Cats-Ireland/139138139443187
This group will be able to advise you who does TNR there, I don't know myself.

mrbrown69

Yeah thanks will look onto the possibilities.... currently 2 have given birth to kittens with another 2 heavily pregnant....we were told before by a well known Dublin shelter they only spay cats at certain times of the year ie when not in season so that's another factor, but there are now 3 younger cats not much past the 6 month stage that could be done first

ryan84

They can be done in early pregnancy and kittens aborted. Not the nicest thing in the world to do but better than having them eaten by their mother when born. So time of year doesn't matter. If you have neighbour's who feed them too maybe ask if they will contribute to the cost. Good luck with it.

Cork boy 55

I don't know about small cats in Ireland.

But many species of male big cats in Africa engage in Cannibal infanticide especially the lion.
If a male lion takes over a pride of females and there are cubs from another lion it kills them and then EATS them.
Not sure what the eating is about. maybe hiding the evidence
It is very common and a S.O.P. by all accounts.
It nothing to do with food or hunger

video of it here (distressing warning)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgIL8GfCISQ

mrbrown69

Update on this story.... yes it's the same older female cat doing this, caught her almost in the act standing over a headless kitten today, had checked on it half hour beforehand and it was on it's last breath.......got in touch with the ****A about taking this cat away because it's not a pleasant thing to see, apparently they where of the opinion the cat was doing the right thing in disposing of the dead and dying kittens in this way while nursing the healthy ones, it's their way of keeping predators at bay


the vet there said also said at this time it will be the end of September before they can start spaying cats, and some feral cats can't be done so need putting down which I don't quite understand, what's the point in there TNR policy in this case

The Sweeper

I don't know for sure but would assume that all ferals have an AIDS test before spaying - if they have feline AIDS they'd be PTS instead of neutered and released to spread it around.

dodderangler

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

I don't know about small cats in Ireland.

But many species of male big cats in Africa engage in Cannibal infanticide especially the lion.
If a male lion takes over a pride of females and there are cubs from another lion it kills them and then EATS them.
Not sure what the eating is about. maybe hiding the evidence
It is very common and a S.O.P. by all accounts.
It nothing to do with food or hunger

video of it here (distressing warning)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgIL8GfCISQ

The eating is a way of showing the dominance by eating the cubs of the lion he just dominated
He also is proven that the old lions cubs were too weak and that his will be stronger he is then seen more appealing by the other females and almost starts Mating again straight away
It's a rough world but that's the wild and as humans must leave it so
The strong prey on the weak And that's the balance of life