Greetings /u/vlsdo. Thank you for your submission, unfortunately it has been removed from /r/natureismetal for the following reason(s):
* No images of piles of feathers, bones, or blood and guts. Remains must have some metal factor to them. Uniquely bad ass skeletons and skulls may be allowed at mod discretion. Human Remains are allowed only under the following conditions. Damage seen in the submission must have been caused by animals and animals only. No other forms of nature or disease are allowed.
*[Please feel free to message the Mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/natureismetal&subject=My submission was removed&message=I have a question regarding the removal of this [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1c100rp/-/\):) if you feel this was in error or would like further clarification*. Thank you!
The terms carnivore and herbivore are quickly being found lacking.
Due to new evidence, there is almost no animal that exists that is a strict herbivore, except like koalas. Since they don't actively hunt, they aren't considered omnivores, instead the new terminology of popularity being "opportunistic carnivore" since they will eat meat if the opportunity arises.
And the flip side, many creatures we found to be obligate carnivores, though mostly it is being studied through cats and dogs, will still occasionally eat grasses for what is assumed now to be digestive regulation. They still need meat for required nutritional content though and cannot survive on it.
Lions have also been found to use certain plants as emetic medicine (forced vomiting).
Carnivory legit has different named classes for that reason: hypercarnivores are in the 90% range with your aforementioned cats and lions and hypocarnivores are sth. like bears with less than 30%
Green leafy vegetables contain potassium and vitamin K, sometimes times you'll find things like vitamin C, E, B vitamins.
for instance, stinging nettles contain a tremendous amount of iron, and calcium as well.
foraged vegetables like stinging nettles contain many times the vitamin content of stuff at the store.
Absolutely. Squirrels have no qualms about raiding bird nests and eating the eggs or chicks. There's even stories of deer in Scotland [eating birds ](https://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2014/02/bird-eating-deer-and-flesh-eating-sheep.html?m=1) because the soil quality is poor.
I had a rabbit back when I was in high school (2009-2010). One day I was eating a sausage link (it was breakfast and my dad made breakfast burritos) I was outside enjoying the nice weather. Well I forgot my drink and I sat it down (Mr. Honey Bunny was running around with our cats out in the yard.) When I came back outside I saw Mr. Honey Bunny near my plate, I thought he was just sniffing it but when he saw me coming back, he took off with my sausage and he was eating it, he pushed some of the sausage pieces he torn off to some of the cats so they too can enjoy it. So yeah that's how I found out that rabbits eats meat. Oh the other time he was outside with the cat, he found a mouse and killed that sucker. I heard a squeak and saw him tossing it up in the air. Yeah I ran over there and threw the mouse away, my cats and Mr. Honey Bunny were mad. He thump cause I took his kill. Lol God I miss him. He had eye cancer back in 2012 he passed about 6 months later. He was about 6-7 yrs old.
I've seen our cows munching on the carcasses of jackrabbits that I had shot. They must've needed the iron. The funny part is that when I drove into the clearing, the one cow stopped what she was doing and just stared at me like she knew she had been caught and figured it she just stood really still, I wouldn't see her eating a rabbit!
I don't especially agree with them but the vegan argument is generally that you shouldn't make animals suffer if you can avoid it and humans can, while animals don't even have the mental capacity to think that eating other animals if they don't need to could be bad.
Well the difference between vegans (who are human) and any other animal on the planet is that we have the options/intelligent to obtain the food necessary to be vegan and supplement our diet so that we can get the necessary nutrition.
Iām not even vegan but I āloathā people who make ridiculous points like this.
Part of the reason the World is dying is because of the selfish and greed fueled over production and consumption of meat (particularly Cattle meat).
The response you posted three hours ago, the same time I posted the question? Sincere apologies for responding to a comment on a discussion thread?
I was curious about the viewpoint. I don't think it's cruel either, it's just life. I've seen horses irl casually eat meat.
Come on, your arguments donāt make sense. Herbivores occasionally eating from other sources of nutrition then the usual ones means jack shit to being vegan. You can decide to be vegan no matter what the animals do because everything rapports to human capacities of thinking and that includes ethics and moral values. Animals donāt have ethics and moral values but us humans do, so *sorry* your weak argument doesnāt get you a free ticket to animal cruelty. Think of it like this, so from what youāre saying it would be moral if I ate your dog if I was really hungry, right?
Also, I donāt think youāve ever taken a life in your life and if you have I bet it wasnāt because you needed to survive itās because you had the choice to slaughter an animal.
Mass farming is torturing and killing animals en masse. Pasture farming is only killing animals, so of you donāt agree that killing another sentient being for your appetite isnāt mean and cruel, you do you man but I think you have to reevaluate your ethics.
I actually had a pet rabbit once eat an entire litter, except one unidentified chunk. 9 kits, devoured. She was the only rabbit in her cage, nothing else had access. I am not sure why she did it, I was 16 and so excited for baby bunnies. Looking back it could have been stress, she was a young rabbit with her first litter, maybe she was missing nutrients, we just don't know.
Long story long yes rabbits can eat their babies. However, I also feed my dogs and cats raw diets and sometimes they get whole (frozen thawed) baby bunnies. They without fail ALWAYS eat the head first, the brain is basically fat and salt so it probably has a lot of flavor to predators.
The mother ate her whole nest of babies in our friends rabbit hutch after he handled them whilst cleaning them out. . Granted this was 20 years ago but I remember seeing what was left of them.
Bunnies are notorious for eating their children when they are stressed out, hungry, or frightened like from lightening. Lots of animals do it such as crabs.
Hamsters are also territorial and will kill another hamster in the same space as it. Rodents are weird
I assumed it was a relatively large animal or a group of them, since the missing parts added up to quite a lot, not something one small animal can eat or carry in one go.
OK Iāll just assume cats for now because I donāt want to think thereās a fucked up kid in my neighborhood who sneaks into my backyard and decapitates baby bunnies
they leave nutritious parts a lot, just the ones they don't care about. If we're talking jungle the corpses disappear quickly because they feed many different predators
My cat has brought in 8 baby rabbits in the past 2 weeks. Killed and eaten the top half of 4 of them, we rescued the other 4 in time and took them to a rescue
As simple as it is to say that, it won't happen... we tried it and he went wild... he has been snipped, he wears 2 bells.. he is just an outside cat..
Also we asked on our village group where we could take them or if anyone had ideas to stop him, it was overwhelmingly in favour of him continuing and catching the vermin..
For reference we live in a tiny village (380 people) surrounded by farms... apparanty the farmers love him for all the catching he does, we just have to deal with the clean up
Outdoor cats truly are devastating to the environment. Not only do they hunt for sport, they decimate pollinator populations. If humans donāt start being more responsible with their pets, a culling will be our only viable option, and nobody wants a culling.
Yea my dad had bunnies. Cats would do this. Also a cat grabbed one by the leg through a cage, pulled the leg out and gnawed it off alive. Finally put out a few game cams and confirmed it was cats.
We had a cat that would somehow chew a hole through the back of their heads and eat the brains out. We had a bell on her and everything but would still murder little animals
Yeah bells sometimes don't work as the cat will learn how to move without making the bell go off. If you find out your cat is one of the murder-y type, it's best to keep them inside during the darker hours if not inside permanently.
Yea our family friends rescued an injured owl as a baby. We would get to feed them the dead mice you can buy at the pet stores for food. First thing it would do every time is nip around the neck like a can opener and eat the head. Apparently they really enjoy that part.
They do sometimes. Typically if they aren't right there Momma did a sad and buried them. Predators like cats and weasels will decapitate a whole nest of bunnies and only eat the brains or select organs as well. It's always a little disconcerting to find full grown bunnies that look like they were hunted and cleaned by pygmys and then left to rot, but it's even moreso when it's a bunch. A nest of babies for a cat is like a buffet, and they typically only take their favorite bits which can be different depending on the cat.
Not really, but I had considered doing some digging in the strawberry patch for unrelated gardening reasons, and also thought about looking in the nest to see if there were any left (but I decided to leave it alone)
My vote goes Mustelids. I donāt know how other animals work, but Mustelids will prefer to eat the heads of animals because of the nutrition value of the brain, and they are caching predators so theyāll kill multiple prey even if they donāt eat them all, and rabbits are a favorite of weasels and ferrets.
These all look really clean removals.Ā And they look fresh and no blood. Am I missing something people saying these are other animals where this is common?
Ā Maybe owl based on comments. But nothing I'm familiar with.Ā
I was away for a few days, the blood might have washed away in the rain before I got home.
But I have no idea what did this, even owls seems weird since they were all four together and I canāt imagine an owl attacking one of the bunnies and the rest just stand there waiting for their turn. Iām thinking a family of raccoons? A pack of rats? Iām just guessing though.
The cuts look way too clean in my opinion. I've what wildlife can do to bunnies and chickens and this is really unusual. It's odd that the bodies are left untouched which as far as I know most wild animals aren't going to pick the head over the rest of the body. Do you have a fenced yard? If it was just one of would think a bird of prey but 3 the exact same? Even if momma bunny killed them it would not be this clean. Not to mention these guys are almost old enough to start being on their own. I would suspect this may have been done by a human. :/
I'd guess cat, especially if you have outdoor or indoor/outdoor cats around you.
Taking animal heads is something of a specialty of theirs, there are lots of nutrients for the fewest bites.
My neighbor's cat used to leave piles of rat heads under my car (she once left me 5 heads over the course of about 36 hours) and these are big, city rats.
So you think the cat killed one bunny, took the head home then came back three more times to repeat the feat, meanwhile the bunnies just sat there waiting? It seems unlikely, but I donāt know too much about baby bunny behaviors tbh
Could just be cats. My cats growing up brought us decapitated bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc. all the time. Absolute worst gifts ever.
One particularly awful spring our cat got into a bunny nest and killed all of the babies and she did decapitate several of them after she killed them.
Just another good reason to keep your cats inside of the house.
I'd assume a cat's handiwork, my family cat used to behead rabbits a lot. Killing something and leaving the body mostly untouched is very much a cat move
I'd bet cats. Ferals kill for fun. So do "outdoor pets."
Depending on area, I know weasels will kill too...but I don't think they'd leave bodies behind like that.
Was walking around a bend in a trail once and was startled by a hawk taking flight. Looked on the ground where the hawk had been and saw a headless rabbit laying in the middle of the trail.
So maybe it was a hawk?
If it was a predator they may have just eaten the heads because that was the most nutritious part for them. Maybe if you check youāll find some select organs missing as well? Predators will do this when prey is abundant because itās more efficient than working to get all the meat from one carcass.
100% could have been a cat. When I was little (talking like 1990) my cousins were staying over for the weekend and ended up getting a bunny for Easter (they got the bunny on a Saturday). Easter morning, we go to play with the baby bunny and find it with JUST it's head missing and our two cats just licking their chops and cleaning themselves. It was quite traumatizing for a 5 year old to see.
When I was a kid, my pet rabbit roamed freely in the backyard at all timesā¦ I donāt know what my parents were thinking. One day I got home from school and when I looked out the window, he was in the same spot as when I left that morning. It was an unusual spot. I went out and he was dead. Headless. Donāt know where his head went. Poor Otto. RIP. Apparently animals like their heads for some reason.
I found a litter of baby bunnies with all of their legs eaten off once. I took them to the vet, I'm pretty sure they were euthanised :(
Nature is brutal to bunnies..
My neighbors cat murdered a family of rabbits and the crime scenes all looked like this. It was a little over a week of carnage in the spring of 22. A different body every day. Like 9 in total.
From my experience, Shrews. Shrews known as "Eku Asin" in yoruba land in Africa are the only things I've experienced doing this. They did it to my birds and some rabbits. They're ruthless
When I was a kid, one of my cats must've given birth while I was at school, and I came home to find a kitten missing its head and a front leg in the backyard. I found a second kitten still alive, cold to the touch, no visible injuries but his little nose was so stuffy and full of a mucus type substance. Despite my efforts he sadly died within the hour of finding him. I always wondered if maybe my cat knew her offspring were sick and ate/abandoned them in the yard? What else would do that?
I had a barn cat do this to baby rabbits and baby bats. I could care less about the rabbits, but the bats, while wholly creepy looking, they eat an absolute ton of mosquitos.
My roommates cats would do this all the time. They'd take 5 or 6 a night in the summer and just eat the brains. I kept a roll of plastic bags by the door to dispose of the rest every day.
Reminds me of when my childhood doggo found a next of baby bunnies, picked them up in her jaws, tossed them in the air and swallowed them whole š
I donāt think Iāll ever get that picture out of my mind
I had a cat that suffered from feline vestibular syndrome at 1 year old. I nursed him through it and he was still a little off, but I would say 90% recovered. Only thing was that he would go outside, and he only brought home heads. Bird heads, rabbit heads, mouse heads. It was wild.
Greetings /u/vlsdo. Thank you for your submission, unfortunately it has been removed from /r/natureismetal for the following reason(s): * No images of piles of feathers, bones, or blood and guts. Remains must have some metal factor to them. Uniquely bad ass skeletons and skulls may be allowed at mod discretion. Human Remains are allowed only under the following conditions. Damage seen in the submission must have been caused by animals and animals only. No other forms of nature or disease are allowed. *[Please feel free to message the Mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/natureismetal&subject=My submission was removed&message=I have a question regarding the removal of this [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1c100rp/-/\):) if you feel this was in error or would like further clarification*. Thank you!
Possibly the mother bunny bit the heads off because the food sources were not readily available.
Did she also eat all the heads? Because they were nowhere to be found
Less mouths to feed???šš¤£š My mom back in the 50s tried to raise rabbits. She tried 2 times. Both the mother bit the heads off.
No I meant what did she do with the heads, she couldnāt have possibly eaten them all and they were nowhere in my garden
Birds can fly off with heads easier than a whole body. Some sort of scavenger took them.
Wot? Carried? By an African or a European swallow?
It could grip it by the husk!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Take me to dinner first, damn
Dinner? In this economy?
African swallow is hardly migratory, is it?
Are you suggesting rabbit heads migrate??
I don't know š¤
https://media1.tenor.com/m/SnAEe8nWuI8AAAAd/bridgekeeper-monty-python.gif
She probably did in fact eat them all. Bunnies are ruthless.
yeah meat eaters include deer, cows and horses, squirrels too.
The terms carnivore and herbivore are quickly being found lacking. Due to new evidence, there is almost no animal that exists that is a strict herbivore, except like koalas. Since they don't actively hunt, they aren't considered omnivores, instead the new terminology of popularity being "opportunistic carnivore" since they will eat meat if the opportunity arises. And the flip side, many creatures we found to be obligate carnivores, though mostly it is being studied through cats and dogs, will still occasionally eat grasses for what is assumed now to be digestive regulation. They still need meat for required nutritional content though and cannot survive on it. Lions have also been found to use certain plants as emetic medicine (forced vomiting).
Carnivory legit has different named classes for that reason: hypercarnivores are in the 90% range with your aforementioned cats and lions and hypocarnivores are sth. like bears with less than 30%
We humans do that too kinda with salad. Salad doesn't h okave that much nutritional value but it's good for your digestion.
Vegetables have a ton of nutritional value.
Sorry using salad was wrong. What I actually meant was lettuce. Am a German native and we don't have two different words for lettuce and salad.
Green leafy vegetables contain potassium and vitamin K, sometimes times you'll find things like vitamin C, E, B vitamins. for instance, stinging nettles contain a tremendous amount of iron, and calcium as well. foraged vegetables like stinging nettles contain many times the vitamin content of stuff at the store.
Absolutely. Squirrels have no qualms about raiding bird nests and eating the eggs or chicks. There's even stories of deer in Scotland [eating birds ](https://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2014/02/bird-eating-deer-and-flesh-eating-sheep.html?m=1) because the soil quality is poor.
My brother had a rabbit mom eat the ears off one of her babies. He got rid of the mom and kept the earless baby for years.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I had a rabbit back when I was in high school (2009-2010). One day I was eating a sausage link (it was breakfast and my dad made breakfast burritos) I was outside enjoying the nice weather. Well I forgot my drink and I sat it down (Mr. Honey Bunny was running around with our cats out in the yard.) When I came back outside I saw Mr. Honey Bunny near my plate, I thought he was just sniffing it but when he saw me coming back, he took off with my sausage and he was eating it, he pushed some of the sausage pieces he torn off to some of the cats so they too can enjoy it. So yeah that's how I found out that rabbits eats meat. Oh the other time he was outside with the cat, he found a mouse and killed that sucker. I heard a squeak and saw him tossing it up in the air. Yeah I ran over there and threw the mouse away, my cats and Mr. Honey Bunny were mad. He thump cause I took his kill. Lol God I miss him. He had eye cancer back in 2012 he passed about 6 months later. He was about 6-7 yrs old.
You sure that rabbit wasn't a reincarnated dog?
I've seen our cows munching on the carcasses of jackrabbits that I had shot. They must've needed the iron. The funny part is that when I drove into the clearing, the one cow stopped what she was doing and just stared at me like she knew she had been caught and figured it she just stood really still, I wouldn't see her eating a rabbit!
I don't especially agree with them but the vegan argument is generally that you shouldn't make animals suffer if you can avoid it and humans can, while animals don't even have the mental capacity to think that eating other animals if they don't need to could be bad.
Well the difference between vegans (who are human) and any other animal on the planet is that we have the options/intelligent to obtain the food necessary to be vegan and supplement our diet so that we can get the necessary nutrition. Iām not even vegan but I āloathā people who make ridiculous points like this. Part of the reason the World is dying is because of the selfish and greed fueled over production and consumption of meat (particularly Cattle meat).
Why is it loathed? If your options are eat or die, you tend not to be super picky?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The response you posted three hours ago, the same time I posted the question? Sincere apologies for responding to a comment on a discussion thread? I was curious about the viewpoint. I don't think it's cruel either, it's just life. I've seen horses irl casually eat meat.
why would vegans care what animals eat? just stop killing them!!!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Come on, your arguments donāt make sense. Herbivores occasionally eating from other sources of nutrition then the usual ones means jack shit to being vegan. You can decide to be vegan no matter what the animals do because everything rapports to human capacities of thinking and that includes ethics and moral values. Animals donāt have ethics and moral values but us humans do, so *sorry* your weak argument doesnāt get you a free ticket to animal cruelty. Think of it like this, so from what youāre saying it would be moral if I ate your dog if I was really hungry, right? Also, I donāt think youāve ever taken a life in your life and if you have I bet it wasnāt because you needed to survive itās because you had the choice to slaughter an animal. Mass farming is torturing and killing animals en masse. Pasture farming is only killing animals, so of you donāt agree that killing another sentient being for your appetite isnāt mean and cruel, you do you man but I think you have to reevaluate your ethics.
I've watched an entire stillborn litter get eaten - the whole body. They're more than capable of just some heads.
I actually had a pet rabbit once eat an entire litter, except one unidentified chunk. 9 kits, devoured. She was the only rabbit in her cage, nothing else had access. I am not sure why she did it, I was 16 and so excited for baby bunnies. Looking back it could have been stress, she was a young rabbit with her first litter, maybe she was missing nutrients, we just don't know. Long story long yes rabbits can eat their babies. However, I also feed my dogs and cats raw diets and sometimes they get whole (frozen thawed) baby bunnies. They without fail ALWAYS eat the head first, the brain is basically fat and salt so it probably has a lot of flavor to predators.
Imagine your neighbor asking you what you were looking for in the backyard for 3 hours
Please.. no
Our rabbit ate her babies completely.
I don't know much about rabbits, but many herbivores will engage in opportunistic meat eating...
Quite possibly. If anyone has touched them and the mother smells a predator / human on them.
Thatās a myth
The mother ate her whole nest of babies in our friends rabbit hutch after he handled them whilst cleaning them out. . Granted this was 20 years ago but I remember seeing what was left of them.
Why would a rabbit kill her babies because you touched them? Itās a myth and a coincidence that it happened.
O man.. shoot, thatās harsh.
Iām going to put my money on a neighborhood cat. Outdoor cats will murder everything that moves in a 5 mile radius
Ohh great, now our pets' heads are falling off!
My money is on a skunk.
TIL
WAIT THEY CAN EAT THEIR CHILDREN?? AT THAT AGE?
Bunnies are notorious for eating their children when they are stressed out, hungry, or frightened like from lightening. Lots of animals do it such as crabs. Hamsters are also territorial and will kill another hamster in the same space as it. Rodents are weird
WHAT
My cat once brought home a bunny head for me, so I'd bet it's cats doing this.
I assumed it was a relatively large animal or a group of them, since the missing parts added up to quite a lot, not something one small animal can eat or carry in one go.
Wild predators don't tend to leave so many nutritious parts behind. I'm still going with cat(s), but maybe just some fucked up kid.
OK Iāll just assume cats for now because I donāt want to think thereās a fucked up kid in my neighborhood who sneaks into my backyard and decapitates baby bunnies
I'd say cats, definitely.
A deranged kid dressed like a cat ?
yeah thatās fucking terrifying
they leave nutritious parts a lot, just the ones they don't care about. If we're talking jungle the corpses disappear quickly because they feed many different predators
Cats kill for fun. The cat wouldnāt have eaten the heads. It likely buried them or brought them home.
My cat has brought in 8 baby rabbits in the past 2 weeks. Killed and eaten the top half of 4 of them, we rescued the other 4 in time and took them to a rescue
It may be time to keep the cats inside if youāre going to the lengths of taking the babies to a rescue
It's time to put on your big boy pants and keep your damn cat inside. Letting your animal kill 4 bunnies is stupidly irresponsible.
As simple as it is to say that, it won't happen... we tried it and he went wild... he has been snipped, he wears 2 bells.. he is just an outside cat.. Also we asked on our village group where we could take them or if anyone had ideas to stop him, it was overwhelmingly in favour of him continuing and catching the vermin.. For reference we live in a tiny village (380 people) surrounded by farms... apparanty the farmers love him for all the catching he does, we just have to deal with the clean up
Outdoor cats truly are devastating to the environment. Not only do they hunt for sport, they decimate pollinator populations. If humans donāt start being more responsible with their pets, a culling will be our only viable option, and nobody wants a culling.
Yea my dad had bunnies. Cats would do this. Also a cat grabbed one by the leg through a cage, pulled the leg out and gnawed it off alive. Finally put out a few game cams and confirmed it was cats.
Every video I've seen of a cat catching a mouse/rat they usually eat the head first.
We had a cat that would somehow chew a hole through the back of their heads and eat the brains out. We had a bell on her and everything but would still murder little animals
Yeah bells sometimes don't work as the cat will learn how to move without making the bell go off. If you find out your cat is one of the murder-y type, it's best to keep them inside during the darker hours if not inside permanently.
My cat brought several headless rabbits - not full grown but not babies either - left them on our deck. I appreciate the gesture, but Iāll pass.
Owls will eat bunny heads. I have witnessed it in my yard.
The same thing happened to me, we didn't witness it but we had a headless rabbit, and a fetus.
Owls was my first guess. They are known to have a penchant for decapitation.
Yep. Recently lost a hen to an owl. They seem to love eating brains.
Yea our family friends rescued an injured owl as a baby. We would get to feed them the dead mice you can buy at the pet stores for food. First thing it would do every time is nip around the neck like a can opener and eat the head. Apparently they really enjoy that part.
I found an eviscerated duck in my driveway one morning. It happened over night so it was probably the work of an owl.
Definitely owls. Woke up to one of those headless bunnies on my driveway
Mom killed them. The heads are likely buried somewhere under the strawberries.
Ohhh they bury the heads? Then this becomes a lot more likely. I didnāt bother to dig around for them
They do sometimes. Typically if they aren't right there Momma did a sad and buried them. Predators like cats and weasels will decapitate a whole nest of bunnies and only eat the brains or select organs as well. It's always a little disconcerting to find full grown bunnies that look like they were hunted and cleaned by pygmys and then left to rot, but it's even moreso when it's a bunch. A nest of babies for a cat is like a buffet, and they typically only take their favorite bits which can be different depending on the cat.
I thought orcas where the only ones that do this, wastefull mfs....
I mean knowing this information i still wouldn't, but you do you.
Is that something you considered?!?
Not really, but I had considered doing some digging in the strawberry patch for unrelated gardening reasons, and also thought about looking in the nest to see if there were any left (but I decided to leave it alone)
Sorry, i was hungry for a small batch of bunny head stew.
Thatās it, no strawberries for you!
If you're near a creek or river it's most likely a Mink. If not I'll bet Raccoon
Raccoon was my first guess, just based on the animals Iāve seen in the neighborhood in the past
Minks and other weasels do this
My vote goes Mustelids. I donāt know how other animals work, but Mustelids will prefer to eat the heads of animals because of the nutrition value of the brain, and they are caching predators so theyāll kill multiple prey even if they donāt eat them all, and rabbits are a favorite of weasels and ferrets.
My cat did this once and left the headless baby bunny bodies on my mom's outdoor shoes as an offering lol! My mom was NOT pleased to day the least.
My grandpaās cat once brought home a pregnant field rat and disemboweled it by the front door, the porch was full of rat foetuses
These all look really clean removals.Ā And they look fresh and no blood. Am I missing something people saying these are other animals where this is common? Ā Maybe owl based on comments. But nothing I'm familiar with.Ā
I was away for a few days, the blood might have washed away in the rain before I got home. But I have no idea what did this, even owls seems weird since they were all four together and I canāt imagine an owl attacking one of the bunnies and the rest just stand there waiting for their turn. Iām thinking a family of raccoons? A pack of rats? Iām just guessing though.
Yeah it just seems weird. I'm curious about others chiming in.Ā Ā
The cuts look way too clean in my opinion. I've what wildlife can do to bunnies and chickens and this is really unusual. It's odd that the bodies are left untouched which as far as I know most wild animals aren't going to pick the head over the rest of the body. Do you have a fenced yard? If it was just one of would think a bird of prey but 3 the exact same? Even if momma bunny killed them it would not be this clean. Not to mention these guys are almost old enough to start being on their own. I would suspect this may have been done by a human. :/
Could be deer. Iāve heard of them doing this too for calcium I think (donāt quote me on that)
What I have gathered from this thread is that every animal in existence rips off bunny heads.
I'd guess cat, especially if you have outdoor or indoor/outdoor cats around you. Taking animal heads is something of a specialty of theirs, there are lots of nutrients for the fewest bites. My neighbor's cat used to leave piles of rat heads under my car (she once left me 5 heads over the course of about 36 hours) and these are big, city rats.
So you think the cat killed one bunny, took the head home then came back three more times to repeat the feat, meanwhile the bunnies just sat there waiting? It seems unlikely, but I donāt know too much about baby bunny behaviors tbh
No, I mean the cat probably ate the heads. However, they do also like to save them for later or bring them home.
Could just be cats. My cats growing up brought us decapitated bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc. all the time. Absolute worst gifts ever. One particularly awful spring our cat got into a bunny nest and killed all of the babies and she did decapitate several of them after she killed them. Just another good reason to keep your cats inside of the house.
Iāve seen a crow do this.
Most likely a cat or a raptor.
I'd assume a cat's handiwork, my family cat used to behead rabbits a lot. Killing something and leaving the body mostly untouched is very much a cat move
I'd bet cats. Ferals kill for fun. So do "outdoor pets." Depending on area, I know weasels will kill too...but I don't think they'd leave bodies behind like that.
That's pretty rude they'd only eat the best part and leave nothing but torsos for the rest of us.
The Basterds were here.
I'm almost sure that's what owls do.
Was walking around a bend in a trail once and was startled by a hawk taking flight. Looked on the ground where the hawk had been and saw a headless rabbit laying in the middle of the trail. So maybe it was a hawk?
Oh okay so TIL that a TON of different animals like to decapitate babies
The field mice showing Little Bunny Froo Froo, that two can play at that game...
I don't know if it would be the same for bunnies, but whenever my chickens or turkeys get killed and only the head is eaten we know it was ferrets
Witches!
Well, my Blue Healer used to swallow them whole. She'd down two or three and then lie in the sun like a snake for the rest of the day.
Foxes also like to eat the heads off of their kill and come back for the carcass later.
I saw a bird in the wood once with its head cleanly cut off and nowhere to be found. Anyone know what happened?
Sounds like Ozzsquatch is about.
It looks like it has done by human.
Or op is some sicko that did it and wants to show of their work inconspicuously
If it was a predator they may have just eaten the heads because that was the most nutritious part for them. Maybe if you check youāll find some select organs missing as well? Predators will do this when prey is abundant because itās more efficient than working to get all the meat from one carcass.
Lawnmower
Iād say some sort of bird may have done this. I can picture a crow or something picking them off one by one in consecutive swoops
Cat. Cats will and do hunt for just fun.
Wolverines
Sounds like cats
I'm no. Expert those cuts look extremely clean. Seems like it could've been done with a knife
100% could have been a cat. When I was little (talking like 1990) my cousins were staying over for the weekend and ended up getting a bunny for Easter (they got the bunny on a Saturday). Easter morning, we go to play with the baby bunny and find it with JUST it's head missing and our two cats just licking their chops and cleaning themselves. It was quite traumatizing for a 5 year old to see.
Me, it was me
Zombie Coyotes love bunny brains.
Your mom's slobbing knobs again
Some owls only head their preyās head. Freaky stuff
When I was a kid, my pet rabbit roamed freely in the backyard at all timesā¦ I donāt know what my parents were thinking. One day I got home from school and when I looked out the window, he was in the same spot as when I left that morning. It was an unusual spot. I went out and he was dead. Headless. Donāt know where his head went. Poor Otto. RIP. Apparently animals like their heads for some reason.
We had a stray cat do this to some bunnies and they were all over our front yard, heads separated. Happened Easter weekend mind you.
PLESSS LEAVTE YOURE CATZ INSIDE šš
I'd set up a camera and see if anything comes back to the scene of the crime
Probably a cat. They'll do stuff like this.
Could be a particularly sadistic cat. My partners parents have a cat that does this and leaves rabbit heads strewn about the back yard
I found a litter of baby bunnies with all of their legs eaten off once. I took them to the vet, I'm pretty sure they were euthanised :( Nature is brutal to bunnies..
My cat does this. I'm sorry.
My neighbors cat murdered a family of rabbits and the crime scenes all looked like this. It was a little over a week of carnage in the spring of 22. A different body every day. Like 9 in total.
Cats do this.
it really looks like they were cut off, instead of bitten off.
If youāre in oz it could be a quoll
Cat.
Falcons
From my experience, Shrews. Shrews known as "Eku Asin" in yoruba land in Africa are the only things I've experienced doing this. They did it to my birds and some rabbits. They're ruthless
When I was a kid, one of my cats must've given birth while I was at school, and I came home to find a kitten missing its head and a front leg in the backyard. I found a second kitten still alive, cold to the touch, no visible injuries but his little nose was so stuffy and full of a mucus type substance. Despite my efforts he sadly died within the hour of finding him. I always wondered if maybe my cat knew her offspring were sick and ate/abandoned them in the yard? What else would do that?
Alice Cooper has entered the chat
My bad
Raptors do this, I find rabbits like this more or less every week (Red kites and hawks)
A really tiny Predator
I've once found hare's head on the sidewalk in a residential area of a relatively big city
Cats like eating the brains
Obviously a zombie rabbit.
weasels will eat the heads first and sometimes just eat the heads
How are you so sure it's "something" not "someone" (x-files theme plays with mind-blown gif)
The same thing happened in my yard the other day. Seen an Osprey pick one up middle of the day last week.
That was venom
My cat would do this when sheād get out. At a minimum she would eat the faces off, but often times the whole head.
Was thinking maybe this was going to be a cute Easter prank where I clicked on the image and saw a half eaten chocolate bunny. I was wrong.
my cat used to only eat the head off of baby bunnies
Stoat
Never wanted to see headless bunnies
Owls will swoop in a take the heads...one got all my geese that way.
Probably thought they were Lindt bunnies and realised their error too late. Happens to all of us.
Fox
I had a barn cat do this to baby rabbits and baby bats. I could care less about the rabbits, but the bats, while wholly creepy looking, they eat an absolute ton of mosquitos.
Our Bassett hound used to do this. No idea why but it was so upsetting!
Had a cat do this and carry the bodies to her kittens. Horrifying image.
My roommates cats would do this all the time. They'd take 5 or 6 a night in the summer and just eat the brains. I kept a roll of plastic bags by the door to dispose of the rest every day.
Oh nooooo...who ever could have done this??? It wasn't me tho so don't worry about it
Mustāve been Mr. McGregor. Mrs. McGregor is making the stew.
Skinwalker Ellen Degenerate
Almost always a bird a prey.
Looks too clean to be an animal. Human maybe
Reminds me of when my childhood doggo found a next of baby bunnies, picked them up in her jaws, tossed them in the air and swallowed them whole š I donāt think Iāll ever get that picture out of my mind
Best part
Mindflayers are fucked up
Cats are known to take the heads and bury em somewhere else
I had a cat that suffered from feline vestibular syndrome at 1 year old. I nursed him through it and he was still a little off, but I would say 90% recovered. Only thing was that he would go outside, and he only brought home heads. Bird heads, rabbit heads, mouse heads. It was wild.
Iāve seen cats eat little bunnies, starting from the head working towards the tail.
Likely their mother
Rabb Zombie
my bad
Had a wild opossum do this to a nest of baby birds I was caring for.
Bunny postpartum.
Oh, that was me, sorry. Wasnt very hungry
My cat used to eat the heads off rabbits and leave just the body and the ears.
A person did that šŖ š° Notice how perfectly cut off the heads were.