PHX is a killer!

Ok guys, I'm feeling pretty bad this morning! So take it easy on me!

Last night I found a baby hummingbird, it was too small to even fly yet. I kept a lookout to see if momma was around, and just figured he fell out of the nest or something. I couldn't see momma, and decided it would be best to bring him inside. My first reaction was to see about getting some food in him. I just had him in a shoebox (since he can't fly). Well, I had to run outside real quick, so I didn't want PHX to get to the bird and I put a laundry basket over the shoe box temporarily. I ran outside, and when I came back in PHX was chewing up the bird....

I feel so aweful. I should have just left the bird in the road where he was! The momma bird would have come back, right!?!?! What was I thinking?

Anyway, since PHX is just an indoor cat.. this was exciting for HIM. He was running around the house like a mad man! He had so much energy! After I took the bird away, he sat at the door meowing all night...

Well, that's my story about how PHX is a killer!

Originally Posted by mybabyphx

Ok guys, I'm feeling pretty bad this morning!

So take it easy on me!

Last night I found a baby hummingbird, it was too small to even fly yet. I kept a lookout to see if momma was around, and just figured he fell out of the nest or something. I couldn't see momma, and decided it would be best to bring him inside. My first reaction was to see about getting some food in him. I just had him in a shoebox (since he can't fly). Well, I had to run outside real quick, so I didn't want PHX to get to the bird and I put a laundry basket over the shoe box temporarily. I ran outside, and when I came back in

PHX was chewing up the bird....

I feel so aweful. I should have just left the bird in the road where he was! The momma bird would have come back, right!?!?! What was I thinking?

Anyway, since PHX is just an indoor cat.. this was exciting for HIM. He was running around the house like a mad man! He had so much energy! After I took the bird away, he sat at the door meowing all night...

Well, that's my story about how PHX is a killer!

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Don't feel bad, I think that PHX probably just thought it was something to play with. I don't think he killed it just to kill it.

don't feel bad. he's a cat. he just did what cats are supposed to do. on the upside, he's an indoor cat and he won't be a danger to the larger bird population.

that what kitties do,

And if the baby birdie wasn't with his mum, he'd probably been abandoned and would have died anyway. At least this way it was a quick death rather than starving outside.

I can imagine how horrible it must have been for you though

It is in his nature - it isn't your fault. If the bird was on the ground, he would have died anyway - the momma would not have come back to it. PHX was just putting the birdie out of his misery! He was trying to HELP!

Don't feel bad! PHX is just being a kitty.

A while back, J and I lived with another couple and their two cats. This couple decided to get a pair of gerbils to act as "kitty TV." The gerbils were supposed to be a same-sex pair, but turned out to be a male and a female, and, not surprisingly, the female got pregnant. The next thing you know, we have a cage full of gerbil babies! Oh, and incidentally ... HabiTrail? Yeah, definitely not for gerbils -- they chew too much and will eventually break out of the cage. You can pretty much guess what happened after that ...

When I found Oz crouched behind the furnace, with half a gerbil dangling from his paws, it really took me back. I mean, I knew intellectually that he was a predator (and a former stray), but it was one thing to "know" something and another thing to really know it. I had a hard time viewing him in the same innocent light after that.

Now, we have our own place, with mercifully few rodent problems. (Our last place also had a mouse/vole problem, which turned into the mice and voles having a "cat problem," if you know what I mean ...) Spike and Oz catch bugs (and eat them) and receive a great deal of praise for it. Spike also recently attacked a squirrel that came into our bathroom (thank god he was there, because I have no clue what I would have done about it!). Basically, I don't stress myself about cats being cats. Although, I will say, it was very strange explaining to my vet why my indoor-only cat had recently "caught" a squirrel ...

Nikita has killed three mice and she's an indoor cat. I've got a slight mouse problem where I live, or well now like Mirinae put so well, the mice have a cat problem here.

It's just cats being cats. Adult cats aren't babies, they're mature very efficient small predators and when confronted with prey they usually do what they've evolved to do for better or worse.

I know how dreadful you must feel. One of my nephew's idiot friends left the door to the outside open once... in our old place... and I woke up, came downstairs, and stepped on a pile of mostly alive but injured/stunned warm furry bodies. A pile... like 10 of them. Most of them, and I don't know if it's better or worse to say...were still alive, but had holes in their heads or various parts of their bodies.. baby bunnies, moles, mice, a chipmunk, a baby bird.. I took the ones that were still alive and put them back outside, hoping that they'd survive. I'd like to think that they did, but.. I doubt it. And she was just so proud of herself for bringing me so many gifts... was trotting back and forth while I took them outside, complaining at her the whole time and she was "mew, mew, mew" and was so upset that I wasn't happy with her..

Originally Posted by sarahp

And if the baby birdie wasn't with his mum, he'd probably been abandoned and would have died anyway. At least this way it was a quick death rather than starving outside.(

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Originally Posted by adymarie

It is in his nature - it isn't your fault. If the bird was on the ground, he would have died anyway - the momma would not have come back to it. PHX was just putting the birdie out of his misery! He was trying to HELP!

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The poor little guy would've died, and it would've taken a lot longer.
As a form of retribution, perhaps you can put up a hummingbird feeder in your yard?