Darn thing ate our favorite chicken 🐯🐱 UNKNOWN FELINE 🐱🐯

Spotted them here coming back for more right in the middle of the day.

3.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

199

Bobcat. Chicken is their favorite food.

18

u/500SL Sep 23 '24

Is it, though?

85

u/Lojackbel81 Sep 23 '24

Bob likes easy meals so yes

34

u/500SL Sep 23 '24

Well, I’m not denying their attraction, but I do wonder how much their habitat normally overlaps with domesticated chickens.

I like Taco Bell myself, but I’ve got to travel a good ways to find one.

41

u/CormoranNeoTropical Sep 23 '24

All the time, since people started bringing chickens into their habitat several hundred years ago.

12

u/Nutarama Sep 24 '24

Chickens also tend to be curious and free ranging if they can. One of my brother’s flock when he had them was a fine chicken except she knew so many ways out that you couldn’t keep her in. Eventually we had to give up and just accept one chicken living in the forest.

The rest would leave if they could, but mostly because they liked going into the forest for earthworms and grubs and tubers more than pellet feed. They also liked hanging out in trees, it’s funny to see them all jump up branch to branch and turn a big pine tree into something like a Christmas tree where the ornaments are chickens.

Anyone keeping chickens will inevitably just have some that don’t come back from getting out or being free ranged. The outside is dangerous for chickens. That cause might be bobcat, might be coyotes, might be dogs, might be hawks, might even be your neighbor. Usually not domestic cats, but that’s typically because a chicken can fight a domestic cat and mess the cat up. Cats will go for chicks and juveniles though, along with sleeping chickens.

1

u/CormoranNeoTropical Sep 24 '24

I love this story!

2

u/Nutarama Sep 24 '24

I was actually surprised how much they liked the trees and the forest environment here in North America.

1

u/CormoranNeoTropical Sep 25 '24

They are descended from jungle fowl, I guess.

(Probably not relevant.)

20

u/OneLessDay517 Sep 23 '24

Considering bobcats tend to avoid highly populated areas, and most people who keep chickens do as well, I'd say they are likely to bump into one another.

4

u/aciddandy Sep 24 '24

I imagine they were fond of prairie chickens and other once-common grouses

2

u/2HiSped4u Sep 27 '24

Well bobcats also hunt wild birds, and opportunistically any other animals from rodents to house cats (source: I used to care for bobcats at a wildlife education center, specifically in preparing their meat diets).

You like taco bell and may have to drive far for it, but you most certainly eat some combination of meat, cheese, vegetables, and starch on the daily.

Also, with encroaching housing developments like here in Appalachia, popularization of rearing foul, and the historic natural range of bobcats, I’d venture to say that most all bobcats share territory with chickens.

1

u/500SL Sep 27 '24

but you most certainly eat some combination of meat, cheese, vegetables, and starch on the daily.

Well, I’m a hunter / gatherer so hunt at Publix and gather what I need, so I’m good for all those things!

Who wants a sammich?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '24

Be like a Bobcat. Just wait until one of your neighbors or someone you live with comes back with Taco Bell then eat it out from under them with no shame.

1

u/xhammyhamtaro Sep 24 '24

Bob, Sally, Fred, we all like easy meals

1

u/Lojackbel81 Sep 24 '24

Fast food sucks

1

u/Gloomy-Welcome-6806 Sep 24 '24

Yeah but like have you asked them

14

u/ExtinctFauna Sep 23 '24

Well, bobcats, coyotes, hawks, and raccoons are frequent attackers of chickens, so me saying that chicken is their favorite food is more of a "You have a bobcat problem" thing.

1

u/Excellent_Jaguar_675 Sep 25 '24

Add to that: opossums, snakes (they go for the eggs), birds of prey including owls (I think they are the deadliest) minks/ ferret family, Bears Any carnivore from miles around .