Cats are carnivores. – animals that eat and survive on the flesh of other animals only. However, is it safe for cats to consume dangerous animals like snakes? Let’s find out. When you look into a cats’ diet, you will realize they have a pretty gross diet. You will most definitely not want them to eat half of the things they consume daily if only they listened to you! Snakes are one of them.
Yes, cats do eat snakes. As shocking as it is for you to know, this is the truth. Cats can eat mostly all types of meat. They can even consume snakes. Although you know that snakes are venomous, you might be surprised to know that cats have a very strong and resistant system to go against this poison.
Snakes are carnivores themselves. For them, playing with their prey is like a hide and seek game. However, when they play it with cats, the same game doesn’t work in their favor because cats can catch their prey pretty fast. Even if they don’t belong to the same class of animals, they all live in the same ecosystem. You need to consider more than just these facts when your cats eat weird stuff like snakes, so let’s see what other things could surprise you.
Is it safe for cats to eat snakes?
While snakes have a reputation for being sneaky, you cannot say that they aren’t afraid of anything. Animals like cats can consume even venomous reptiles like snakes. Many species of animals fear a snake but is highly possible for a snake to be terrified of a cat. Cats are meat lovers, and they love to play around with their prey. They would love to chase something, even if the prey isn’t appropriate to be eaten. Sometimes, cats may just chase snakes for the fun of it; they may not even consume them, but love to play with them.
Cats are resistant to a snake’s poison. So, they can eat snakes quickly, and ingest the poison as well, without any hassles. Cats can also be very persuasive when it comes to starting a fight with snakes. In the wild, cats more aggressive the cat is, the more protective the snake gets. So, it is a real fight between two intelligent animals.
Cats are the winners of the battle until a snake bites them. If a snake bites your cat, you have to take all the necessary measures to help your cat bounce back to normalcy. If snake bites are ignored, it can even lead to the death of your cats.
What type of snakes do cats eat?
Cats can win over every species of snake. Cats are real fighters when it comes to winning a game against the prey. They love to play with things that swirl, twirl and slither. Cats hunt, play, and eat. With snakes, they like catching them when they are slithering away and making their move forward.
Corn snakes, garter snakes, rat snakes, king snakes, and gopher snakes are common snakes that meet the size and length dimensions easy for a cat to catch. They are mainly non-venomous snakes that live in the grasslands or the backyards of your garden or house. Felines will mostly only chase and kill snakes that are around 6 feet long.
Cats frequently stalk and hunt their prey. So, a snake can’t get away from a cat’s circling. The cat would just pounce on the snakes quickly, and grab hold of the reptiles. They are fast, agile, and intelligent creatures. When it is cat versus snake battle, it is a very old-fashioned cowboy approach. Cats also have a very heavy flight or flight survival instinct. Hence, they may also end up killing the snake, in some cases.
Cats also have a very gifted sense of smell, which helps greatly in detecting snakes. They can detect a snake, even if it is not visible to the naked eye. They have sensitive and superior smell sensors when it comes to hunting. So, cats can spot snakes by their slow & slithery movements. An ordinary snake would just slither its way away to avoid getting caught by the cat.
Unfortunately, cats are too smart, and they don’t miss small movements like those. Cats’ ears are too sharp to catch up on the small slithery voices that snakes make. Humans may ignore such sounds, but cats don’t miss out on the chance of identifying these sounds.
So, these cats can eat snakes that are non-venomous or even small venomous snakes found in the backyard of the house. However, if you are asking about big snakes, we do not appreciate the thought of it, because they can be dangerous and bite your cat. Snake bites can lead to further problems, which you may not like. Also, it would help if you did not feed your cats snakes on purpose, because you never know what you can feed to cats and what you cannot.
You must not feed your cat meat that is alive. However, sakes are full of nutrition, and if your cats hunt down snakes naturally before consuming them, it is perfectly okay. We recommend you not to feed your cat snakes, on purpose, as this t would prove fatal or even hazardous to the feline.
Final Word
Yes, cats can consume snakes. We know that it sounds a little strange, but we also know that cats can almost anything and everything, as long as it is related to animal meat. Cats consume snakes. Despite being venomous, snakes can be eaten by larger animals like cats. The body of a cat is very resistant to the poisons of snakes. The good thing is that snakes also provide some essential proteins and vitamins for the overall development of a cat. However, if a cat gets bitten by a snake, the real problem starts. This is because snake bites can be deadly. Hence, while cats can hunt and eat snakes by themselves, you should not feed them snakes on purpose.