My cat caught a bird. It looks fine - is it?

The short answer

No. An animal that has been in a cat's mouth needs to be seen by a rehabilitator or a vet within hours, whether or not you can see a single mark on it. Cat saliva is the injury, and prompt antibiotics are the standard of care. Do not put it back outside, do not "let it rest and see how it does," and do not wait until morning.

This is the piece of advice that saves the most animals per word, and almost nobody knows it.

What is actually happening

Cats carry Pasteurella multocida in their mouths as part of normal oral flora. It does nothing to the cat. Introduced under the skin of a bird or a small mammal, it causes an infection that moves fast — clinical signs typically appear within one to three days of exposure, and death can follow eight to twenty-four hours after those signs appear.

The bird sitting quietly in your shoebox looking uninjured is inside that window. Nothing you can see tells you otherwise.

Cat claws do the same thing. The animal does not have to have been bitten.

Why the injuries are invisible

Feathers and fur hide almost everything. A cat's canine teeth make small deep punctures that seal over almost immediately, so there is often no blood at all. Under the feathers there can be extensive bruising, punctured air sacs, or internal injuries that do not show from the outside.

On top of that, prey animals are built to hide weakness. Looking fine is a survival behavior, not a diagnosis. An animal that appears calm and alert is often in shock.

The practical rule that rehabbers use: assume every cat-caught animal is injured until a vet or rehabber says otherwise. In practice, most are.

What to do right now

• Get it away from the cat immediately and bring the cat inside.

• Use gloves or a towel. Put the animal in a ventilated cardboard box with something soft that will not catch toenails — fleece or an old T-shirt, not a loose-weave towel.

• Warm, dark, and quiet. A closed room away from pets, children and noise.

• Nothing to eat or drink. Not water, not sugar water, not birdseed.

• Do not check on it every ten minutes. To that animal you are a second predator.

• Call a rehabber now, not tomorrow.

In West Tennessee, text 901-340-6534 with a photo. Tell us it was a cat — that changes everything about how quickly we need to see it.

Dogs too

Same rule. Dog mouths carry Pasteurella as well, and a dog is heavy enough to cause crush injuries a cat would not. A puppy that "was just playing with it" is still a same-day call.

The uncomfortable part

Free-roaming and outdoor cats kill an enormous number of birds and small mammals in the United States every year. The most-cited estimate, a 2013 study in Nature Communications, puts it at a median of 2.4 billion birds annually — a range of 1.3 to 4.0 billion — plus billions of small mammals.

This is not a reason to feel guilty about your cat. Most of that national total comes from un-owned cats, not pets. But the bird your cat brings to your door is one you can actually prevent, and keeping a cat indoors — or out only under supervision — is one of the highest-leverage things you can personally do for the birds in your own yard.

Bells help less than people assume, and they help unevenly. Trials find they cut predation on mammals substantially but do much less for birds, which respond to sight rather than sound. Brightly coloured collar covers do close to the opposite, cutting bird kills by roughly a third. A catio, a leash, or simply keeping the cat in at dawn and dusk beats all of it. Indoor cats also avoid cars, dogs, fights and feline leukemia, and generally live longer.

If your cat is bringing you animals, you are going to be in this situation again. Worth knowing that before the next one.

Who we are

Out of the Woods Wildlife Rescue & Rehab is a wildlife rehabilitation nonprofit in Memphis, permitted by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Cat-caught animals go to the front of the line. Text 901-340-6534.

Sources: Cornell Wildlife Health Lab, Pasteurella. Loss, Will & Marra 2013, Nature Communications. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 2022, collar covers and bells.

We are wildlife rehabilitators, not veterinarians. This is general information about what we see; your vet is the authority on treatment.