This post is also available in : French German Italian
After the snow shower of last Tuesday, we had a magnificent sunny end of the week. The temperatures are more and more mild : it smells like spring !
Insects go out as soon as the sun shines, and we have so much fun to hunt them. Here are our advice for little kittens :
Is it dangerous for a cat to eat insects ?
Flies and cockroaches
It’s a delight, but attention : it’s essential to deworm your cat regularly, because flies and cockroaches can pass on parasites or parasites’ eggs (intestinal worms).
Grasshoppers and dragonflies
You get a little crunch, and they are very funny to hunt and to pull apart to scatter the pieces almost everywhere.
Butterflies and spiders
Yummy !
Ladybirds
The lively color of the ladybirds indicates clearly to their usual predators (birds) that they are toxic. However, a ladybird swallowed here or there is not dangerous for a cat.
Bugs
We strongly disadvise you to play with them, and even more to crunch them : these tiny creatures stink to defend themselves. That smells very bad, and if you have it in the mouth, it’s horrible!
Earwigs and small black ants
Why not ?
Red ants
Caution : they bite!
Caterpillars
Danger !
The processionary caterpillars have urticant and allergenic hairs ; the slightest contact causes a violent pain. The inflammation of the tongue and the mouth is almost immediate, and the tongue can even partially necrotize in the following days if nothing is done. The contact with the skin causes an oedema, nettle rash, and important itches. These urticant hairs can also damage an eye until the loss of sight, and cause grave respiratory issues. The nests of caterpillars, abandoned or not, are also dangerous.
The slightest contact with processionary caterpillars is an emergency : go immediately to the vet !
Wasps, bees, and other hymenopterans
Danger !
Never play with this family of insects, kittens ! Their sting aches and can be dangerous ! We explain it to you in this article.
Who says insect, says insecticidal
Cats are often poisoned by insecticides used by humans, either by direct contact, or by ingestion of a poisoned insect (more rarely).
These products are applied to textiles, plants, or grounds of the house. They appear in spray or powder, and most of them contain permethrin, which is highly toxic for cats.
Some anti-slugs products are also dangerous.
We live in Switzerland, and we are safe from some insects which live in other continents : what are the toxic or dangerous insects we can find near you ?
Pictures source : Pixabay
Since we do not go outdoors, we do not see a lot of bugs and insects.
We mostly play with the ones we do see.Mum wishes we liked spiders as she does not.
They scare her a bit, but we ignore them . heehee
Good information though !
Purrs Georgia,Julie and JJ
Athena is an indoor cat but that doesn’t stop the bugs. I always try to stop her if I see her playing with one. We get a lot of spiders and ladybirds (ladybugs).
Purrs xx
Athena and Marie
Yucky, I didn’t know that about flies. Though I did know about the red ants – they do bite and it stings.
I am glad my cats are inside so I don’t have to worry about this. Once in a while a fly or moth gets in, but none of them are good hunters 🙂
Thanks for this post! Cody only tries to eat an occasional fly when he kills them, I stop him if I am around because I heard that it isn’t good for kitties to eat them. Thanks for this info!
You’re welcome, Miss Caren ! Purrs
Inneresting (and tasty) post. All I ever get here are spiders and a few moths. It good to know about the toxic ones. TW is always afraid a bug will have poison on it or in it.
Angel Sammy enjoyed moths, grasshoppers and that’s about it for the bug-snacks. Teddy hasn’t seen any bugs yet here at our house but what he may have been exposed to before we adopted him – who knows?!?!
Hugs, Pam
EEEWWW earwiggiess!!! Mee deespisess them…***shuddersss***
Fankss fur a grate post about innsectss Pixie an Zorro. Mee will bee BERRY carefull an not eat thee wrong buggiess….
An mee just likess to chase butterfliess; they are too purrty to eat, mew mew mew…..
Siddhartha Henry =^,.^=
Pee S: Last year mee eated a moth…LadyMum all most lost her sup-purr; shee was gaggin as mee crunched away….. 😉
Wow, what an informative post! I guess I should be careful of some bugs!
Cars, lorries, tractors, motor-bikes, bikes…
I had no idea caterpillars could cause problems! Bear loves playing with spiders and centipedes and pulling out their legs. I don’t let him because it seems cruel … but occasionally, he’ll get one that I don’t see. Centipedes are venomous though most can’t bite bigger animals (like cats and humans). We have brown recluse spiders around here (most people would argue their bites are worse than a black widow … you often don’t realize you’ve been bitten until the surrounding tissue starts dying and turning black) … and that’s another reason I don’t let Bear play with spiders. Most are harmless … but he can’t tell the difference! Looking very handsome, Zorro!
Oh, centipedes, we forgot them ! The small ones we have here are not dangerous, but they are not tasty at all… Black widows sound scary ! Purrs
eye noe this commint haz nothin ta due with this post
but eye wanted ta say thanx 777 bazillion timez for
yur kindnezz two me & me familee last week
sorree for de copee N paste type for mat…….lovez all wayz
boomer ♥
❤️
Very informative – we have a lot of those insects in NE Ohio.
In our old place, moths would fly in sometimes, and we would go nuts trying to get them for a snack, MOL!
This was a very informative and interesting post. I knew about a couple of bugs not being good for cats to eat, but a couple others I did not know about. Usually I take bugs away from Mario before he has a chance to eat them, but then he doesn’;t catch very many other than the pesty household fly!
This is great information! We didn’t realize that some bugs were quite so dangerous!
That was great information! We sure hope our feral kitties don’t eat any of those nasty ones.
This is very timely information with spring soon on the horizon. We know spring is here when Mom sees the first bumblebee (NO BEES! Our Mom insists), the first ladybird (we call them ladybugs), and our house gets it’s first spider. Spiders are bad, our Mom says, but she doesn’t kill them. She scoops them up and puts them back outside, she says, where they belong. MOL! We bet we’ve been seeing the very same spider every spring for the past eight years!
You should ask her*, MOL ! Purrs
* her = the spider : it’s a “she” in French, we don’t know if it’s a “she” or a “he” in English
We always said Mommy was a party pooper because she won’t let us eat bugs. Maybe she’s right! Thanks for the information.
A tasty and informative review of bugs. We don’t usually bother with bugs much but we DO like Lizards. Mom is always afraid they will have poison on them and takes them away from us.
The Florida Furkids
The dogs don’t eat any bugs but Bentley will try to catch a bee. Unfortunately, he has succeeded a couple of times and we had to deal with major face swelling.
OMC, poor dog ! You should only choose safe and tasty insects, Bentley ! Purrs
Mes a inside cat that used to goes outside. After a sting from a wasp, Mes has left almost all bugs alone!
It was a painful experience and one mes not wanted repeated!
One of my favorite things to chase when mes was younger was snakes! Mommy always worried about mes and rattlesnakes (as they live where we lived) but those mes avoided and only went after the garden snakes.
Kisses
Nellie
OMC, stung by a wasp ! How painful ! We understand that your mom worried about you when you were chasing rattlesnakes, Biscotte (Claire’s cat when she was a kid) did it with vipers. Purrs
I’m indoors unless Mom takes me out for a few minutes, so I don’t encounter many buts. Sometimes I catch a little spider or a moth. Mom & Dad keep an eye out for black widow spiders in our garage so I don’t find them when I’m out there exploring.