See pics, found this thing well healed in my cat’s tail. Came out with no resistance and no bleeding. Looks like a tip to something, but not sure. Cat is less than 6 months old. Thoughts? The grooves you see are from my pliers. It’s hollow and seems to be aluminum or some other soft metal.
Edit:
Looks like this is pretty unanimously solved. Bit of backstory (not that you asked)- neighbor got got 2 kittens in May/June for his daughter. They’re freaking adorable so whenever they wandered over to our house, we gave them lots of attention. They had been spending more and more time camped out on our porch furniture in the past month and then I found this just today. I’m going to talk to the guy and see what’s up.
I’m concerned they are only interested in animals while they’re small and cute because last year they had a young dog that’s no longer there, this is the second pair of kittens they’ve had this year (one of the first pair I still see sulking around at night, but I’m pretty sure it’s feral now. No idea what happened to number 2), and now they have a new puppy again.
Thanks all!
Minor second edit: I made a mistake about their pets. The first dog mentioned above was actually the house next to the neighbors in question. Those neighbors had moved, which is why the dog is no longer here.
Looks like an air rifle pellet.
Definitely this. Not copper though looks like lead. Possibly steel. Humans really suck.
Air gun pellets are almost always lead. While steel pellets absolutely do exist, they are much less common. Steel tipped lead pellets are a little more common.
The tarnish and the way the pellet is deformed very much points to lead in this case.
It’s a .177 pellet gun round
Whoever did this should have their ass kicked.
That’s putting it nicely.
Someone definitely shot the poor beastie with a pellet gun. It’s good you got it out.
It would definitely be good to make sure they’re an indoor cat, since someone is willing to hurt cats and you don’t want them to get another chance.I have a pellet gun that shoots at like 1500fps.
Cats lucky. If the kid had a powerful one, and didn’t hit just the tail, that cat would be dead.
As others have said that’s an air gun pellet, maybe get an X-ray done and see if there are any others
This is good advice!
RMI on the other hand wouldn’t be a good advice
Lead isn’t magnetic, not sure it would pose a problem for an MRI scan.
Are pellets lead though? That seems like a health and environmental problem…
Yes they are usually made of lead.
Oh dear… I had thought we had moved on from using lead in most applications.
Dont worry we still pump huge amounts into the atmosphere with some planes every day.
Looks like this is pretty unanimously solved. Bit of backstory (not that you asked)- neighbor got got 2 kittens in May/June for his daughter. They’re freaking adorable so whenever they wandered over to our house, we gave them lots of attention. They had been spending more and more time camped out on our porch furniture in the past month and then I found this just today. I’m going to talk to the guy and see what’s up. I’m concerned they are only interested in animals while they’re small and cute because last year they had a young dog that’s no longer there, this is the second pair of kittens they’ve had this year (one of the first pair I still see sulking around at night, but I’m pretty sure it’s feral now. No idea what happened to number 2), and now they have a new puppy again.
Thanks all!
Please send an anonymous report to animal control. The circumstances sound suspicious with the neighbor. At the very least, adopting animals and then neglecting them(like the now feral cat), is animal adandonment/neglect. They should be prevented from adopting further animals even if that’s all they are doing. The animals deserve a caring home. In addition, torturing small animals is a common and huge red flag. If they only like things when they’re small and cute, what happens when their daughter grows up? I know this sounds extreme and I don’t have all the facts, but how else would you view “they keep getting new animals, neglecting them, they “disappear”, and more appear to continue the cycle. Oh and I found a pellet in one of them”??? File an anonymous report so that hopefully someone can look into this make sure everything is on the up and up.
Somebody shot your cat, bud.
That’s a pellet from an air pistol/rifle. It’s probably lead.
Keep your cats inside
That’s an air rifle pellet. You have a bastard in your neighborhood.
To be the Devil’s advocate, pet cats allowed to roam are a pain in the ass to neighbors. One tried to kill my pet parrot on my property, and if I had an air rifle, he’d have taken an ass full or worse. Keep your pet on your property and off mine, it’s pretty simple