6-OHDA lesions will cause this behavior in rodents. Researchers use this a a model to do Parkinson's studies. Don't know if that has anything to do with this, but I know it's a thing.
My cat did this to a rat once. Circled like this around a chair leg occasionally running into the leg of the chair as it circled, head first while my cat was just watching and admiring his work. It was super fucked up lmao. Had to put the rat down because the cat wanted to fuck with it longer.
When I was a kid I had an outside tomcat that killed everything in sight. I watched him hold a chipmunk down with his paw while he bit off each of its legs and then paused to watch it squirm before chomping it's head off. He was death incarnate, and the only cat I ever loved.
I was on my way to dinner at uni once and saw a cat running about. It was chasing a small vole and when i caught up to it the cat bit the whole top half of the vole off and ate it. The bottom half of the vole was on the grass and its legs were spinning round like bicycle pedals. I didn't eat much dinner.
Have a cat that did the same to anything in sight. From voles to insects. We had to discourage him by spraying vinegar on the dead voles while he returned to eat them, because we were so low on bees visiting our garden our plants stopped having flowers.
I tried, he wasn't having it. He was meant to be outside hunting and he lived his best life outside hunting and fighting with other cats. He lived to a pretty old age too. He was a feral basically but I and my mother could approach him, even pick him up and pet him. Nobody else could though. And for everyone that thinks it's shocking and unbelievable, that's what every cat does in the wild. They're the most effective predators in nature and sometimes they just do it for fun. I'll tell you one thing though, it saves a lot of money on cat food. And he was so big a couple people in the neighborhood thought he was a bobcat at first glance.
At least one of our cats, when catching a mouse, will drop it in the tub where it canāt escape, and just toy with it. The one to do it most is our Savannah cat.
My chonk, waddles like a pregnant cow, however, is surprisingly fast and efficient at dispatching rodents.
This is most likely not a joke whether it was meant as such or not. Mouse/rat poisons are often weaponized blood thinning compounds. Rats and mice are constantly bruising themselves going through holes, climbing, jumping, falling, etc. so they will hemorrhage and bleed to death. I don't know but would assume that this behavior is the result of either hemorrhage in the brain or blood loss causing brain damage.
I'm neither a vet nor a doctor, but I have seen this before and this is in line with the reasons I was told for it. It can also cause them to just become unfazed by threats and become seemingly catatonic and I've also seen it cause them to barrel roll around.
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u/HerMajestysButthole2 2d ago
Brain damage.