I really don’t know what made me think about this, but I suddenly thought about hunting squirrels with a shotgun. I haven’t hunted squirrels in 30 years, but I remember cleaning squirrels after a hunt, and finding lead pellets under the skin. Sometimes in the muscle, with a little bleeding in evidence, but I just don’t remember seeing massive trauma, or pellets penetrating to the heart or lungs. Of course there were some exceptions, but not a lot of deep penetration on average. My question is what is the cause of death in these small animals?

I always got the sense that rabbits are easy to kill, I guess shock easily, but that doesn’t seem true for squirrels. I remember one cousin hunting rabbits with a bow, and using blunt tip arrows, saying no penetration was necessary to kill a rabbit.

With large animals, including people, it takes either disruption of the central nervous system, or enough blood loss, to result in death. I apologize for the morbid subject, but my scientific curiosity is peeked. (piqued! I knew it looked wrong!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: honestlou,

The sting scares them, and they break their fookin' necks hitting branches on the way to the ground?

( Pssst, it's 'piqued' ).

The reason blunt tips are used on small game is two fold. First, their vitals are tiny and tough to hit. Secondly, your arrows will blow through them without slowing down and skip away or burrow under the turf to be lost. The dump of kinetic energy in relation to their size is plenty to disrupt normal functions. Shooting a rabbit with a 300 fps 400 grain blunt tipped arrow would be similar to shooting a deer with a fence post.

I would bet there was more trauma than you recall. In my experience it is usually a pellet or more in the head. But since that isn’t something that normally is skined it is easy to miss if your not specifically looking for it.

^ this.

Yep, imagine getting hit by a rounded off fencepost in the chest moving 240mph. Thats a rough equivalent to the blunt tips that are used on rabbits (works on squirrels too, btw).

Since most hunters don't ever skin the head, you really just don't see the damage inflicted on the head and chest much, imo. The fall isn't too healthy either, lol.

When I hunted squirrels in my youth, it was head shots only with .22 scoped rifle. Deadly but no meat damage.
Then my hillbilly relatives converted them into a tasty stew!
If I were to take it up again, I would invest in a high quality .22 airgun and scope.

Sometimes a squirrel can survive an amazing number of hits from .177 pellets...

I’m thinking of taking up squirrel hunting again, but this time with a .22 bolt action, with either “quiet” rounds, shorts, or CB caps. But in my youth I used a shotgun, and I just don’t remember that much penetration. I get rabbits and blunt arrows, but squirrels seem tougher or scrappier.

Most of those “just under the skin” pellets already went all the way through and are trapped by the elasticity of the hide on the far side after expending their energy in the vitals. Just like finding rifle bullets under the hide of big game. Plus, as others have said, there’s often one in the head.