Even the Cat is Coughing Up Science Lessons

Since I've been on my current science theme, I am seeing science lessons everywhere on our little farm. Just this afternoon, we had a gross little piece of science shoot out all over my daughter's favorite blanket. It was one of those fascinating in a disgusting way kind of things, and I guess it was technically more of a chunky pile than a piece. Our dear CatCat was lounging in her usual foot of the bed spot when she began out of the blue gagging. Well, my daughter picked up the cat to put it out, since it seemed on the verge of vomiting and all. The cat stopped retching, and daughter put her back on the bed. Immediately, Miss Meow Purr hacked up a smelly mess. Of course these things never hit just one blanket- it skimmed several. As I'm sure you can imagine, even a splash of cat vomit goes a long way, so everything has to be washed. On the way to the washer, we accidentally dropped some of the mess, and spread the joy even further. This was when we saw the interesting part. CatCat apparently swallowed a baby lizard- whole! The poor thing was only a few inches long, and was perfectly intact, except the missing tail. Well, we scooped it up and took it outside to check it out. After we poked around to get the cat hairball off of it, we discovered the little lizard had a beautiful blue patch on it's throat, a lovely pattern in its' scales, and tiny, perfect little fingers and toes. I considered bringing back in and looking at it under the microscope, but the whole mess smelled too bad for that.

So, we got online to see if lizard eating could be hazardous for a cat, and it looks like it's possible. I went back outside to see if I could get another look at the lizard, in order to identify it, but I can't find it now. I am thinking that my #1 chicken, Miss Puffy Cheeks, may have cleaned it up for me. Well, Google gave me about 12 million sites on cats vomiting lizards, most of which had no connection to anything remotely official, so I'm not exactly sure of the credibility of the information. Heck, any goofball blogger, like me, can post things on the internet. In any case, the cat seems fine now though, and is recuperating outside, so we won't be rushing to the vet to check for lizard toxicology. I am just hoping chickens are immune to lizard toxins.