# Animal eating tulips?!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 14, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237 "2003-05-14T17:29:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zazie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zazie)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/1 "2003-05-14T17:29:39Z")
I live in Massachusetts, I finally have flowers pointing there noses after this endless winter.
I have a few tulips in my front yard and, like last year, once the flower bloom and opens up a little I find them neatly cut off and on the ground.
I don’t think it is a kids prank, it seems to be a clean cut and I am thinking it’s a animal eating “something” inside the flower. The petals are still there… and the stem nice and straight flowerless…
It is very strange, any ideas?
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### Author:  [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/2 "2003-05-14T18:21:01Z")
Totally misread that OP.
No, Mr. Bunny! Stay away from that flower bed–Noooooo!!!
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### Author:  [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/3 "2003-05-14T18:22:51Z")
deer eat tulips, but will also eat the stem and leaves.
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### Author:  [@NE\_Texan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NE_Texan)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/4 "2003-05-14T18:23:34Z")
I’m with **toadspittle** - I’d buy some of _those_ tulips for my yard! Actually, it sounds like **Zazie** would, too. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with the OP - I have no idea. Doesn’t happen to ours (in NH).
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### Author:  [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/5 "2003-05-14T18:24:09Z")
(“ **animal-eating** tulips”, btw … just realized I didn’t make that so clear)
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### Author:  [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/6 "2003-05-14T18:33:48Z")
I did find out last summer that squirrels eat begonias. I had two pots of them on my deck, and the squirrels just kept snacking on them throughout the summer. If I saw them doing it, I’d scare them away, but I couldn’t be watching them 24/7. The white ones were particularily yummy, but they’d eat the pink ones, too. Once it was fall, I just let them eat them–they are annuals, so they were going to die anyway.
I don’t have any tulips, but if you have squirrels, that’s what I’d suspect.
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### Author:  [@Zazie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zazie)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/7 "2003-05-14T19:08:05Z")
haha guys, you got me laughing here!! Animal-eating…
Maybe it is squirrels, I don’t know, we for sure have a lot. I was thinking skunks for some reason,but have no proof.
Grrrr, it’s the second season in a row…
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/8 "2003-05-14T22:37:32Z")
It could be some kind of invertebrates; cutworms (a caterpillar-like grub that lives in or on the soil surface) tend to eat just the parts of plants that are exactly at ground level, leaving the stem and upper parts toppled over exactly as if they have been cut - I’m not sure if they eat tulips though.
Otherwise it might be squirrels, but in this case, the bulbs themselves will be gone.
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### Author:  [@Zazie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zazie)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-eating-tulips/175237/9 "2003-05-14T22:47:29Z")
The stem is intact, the leaves as well, just the very top, the flower is cut off. It is the weirdest thing… I need a night vision camera 😉