@dappled_leaves Long answer to a short question.
I do not like to waste food and often put out table scraps for critters to enjoy. I have an area well away from the house that is on the edge of woods Nearby is a pile of logs where I place about a coffee can full of bird seed food daily and occasionally some bread. Birds love it and I have some great pictures of all kinds.
My home also borders on a wildlife preserve across the street.
This area has been plagued blessed with a tremendous number of squirrels, chipmunks, and mice illegally dropped off in the wildlife preserve across the street by neighboring suburbanites armed with Havahart traps who think nothing of foisting their problems on others. (Don’t get me started.)
After ‘enjoying’ the sounds of squirrels in the attic, chewed wires in cars, damaged bird feeders, nests in farm equipment, destroyed bird nests, etc., a couple of the neighbors decided we would work on finally controlling the situation. And after a year of concerted effort, we have, and things are near normal.
In the interval I had been putting the carcasses out near my wood pile. Every night the carcasses would disappear without a trace. I set up a stealth/trail camera to record the nightly visitors and have taken pictures of fox, racoon, opossum, turkey vultures, skunks, coyote…. and a coywolf!
Recently a cat has started to show up and eat the squirrels I leave out for the other animals. While the other animals always take the carcass away, the cat leaves it in place and eats it over a period of 2 – 3 days. That got me thinking of how much it eats, if it is being fed elsewhere, and that got me thinking about all the other animals in the woods.
My apple orchard is visited daily by as many as 15 deer.. Also a pack of coyote or coywolves haunts the area. Their chorus of howls sounds like something from a horror movie. They are scarily well organized and sneaky. I’ve used a thermal imager and have watched them watch me at night when I put out an offering. They are so stealthy and always try to get behind me as I move through the woods. Interesting.
This question got me wondering how much they eat.
The engineer in me took over and I then wondered about the mathematical relationship… and so it goes.
I have learned a lot today. That’s why I love this place.