We ate a lot of rabbit and squirrel.
One time when my Papaw was hunting, he shot a squirrel and realized it had babies. He found the nest and brought those babies home. They bottle fed those babies. The little female soon died, but the male, Johnny, lived to be a grown squirrel. They would turn him loose in the house and he was a riot. Mama still has the piano where the ivory keys have his tooth marks in them. He chewed on a matchstick and caught the kitchen curtains on fire. That was when they decided it was time to let him go. He took right off but would come back to his little cage every evening. Then one day he didn't come back. The next year, he came back several times and after he finally stopped coming, Mamaw wouldn't let anyone hunt squirrels for several years.