Farm Cats

[furtech]

The farm had no shortage of cats: there were about a half-dozen adult cats and three litters of kittens. Farm cats are an interesting cat-society: there is usually a local tomcat who keeps the other toms away from "his" property. He comes, does his work and isn't seen until the kittens grow old enough for the tom to come and drive out the male cats. The animals are a laissez-faire part of the farm: Jim puts out a fixed amount of kibble; they have to catch the rest of their diet.



Their lifestyle is a blend of survival-of-the-fittest and people-assistance: generally they are vulnerable to disease, cars and predators, but if the Jim's family discovers an injured or sick cat, off to the vet they go. Jim, the cat-person of the family, is none-too-happy with all the kittens. However, there's no simple solution. They can't continually spay all the females (money is tight and more would just find this open nitch and take up residence to raise a family) and the tomcat-- if neutered-- would soon be chased out by another tom. As they're in the middle of old-school farm country, there aren't progressive programs like free or discounted spay/neuter clinics (the very the idea of taking a farm cat to the vet is beyond belief to most of the locals). So kittens occur and the population is maintained in naturalistic ways.



I was fascinated by the friendliness of these animals: I can't see much of a difference in situations between your basic fearful, feral cat (like the many thousands in L.A.) and these farm cats. Yet these cats have no fear of people, enjoy being petted and even held. Jim says it's because they have a "home" in the farm. So the people on the farm are part of their home and therefore accepted.



While I understand the problem of so many cats, kittens are still cute, so try and forget about all the issues and enjoy these kitten pics.

This cat took over the old doghouse.


The farm dog (who will star in a future post) is not only cat-friendly, but their protector as well. When Gordy, the dog, hears a car in the driveway, she will go and lay by the old deaf calico cat so that she won't get run over. Gordy also lets the cats have first go at the scraps and dog kibble in her plate. Gordy even brings in critters and such for the kittens to play with, such as this country cat toy .

So comfortable with Gordy is the cat dubbed "Cupcake" that she had her litter -in- Gordy's present doghouse. In the evening the porch doghouse is filled with Gordy, five kittens and Cupcake.


Cupcake (the momma cat):


Look carefully in this picture:


Jim discovered why Gordy was so interested in his workbench in the shop:


Here's a larger version [about 140K] of the first pic.

Not all cats were cute things: Jim's cat (from L.A.) is their only indoor animal and spoiled rotten-- almost (but not quite) as bad as Roz's beloved Charlie. For some reason, she decided that my room (the guest room) was the Best Place In The World to be...and we literally had to tie the door closed because she quickly learned how to force her way in. We all laughed at just HOW determined she was to get in, using every subtle (figuring out the door, scratching and pleading) and not-so-subtle (brute force) to achieve this.