Cats

Cats are very welcome on the farm. We have enjoy watching them hunt and sun bathing. I do have one cat that will on occasion help me gather the ducks at night.

Our Cats

We have indoor and barn cats. Currently we do not let the two groups of cats mingle. The house pets are confined to the house.  Sometimes the wife likes to sit on the porch and let the cats play there. The barn kitties have freedom over the grounds and the barns. They keep a watchful eye on everyone for me.

House Cats

• Joesy
• Milo
• Ottis

Barn Cats

• Sid
• Joyce
• Lucy

Purpose

Our house kitties are pets. Milo does a great job of the mice whenever one finds its way in. The house cats are a little odd, in a good way, they enjoy killing the mice by taking them to the bathtub…… Easy cleanup I say. 

We had a large mice issue in the barns. Between the animals and the feed the mice multiplied daily. At times I thought they were multiplying hourly! I walk into a coop and find 50 mice running.

This caused me at first to find killing traps that are safe to use around the animals. Last thing I wanted to come home to a bird food stuck in a snap trap. I found and used Vector tunnel traps. But as stated before there was just too many mice. Set the trap down and before leaving the coop I already had a kill.  So I switch tactics and purchased bait boxes and bait. Now the bait worked great but again I found myself reloading the boxes daily. Also I found that my chickens enjoy eating mice. So secondary poisoning was a big concern.

The barn cats was the answer to all my mice problems. Finally my wife agreed we can have outdoor barn cats. We put our names on a list a the local humane society for their barn cat program, feral or aggressive cats, also know as adoptable cats that would be euthanized.

Several weeks later we received a call and they had a cat available. We go down to pick which one we wanted and of course we cannot choose just one cute kitty. So we took all three. Then we acclimated the cats to the barn for 3 weeks.

Once we let the barn kitties free they ran. They stayed in the shadows for a week but soon realized that we are the ones who feed them. Sid is the first one to play and allow us to pet him. The other two keep their distance and tolerate us.