Keeping Outdoor Cats

[LABS4ME]

Poison is a good idea.. May even kill off your dog in trying to rid a few mice! Happened to my uncle back in the 70s...lost both his dogs when they got into somee mice poison.

Coyotes, skunks and fox take far more game birds than cats... Killing song birds is easy to stop, declaw them.... They may get an occasional one, but not many... At least the two I had didn't... I'm far from a cat fancier... For the most part, I don't care for them, and would NEVER have one in the house... but used strategically, they get the job done. My brother did the same as I and he is mouse free in his house and two out buildings... Has birds all over his yard...

Fairly domesticated outdoor cats are not the feral indiscriminate killers of a farm... If I am lucky enough to get some land agin, rest assured there will be a cat or two on it... Again, fixed and declawed...

Good luck!

Ken

[Jmnhunter]

You guys are missing the point, domesticated cats and their predation on non targeted creatures are 100% avoidable

[Ufatz]

And how about getting rid of the poison idea!! We-as outdoors people and assumed conservationists-rise in outrage over the proposed use of nasty chemicals by government entities and yet will turn lose a batch of poisoned pellets or feed on the world around us totally unsure of just WHAT might be killed.

We have NO poisons on our land....anywhere. And no RoundUP or similar products either.

When you spread poison around your barn shed or garage you are releasing some killing agents that might be there for a looooonnnng time, killing who knows what: maybe your cat; maybe your dog; maybe your kid.

[Jmnhunter]

there are non-toxic options and you have to put them out responsibly, not next to the dog's kennel...

[Bureaucrat]

I'm pro cat. Let's get that outta the way.

Growing up on the farm, we had anywhere from 4-12 barn cats all my life. We had some that we hunted for/with. They became very good at their craft. We also had about a 20 acre woods next to our place.

In all those years of having a small army of cats, we never had problems with balance in nature. I'd deer and squirrel hunt that property each fall. On stand, I saw tons of mice, chipmunk, squirrel, rabbit, and song birds.

We had a bird feeder in the front yard. Never did I see the cats ever get one of those birds. The chickadees would knock all the seed to the ground other than the sunflower seed. Many birds fed on the ground 15 feet away from the cats lounging on the porch, and they didn't even get

"birdy" when birds were on the ground mere feet away. The young ones would try and quickly learn out of frustration that they couldn't move quickly enough.

If you don't have birds in your area, it's probably a habitat problem.

The keys to it all:

*Feed your cats. Like another guy said, give them some food and water and shelter, and they will come back. Some of the tom cats would take off for a while, but that was rare.

*Cats are like any other predator. They select-kill based on convenience. There are no points for labor intensive kills. Around the farm, there were always mice in the shed, chicken coop, garage, feed room, and sparrows in the hay stack. They were a priceless asset to have when cleaning out the wood shed or corn crib.

It's animal husbandry at it's finest. But you have to work at it.

Now that I hunt up north, I don't see anything on the forest floor or in the trees. No grouse, no song birds, nothing. It's completely dead out there. What do we have? Wolves and roaming dogs.

[rundrave]

I live on a rural acreage, I dont have cats but plenty of my neighbors do. I dont let my 2 dogs run at large but somehow its acceptable to let the cats. I get tired of finding dead birds in my kids sandbox as well as all the other business they do there.

My dogs don't whine or bark in their kennel run unless something is in the yard that's not supposed to be. Nothing better than hearing them go off in the middle of night when I think its a skunk or coon but 9 times out of 10 when I go to investigate and start shining the flashlight its a stupid cat on my property.

wouldn't be as big deal if they could take care of the mice but I still catch and see plenty of them. Try to be civil and talk to the neighbors but I just get the typical their cats that's what they do. My neighbors also now know I wont keep my dogs on a leash or tied up on my property and any critter that comes on my property is fair game for 2 pointers with lots or prey drive. But I also don't let my dogs roam at large and if they are out of the kennel they are supervised at all times.

The cats are usually just quick enough to get away but its a great foot chase to the property line until my dogs stop. You would think the stupid cats would learn to stay away but they don't. I may have to try the live trap method and then deliver them back to the owner that way a few times.

[lindy rig]

My plan would go something like this:

Get two kittens and let them live mostly indoors the first 6 mos (or longer). This will get them socialized and know they are cared for. It will also give some bonding time with my dog.

I plan on taking them to the vet and providing food, water, and shelter.

They live outdoors during spring, summer, and fall. I could build them a little house under my 4 season porch which would provide double layers of shelter.

In the winter they could sleep in my garage - basically a stairwell with a storage area attached and next to windows and heated floor. They could also come in the basement and play during the day.

I am probably also going to build a outbuilding and trying to think if they could winter there?

Any other tips from those who have made it work? How about the litter boxes?

[BLACKJACK]

I grew up on a farm, we always had cats around, so when we moved into the country and the cat that owned the place wandered up, my wife named him Rex. He was pretty old and pretty tame, didn’t run from the dogs so they didn’t chase him. Made him an access door into my shop and he hung out there, especially when I had a fire going. I also have a picture of him in my whelping box amid six lab puppies, under the heat lamp, my female tolerated him and he liked the heat. I don’t think I ever saw him with a mouse or bird.

After Rex expired I got a kitten. It was a nice cat, friendly, I played with it, we it kept totally outside and it lived in the outbuildings. It would bring up gophers and mice, sometimes alive, it would let them go, then chase them down again. Kind of cute. It was also a bird killer. In the spring when young birds were fledging and plentiful, it would bring them home, I toss the dead bird in a pile, and it would go off and get another one. By the end of some days I’d have 10-12 of them in a pile. At the same time it always had a dish full of cat food but that didn’t matter, it was killing them for sport. He was a subsidized killer, eat cat food and spend the rest of the day hunting down rodents and birds. That idea that if you feed them they won’t hunt is bogus, they kill for sport. I’d chase it away from the birdfeeders but I also caught it with its arm in a bluebird house. The final straw was when it brought up a cardinal. I didn’t do him right there but I vowed at that point to never get another cat.

Age of the cat does make a difference, a young cat has the energy and instinct and is going to hunt – I know I don’t hunt as hard as I used to . Too bad you can’t just tell them ‘rodents only’.

I’m not a fan of poison either, too indiscriminate, either the poison itself or the carcass is going to kill any predator, including my dog. Ever come around the corner and caught your dog hogging down something in a hurry, because he knows you’ll take it away?? Heard the story from my neighbor where his dog died in his arms, it ate some of the ant bait and anti-freeze that he had put out for skunks. Poisons are indiscriminate.

Traps work very well to control just about any critter problem you have. I used to be a live and let live type of guy but when the striped gophers started digging around my house foundation, I started trapping them with the big victor rat traps baited with peanut butter, inside a box so you don’t catch birds. I keep a live trap below my deck year around for coons and feral cats. There’s a black cat skulking around, probably won’t catch him now because there’s lots of young critters around for him but when it gets cold out I’ll get him.

Traps mixed with a little 12 gauge medicine will cure your critter problems.

This had gotten kind of long but I just wanted to make the point that I like cats – just not outside where they are subsidized killers. If you like birds and watching birds, don’t have an outside cat, because they’ll wack and stack birds all day long.

[BLACKJACK]

Killing song birds is easy to stop, declaw them.... ..

Ken

labs, I guess I'd have to see it to believe it. They still have the instinct to hunt and they have teeth. I put collars and a bell on my cat and he figured that out in a hurry, still brought up birds, all he did was sit and wait for them. I think the age of your cats might have had something to do with it, the older the 'rescued' cat, the less they're going to want to hunt.

[LABS4ME]

I had bird feeder on steel pole no where by brush or trees. No ambush cover... No way they could over ground fast enough to catch one on the ground.... Without claws they were not in trees.... I imagine they got a very rare bird, but assure you, I never saw a dead one. But I did personally see them kill mice and baby rabbits....

Good Luck!

Ken

[Ufatz]

Am not an anti-cat person. We have had Lulu and then Sissy live with us, both declawed and spayed and neither allowed to roam free. They were staked out on the front lawn sometimes or hooked up to a lead on the front deck. That way they were never shot or trapped or hit by a car or killed by dogs or poisoned.

We LIKED our cats and our dogs were their pals. Our cats had no need to eat mice, birds,lizards or bugs. Sissy would catch large mayflies by putting her big fluffy front foot on them. Then, she'd bend over to look to see what she had, lift her foot, and the bug would fly away. She never learned.

If you must have cats around, take care of them. I don't want to see your little kitty dead in the road and even worse I DO NOT want to be the person who runs over your kitty-cat.

[swamptiger]

Not anti-cat either, but I will say that stray cats do make excellent target practice.