Visitors

We normally have about 6 cats on  our homestead.  I really don't mind the number as long as things don't get out of hand.  If a stray stops by for a free feed and moves on it's ok. If it decides to stay, there is a trip to the vet for shots and maybe surgery. Free meals come with a price.

Recently, we have had three visitors. One is a beautiful Angora.  I suspect people dumped it on our property.  It is welcomed, but I wonder
how many stray cats show up on other homesteads during the course of a year.

We feel the same way.

Anyways we often have several cats that show up and disappear. I'd say about seasonally we have 3-5 cats show up occasionally, about once a year or so we adopt another stray, get it fixed.

When i lived in the city, I've heard about people dropping cats off in the country...now I live in the country...and take care of those cats.

I imagine others get seasonal cats too
Great question!

Hi Sena,  

Thanks for the reply. This morning I realized we had 2 beautiful Angoras.

We're the only house in the neighborhood without dogs so any strays end up here, as did two very small kittens at two different times..  We did as you mention and got them shots, fixed and now they are permanent outdoor cats along with our 15 yr old mama cat.
One is becoming a huge long haired cat...and is a cuddler   She's the only one allowed in the hoophouse with me to chase crickets and sniff out tunneling critters.

I always joke that I have an "affinity" for cats because, if there's a cat in the vicinity, it seems to find me (which isn't horrible since I love cats  way more than I even tolerate dogs).
Unfortunately, that means I have accumulated a ton of cats, who all want to be fed when the rodent population isn't booming, which can be expensive. At the moment, I have built a small cattery for the females, since I definitely can't afford to add babies to the herd, and I spend so much on kibble that it's not possible for me to get 8 cats spayed at once... particularly since there's the risk of them getting killed by the dogs that the neighbors let run wherever & destroy things. It would seriously suck to drop $150 on a vet bill just to have the cat get killed a few months later.
Sadly, most of the former strays aren't friendly to people, except sometimes me, so it's unlikely anyone would want to adopt the poor things, and I can't run them off considering they've already been abandoned once.
So, for now, I just continue to be "that crazy cat guy," and give them a place to call home. Thankfully they don't seem to mess with the wild birds (though mice and frogs are a different story). I wouldn't mind if they'd reduce the squirrel population, but the squirrels travel via the tree canopy instead of the ground. 🙄

Hi kc,

Fortunately all of the dogs in our area are well behaved.  We did have one incident when our Border Collie was frantically chasing our cats up a tree.  When I stepped outside, I realized there were coyotes in the area, and he was protecting the "livestock".

John F Dean wrote:Hi kc,

Fortunately all of the dogs in our area are well behaved.  We did have one incident when our Border Collie was frantically chasing our cats up a tree.  When I stepped outside, I realized there were coyotes in the area, and he was protecting the "livestock".

He's a good boy for that! I have a boxer, and I don't worry about her, at all, with the cats. She and one of the house cats have a very tight bond, which has made her pretty tolerant of cats, in general.

That is a beautiful cat

Around here you can get a stray cat fixed for free or cheap.
It's meant to curb the population without simply killing them.
Cat lovers do the catching, so it's fairly efficient in terms of manpower.

I have thought I would like to make a home for a couple of stray cats in my offsite garden.
Should a shelter for an outdoor cat have two exits,  in case a raccoon or another cat tries to attack?

I try to provide an alternative exit.  I leave the supper dish in the open.  That appears to be what interests the Raccoons.  

John F Dean wrote:That is a beautiful cat

Thank you. That cat is probably the closest thing to a child I will ever have. For years it was just the two of us, and he's helped me through some of the hardest times in my life, dealing with tumors & treatments and other things that made me miserable. Wouldn't trade him for anything

Hi kc

You post took me back to a Bombay we had who passed several years ago, after her 20th birthday. One day she sniffed my wife's ear and had an extreme reaction.  To shorten the story,  my wife had an infection near her brain stem.  The cat literally saved my
Wife 's life.

William Bronson wrote:Around here you can get a stray cat fixed for free or cheap.
It's meant to curb the population without simply killing them.
Cat lovers do the catching, so it's fairly efficient in terms of manpower.

I have thought I would like to make a home for a couple of stray cats in my offsite garden.
Should a shelter for an outdoor cat have two exits,  in case a raccoon or another cat tries to attack?

I've heard of people cutting a hole in a big Rubbermaid tote and stuffing it with hay or old clothes as bedding & protection from the elements. I think two exits would probably be good if there's a risk of predators. The strays that hang out here seem to just sleep wherever they want, like my lawn chair, empty rabbit nest boxes, and my flower beds.

I wish we had a low cost spay/neuter program around here, especially for strays/ferals that aren't the most gentle. There's an "animal birth control" clinic about an hour away from me that offers low cost spay/neuter, but it still comes out to $100+ per cat if they aren't vaccinated; and I'm pretty sure they have to be tame enough to handle. I've considered taking one or two at a time of the tame ones, but for now I need to use that $ for fencing the barnyard and making everything safe from the neighbors' dogs.

Hi William,

We use 3 different vets.  One is for livestock, one for pets, and one is for serious illnesses ( an hours drive, but exceptional).  We can get neutering done cheap but not free.  The last time was $20.00.

Kc Simmons wrote: I always joke that I have an "affinity" for cats because, if there's a cat in the vicinity, it seems to find me  

Heh, I can relate. I have an ex who claimed my house had a big sign in the yard in cat language "Free cat food and nice lady who will spoil you!"

The vet I took my cats to was a friend of the family, neighbor of my parents, and he knew I had no money, he gave me kennel rates on spaying, because he knew very well those were not my cats. If I could catch it, I spayed it.  

I'm one of the people who can walk into a house where the cat won't get NEAR anyone, and within 20 minutes it's on my lap.

As far as the OP's question, bet when I'm living at my place I'll attract cats again. Always have.

Anyone want a lab puppy that got dumped at a friend's? They tried to give it to me. They get a lot of animals dumped at their place. :(  Special place in hell for people who dump animals.