Bad Attitude Farm & Forge LLC

Our farm has three types of cats.  Pets, Barn Cats and Free Kittens.  Pets and Barn Cats are “keepers”.  The herd now helps us insure that new cats don’t just wander in.  This one is a keeper.  She is too small to be much of a Barn Cat (predator control), but the circumstances by which she arrived were such that we figure she was somehow intended to be a part of our family.

Pumpkin is a Keeper

This is Pumpkin.  Her mother is completely feral.  Pumpkin is a bit different and we kind of think her mother wanted her to be.  When she was much smaller, her mother carried her in her mouth right to the farm where the food is.  She wondered off a time or two.  Each time, her mother brought her back until Pumpkin started staying on the property.  Now, we hardly ever see her mother.  Believing in a bit of divine intervention, this one is a keeper.

Like some of the other cats on the farm, this one is welcome to come inside for a visit now and then.  Other than Smiley, none are in door cats.  After all, if they lived inside they couldn’t do their job… pest control.  Smiley tends to stay inside because Aimee adopted her after she was injured in the engine of her mini van.  A week earlier, one of Smiley’s sisters died in a similar accident.  Aimee was hysterical both times.  So when one could be saved, it was off to the vet.  $800.00 later, the vet bill was paid and Smiley became our second three-legged cat.  One of her arms had to be amputated.

Strangely, her mother was our first three-legged cat.  Trudy, her mother, kind of came with the farm.  She is mostly feral, but came to accept our love (and food) after a bit of work.  At first, we thought she was born with only three legs.  We later learned from one of our neighbors that she’d been sleeping in an engine compartment and lost the leg when they started their car.  Although we are neutering and spaying as we go, Trudy and her off spring are first on the list.  They seem genetically predisposed to sleep in engine compartments.

Back to Pumpkin while remembering to create a post with the lineage of all the barn cats.  Pumpkin gets plenty of loving, but she remains a bit leery of sudden movement.  She is pictured here on top of a stack of hay bales in the barn that she calls home.  Believe it or not, she has no fear of the goats or sheep who could squish her with one step.  For one reason or another, the goats don’t seem to mind her at all and she is more afraid of people than the goats.  I often find her sleeping in one of the pens.

I say Pumpkin is a “keeper” because we are not trying to experience exponential population explosion with the cats.  In fact, we are trying to fight it and finally feel like we are winning the battle.  Pumpkin’s mother is the only one of the feral cats that we haven’t been able to make friends with.  Not being able to make friends means not being able to get to the vet for population control.

Keeping in mind we do have a decent chunk of land, two barns, and other buildings to protect; we do not think our cat population is outrageous.  But it is large enough that even with our efforts to neuter and spay as we can afford to, it is a large population.  Our current plan seems to be working.

The “keepers”, like Pumpkin, are neutered or spayed and let to either stay or wander off.  When new litters arrive, the kittens are given away.  Fortunately, it seems like new litters are no longer arriving.  From a bit of neighborly research, we think we have figured out the lineage of the neighborhood herd.  Although there is a Tom who we’ve only seen on occasion, we don’t expect any new cats.