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Dog, cat, something else, or nothing?


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28 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

Around us, we lose a lot of barn cats to coyotes.  If they get past a year, they usually get wise and live full lives, but the young ones too often disappear.

I have not seen any coyotes (or even foxes) around us. The other two cats are larger. We have a female cat who is his age and is 2-3 pounds larger. The other male is 4-5 pounds larger. The largest I believe will be turning 1 year in the next month or so, while the one missing and female will turn 1 early summer I believe. As I noted above though, we see lots of larger hawks circling at various times.

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9 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

Around us, we lose a lot of barn cats to coyotes.  If they get past a year, they usually get wise and live full lives, but the young ones too often disappear.

I probably went through 100 cats from coyotes and the HWY we lived on when I was a kid. 

You're exactly right about living through their first year. We had 3 or 4 last a long time. Mr Whiskers being my favorite. 

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12 hours ago, FritzIam4IU said:

I am having a rough week. Last Monday evening, our beloved family dog tore his ACL (called something different in dogs) 6 days before his 9th birthday. After taking him to the vet and getting X-rays the following days, he is on pain meds and hasn't been able to put weight on it all week. We are hoping to avoid surgery for him, so vet is checking in with us at the 2 and 4 week mark to see how he is progressing on pain meds/"bed rest". That has been tough on the whole family, but especially me and my wife.

A few days ago, one of our 3 "barn cats" went missing and hasn't been seen yet. He is just under one year of age, and our best guess is that he was attacked by a large bird and carried off (he is the smallest of the three cats and not quite fully grown). My wife found some large feathers and blood on the back of our property near our out building. Even though they are "barn cats", our young kids adopted them and they have their own room in the outbuilding we dedicated to them, complete with cat door. We still aren't 100% sure what happened to him, but it isn't looking good. Our house sits off the road a good ways, and our outbuilding is behind the house, so the cats rarely venture anywhere near the road. I haven't seen any predators by us since we are surrounded by fields...but there is a tiny patch of woods off in the distance aways on the other side of field. We feed the cats as well, so they never wander too far from our property/barn.

I wouldn't lose hope just yet. If a cat nearby is in heat it could be a week or 2 before he comes back. They can travel up to around a couple miles looking to mate. I had an outside male cat do this 2 or 3 times a year. 

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1 hour ago, mrflynn03 said:

I wouldn't lose hope just yet. If a cat nearby is in heat it could be a week or 2 before he comes back. They can travel up to around a couple miles looking to mate. I had an outside male cat do this 2 or 3 times a year. 

All of our cats are spayed/neutered. They were when we got them. That was the main reason we wanted them fixed because we read they would wander away if they weren't.

I would have wondered the same thing though, if they hadn't been fixed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So...we have actually had a second cat go MIA last week. We talked to "neighbors" across the field to ask if they have seen either cat, and they did say they see an occasional coyote roaming through. We are going to start locking them in their dedicated "cat room" in the barn for the next few weeks at night.

Meanwhile, I picked up one new one from the shelter yesterday. He was originally an outdoor kitten, but has been indoors some as well...so we thought he was a good candidate to bring home. He just turned 6 months old, and has two sisters we might adopt as well, but they are still healing from being spayed. Here is is meeting our 1 year old black cat...

image0(41).jpeg

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On 3/23/2022 at 8:55 AM, FritzIam4IU said:

So...we have actually had a second cat go MIA last week. We talked to "neighbors" across the field to ask if they have seen either cat, and they did say they see an occasional coyote roaming through. We are going to start locking them in their dedicated "cat room" in the barn for the next few weeks at night.

Meanwhile, I picked up one new one from the shelter yesterday. He was originally an outdoor kitten, but has been indoors some as well...so we thought he was a good candidate to bring home. He just turned 6 months old, and has two sisters we might adopt as well, but they are still healing from being spayed. Here is is meeting our 1 year old black cat...

image0(41).jpeg

I've had 3 black cats, lost 1 a couple year ago. From my experience, from what I've had they have the best personalities. 

The one in the bed is a really pretty one. 

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4 minutes ago, mrflynn03 said:

I've had 3 black cats, lost 1 a couple year ago. From my experience, from what I've had they have the best personalities. 

The one in the bed is a really pretty one. 

The black cat is one of our original cats we adopted. He does well and is friendly, and a good mouser. I actually like black cats better myself, but we picked this new one because there was 3 of them from same litter, so we decided to try to take all 3 so they won't be separated (but we just took the male home at first to see how our black cat reacted to him). The new cat is super friendly with people. He wants desperately to be the black cats buddy, but so far the black cat just tolerates him ha.

Because they are getting along well, we called the humane society and paid the adoption fees for the striped cats two sisters. They were still recovering from being spayed, so we are picking them up next week. We are still hoping at least one of the two that disappeared recently show up. There is plenty of room for them all in their dedicated "barn room".

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6 minutes ago, FritzIam4IU said:

The black cat is one of our original cats we adopted. He does well and is friendly, and a good mouser. I actually like black cats better myself, but we picked this new one because there was 3 of them from same litter, so we decided to try to take all 3 so they won't be separated (but we just took the male home at first to see how our black cat reacted to him). The new cat is super friendly with people. He wants desperately to be the black cats buddy, but so far the black cat just tolerates him ha.

Because they are getting along well, we called the humane society and paid the adoption fees for the striped cats two sisters. They were still recovering from being spayed, so we are picking them up next week. We are still hoping at least one of the two that disappeared recently show up. There is plenty of room for them all in their dedicated "barn room".

I grew up with dogs and cats. Still have both. I prefer cats myself. Just bought a 3 beta fish tank and have 2 so far. 

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1 minute ago, mrflynn03 said:

I grew up with dogs and cats. Still have both. I prefer cats myself. Just bought a 3 beta fish tank and have 2 so far. 

I had a small 10 gallon fish tank for awhile as a kid.

I grew up with a dog and 2 cats, but prefer dogs. We have our 9 year old dog in the house and the cats in their barn room. Our 2 kids like the cats quite a bit and play with them often, so that's good.

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32 minutes ago, FritzIam4IU said:

I had a small 10 gallon fish tank for awhile as a kid.

I grew up with a dog and 2 cats, but prefer dogs. We have our 9 year old dog in the house and the cats in their barn room. Our 2 kids like the cats quite a bit and play with them often, so that's good.

I grew up with all of them. Have 2 dogs 14 and 15. Cats range frome 2-10. 

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8 minutes ago, FritzIam4IU said:

You have a bunch of cats don't you?

Umm.. yeah. 3 turned into 6 quickly.  I have a hard time telling my wife no. We also don't have and animal shelter.

I try to trap, and spay or neuter all I can. I have a phenomenal vet and he gives us a discount.  

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2 minutes ago, mrflynn03 said:

Umm.. yeah. 3 turned into 6 quickly.  I have a hard time telling my wife no. We also don't have and animal shelter.

I try to trap, and spay or neuter all I can. I have a phenomenal vet and he gives us a discount.  

Are your cats all inside? I like ours fine outside/in barn, not sure I could have several cats indoors with me anymore. They can just get in too many places ha.

Edited by FritzIam4IU
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8 minutes ago, FritzIam4IU said:

Are your cats all inside? I like ours fine outside/in barn, not sure I could have several cats indoors with me anymore. They can just get in too many places ha.

Well we started out with 1 indoors and an outdoor cat that got injured so he became and indoor cat. Then my wife rescued a kitten from the side of the road. 

A couple years ago, a stray I couldn't catch had a litter under our deck.  So we raised the and ended up keeping 2 kittens. 1 kitten is a Torrie and I can go a week or 2 without seeing her. She either hides under the closet or bed. I don't know. Sweet kitty though. 

The mom cat is inside out. She is the ultimate hunter killer. Ever since she been around there are no more strays. She's killed birds, squirrels, rabbits moles, ect. 

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21 hours ago, IUFLA said:

I bought my wife a new horse a couple of weeks ago, and he finally is on his way (from Connecticut). 16 year old Oldenburg. Retired Grand Prix jumper who can still handle what my wife wants to jump...

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We have never onwed horses. I had a pony at my grandparents house as a kid and have never ridden much at all. When Ayden was less than 2 he stated Hippotherapy for core strength and for speech. It made such a big difference. I never knew that riding a horse would have such a positive impact on his life. 

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14 minutes ago, Billingsley99 said:

We have never onwed horses. I had a pony at my grandparents house as a kid and have never ridden much at all. When Ayden was less than 2 he stated Hippotherapy for core strength and for speech. It made such a big difference. I never knew that riding a horse would have such a positive impact on his life. 

We're kinda the outliers in our neighborhood. My wife and daughter both ride English (hunter/jumper discipline). Our neighbors are all western...calf ropers, barrel racers, ect...

Me, I don't ride. I'm just the financier 😁

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On 3/23/2022 at 8:55 AM, FritzIam4IU said:

So...we have actually had a second cat go MIA last week. We talked to "neighbors" across the field to ask if they have seen either cat, and they did say they see an occasional coyote roaming through. We are going to start locking them in their dedicated "cat room" in the barn for the next few weeks at night.

Meanwhile, I picked up one new one from the shelter yesterday. He was originally an outdoor kitten, but has been indoors some as well...so we thought he was a good candidate to bring home. He just turned 6 months old, and has two sisters we might adopt as well, but they are still healing from being spayed. Here is is meeting our 1 year old black cat...

image0(41).jpeg

Pretty kitties.  That first meeting is usually like Chris Rock and Will Smith at the Oscars...👀

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On 3/24/2022 at 9:13 PM, mrflynn03 said:

Umm.. yeah. 3 turned into 6 quickly.  I have a hard time telling my wife no. We also don't have and animal shelter.

I try to trap, and spay or neuter all I can. I have a phenomenal vet and he gives us a discount.  

Same here.  We live in the country, so lots of trapping and spaying/neutering.  It just sucks that skunks like the cat food we put in the traps as well...

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