Share a picture(s) of you're pet feline.

[Dakeyras]

One of my forest woodpeckers
He's my buddy. We have both very large and very small woodpeckers here. They are really cool This is a smaller one.

Very nice . Is his/her name 'Woody'? .

[Drewcat]

Nope, hadn't thought to name him.

[MattNW]

Here's our three indoor cats. Only have one outside cat at the moment but I noticed today that he's found a girlfriend to invite over. Expecting we'll have a bunch this spring. We live in a very rural area so between the road and the coyotes the outside cats have a rough life. The top two in the pic are barn cats I tamed down enough to let inside. Top left is the chow hound. Her hobbies are cadging treats and sleeping on laps. Top left is the tomcat. Both descended from a long line of barn cats* and come into the house late in their youth so we have NO mice.

Bottom was from a rescued litter left beside the road. Someone brought them in to a local pet store where I got her. She was hand raised so she thinks mouse hunting is a "catch and release" sport. At least she doesn't leave half eaten mouse carcases in the floor for me to step on going to the bathroom at night. That'll wake you up in a hurry.




*(30+ years dating back to the original yellow tomcat "Rusty" that the previous owners of the house left behind. He graciously decided to honor us with his presence whenever he was hungry, beaten up in a fight or it was cold outside.)

[Drewcat]

Very nice kitty family you got there Matt, thanks for sharing .

I don't know where you live but if you can't do it yourself, there is lots of rescue groups who will come, trap, neuter, and release the cats back to where they were. Would take a few calls but it would be the kindest thing to do to stop the cycle of hard lives.

Whats with everyone and their orange cat! lol I guess I need to get me an orange cat.

[Dakeyras]

@MattNW:

Nice pictures and a interesting post to read, thank you for sharing .

[MattNW]

We do that when we can. I had the momma cat spayed this summer . That's why we are down to only one tomcat now. Luckily there's a vet nearby who gives us a quantity discount. She was a terrible mother. Kept having her litters in the yard and leaving them when it rained. I tried to save the kittens she abandoned that way but they all died. Not long after spaying she disappeared. Most likely got caught by the coyotes. A lot of cats in the area have gone missing this winter.

Spaying and neutering keeps the population manageable but we live in a very rural area with a lot of farms. Whenever the population on one farm gets too low some of the cats from the neighboring farms move in. I've found over the years that the best method is to leave the cat population alone as long as it's generally healthy. The only time I intervene is when one is sick, injured or in the case of an abandoned kitten or if there's too many. For the most part the outdoor cat population is wild and it's best to treat it as such. Besides the main killers around here are coyotes and the road and there's not much you can do about that.

Our orange cats are the legacy of a tomcat we found when we moved in over 30 years ago. The people who owned the house before us had a momma with a litter of kittens. They took the momma cat with them when they moved and left the kittens who were too young to be on their own. A neighbor found them in their barn too weak to run away except one who apparently had managed to catch enough insects to stay strong. I was 10 when we moved here and spent the summer taming him. By tame I mean that only in relative terms. I could pick him up but when my mom tried to pick him up once she ended up in the ER with six stitches in her finger. He became the dominant tom and over the next eight years almost all the kittens in the area started to turn up orange. Orange cats around here are still some of the best mousers.

[Dakeyras]

Nice post MattNW and a pleasure to read .

[Dakeyras]

A fairly recent picture, taken by my wife. With believe it or not one of them disposable camera's, quite amazing how such a fairly cheap camera captured Sam in mid flight .

[Drewcat]

hehehe that is too funny. Sam looks like she hasn't moved a muscle in any effort at all. Ah to be a cat!

I have to try to get a picture of Corky dragging her Snakey toy around. Of course its not the same without sound (she howls and howls while carrying it around), but it would still be a nice pic. That will be my mission, shouldn't take too long lol.

[Dakeyras]

Ah to be a cat!

Ah indeed, she sleeps about 20 hrs every day and only concern is the magic food bowl(as I call it lol) replenished with go-cat and water plus the miraculously self cleaning litter tray .