Yard cat???

Barn cats in winter, they sleep in the workshop in a big heap!

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our cats are home pets but they keep vermin down on yard too..


the charities are always looking for homes for feral semi ferral yard cats contact blue cross or CPL
 
We did try feral cats at the yard but because we are in the middle of a huge estate (country estate not housing ;)) they just up sticks and disappeared into the forests even though we tried to keep them inside for weeks before hand!!! :rolleyes: It was much easier with Rosie because she came from a farm as a kitten and adapted really well, she's a very sociable cat which helps too. I'm thinking of rehoming my own Herbert cat to the yard because I'm selling my house and having to move to a more built up area and I think he'd be happier living on the yard then having a restricted life in my new house. I'll still get to see him everyday and at least I'll know he's safe from traffic, but I'll miss him :(
 
I think they are a nice addition to a yard but don't expect them to help keep the rat numbers down - our cat is USELESS!!! We got him last year to replace our previous cat who sadly died. We picked up another (supposedly) stray/feral cat from the Bluecross as thought he'd be ideal. He is a great cat but feral/stray i doubt as he's very confident and if he sees a lap he's straight on there! He's pretty tough though I guess and was a bit aggressive initially but he's learnt that biting and scratching gets him nowhere so now he's pretty pleasant.

However, we got him to keep the rat numbers down - it's not worked. They steal HIS food!!! We have to rely on our dogs to do the ratting.
 
We have three yard cats. There were two, one a fat lump who preferred to be carried around everywhere and a nervous older lady who isn't too steady on her paws. We DID have mice and quite a lot of them. Then along came a young thin female and the mice population declined in line with her fullness of belly. Definitely worth having, though you need to turn a blind eye if a cat is "playing" with an unfortunate mouse.
 
The ones I am looking at are 9/10 weeks so hopefully can try and tame them a bit before I let them out in to the big wide world! Haven't seen rats - just mice, millions of mice, which are quite cute, but not sure it's a good thing!
 
kittykatcat said:
Haven't seen rats - just mice, millions of mice, which are quite cute, but not sure it's a good thing!
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IMO Mice are NOT cute! At all! Not when you think that the little monsters pee, all the time, they are incontinent, they pee on everything you or your horse touches, that, for me, is quite reason enough to warrant having a lot of cats around the place...and they smell:(
 
There are 10 cats on our yard and 4 ferral that just seem to wander around but we dont have ANY mice or rats about at all infact if we see one it's usually dead but at night all of the 10 cats live in the owners house so they hunt by day and sleep by night and the "ferral" ones take over the night shift it's great they dont touch any of the birds -, but have brought back moles, voles, hares, stotts, wessel, and a baby alive fox cub!!!! and if they find hedgehogs they roll them into your stable for you to take care off.

I would highly recommend having yard cats it works out great and these get feed rather well by the owner but they still hunt with a passion.
 
kittykatcat said:
The ones I am looking at are 9/10 weeks so hopefully can try and tame them a bit before I let them out in to the big wide world! Haven't seen rats - just mice, millions of mice, which are quite cute, but not sure it's a good thing!
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Hmm, unfortunately if you have seen mice so know you have them, it is quite likely you'll have rats as well. Ours are horrid, they have eaten holes in the stable and field shelter walls and live in the walls! Once or twice a year we pull up all the pallets with the hay and straw on and try flush them out of the walls and the dogs have to finish them off. At this time you will normally findme standing on a nice high chair screaming!!!! ha ha
 
I got 2 cats for my old yard. They were great, no rats around at all when they were there. Sadly one of them died on boxing day 2009, but just one also kept the rats and mice down just fine (small yard though). He always seemed to have the perfect cat-life there, wandering around the fields, hunting, sleeping on hay, and getting cuddles. I had to bring him home when I left that yard, I felt really bad for it, but he seems to be just as happy here.
 
Dab said:
^^^agree^^^ and also add that i am loving all the cat pictures especially Lucky the action cat in the mouse horror movie!
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:D That particular mouse actually got away---she played with it for so long that it eventually managed to nip under a stable door.
 
I have a yard cat that just arrived, at first she seemed feral but now I feel that she must have had a home somewhere as she seems to love every one. She is fed twice a day and as soon as she has had her food she heads off hunting, during the winter it seems to be rats and mice and at this time of the year its rabbits, worth her weight in whiskas:D.
 
We have a yard cat. He turned up one day and started hanging around the yard so we started feeding him and he has stayed with us ever since. :) We don't think he is a feral though as he is too friendly so we think he may have been abandoned. He definitely seems to keep the number of mice down as we don't see as many as we used to.
 
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