Housing for barn cats and their kittens

[Elsveta641]

Yeah, a little too far lol. I guess they are just meant to be with you.

I would've thought the snake population around here would make more of an impact around here but that doesn't seem to the case.

BTW, I love the "Alice Cooper" name for the black kitty.

Well the good news is one kitten resembles another male cat on the farm, Vince Neil, and he has recently decided to help take care of them. Mind you he is neutered so no chance they are his, but I wont be telling him that. He's started sleeping in the garage with them in a old cabinet and attacked the second unaltered male, a blue half Sphynx named Murphy, because he growled at the babies.

Most of our cats are named for TV shows or rock and roll. Besides Alice Cooper and Vince Neil we also have Axl Rose, Nikki Sixx and a rooster named Sebastian Bawk

If it's small snakes you shouldn't have a problem. It's the bigger ones who take eggs and chicks

 

[slippednfell]

Well the good news is one kitten resembles another male cat on the farm, Vince Neil, and he has recently decided to help take care of them. Mind you he is neutered so no chance they are his, but I wont be telling him that. He's started sleeping in the garage with them in a old cabinet and attacked the second unaltered male, a blue half Sphynx named Murphy, because he growled at the babies.

Most of our cats are named for TV shows or rock and roll. Besides Alice Cooper and Vince Neil we also have Axl Rose, Nikki Sixx and a rooster named Sebastian Bawk

If it's small snakes you shouldn't have a problem. It's the bigger ones who take eggs and chicks

That is good news!

Love the names!!!

I would expect the snakes to eat the mice. There is a big black one we have nearby. Our pullets haven't laid an egg yet and hopefully the big snake can't get into the coop to take an egg. I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

 

[Elsveta641]

The problem I think with snakes is the chicks and eggs are an easier meal than a mouse so that's what they go for. Especially if you have cats killing most of the mice. What we had to do is start locating the big bullsnakes ourselves, cooking them outside and feeding them to the cats and letting them watch. Now Alice and a few others will kill and deposit snakes at the firepit, hoping we will cook them up for them.

 

[MountainGaurdian]

Our pride of cats started out about 27 years ago with a wild cat that I found in a rock pile in the city. She was maybe 6 to 8 inches long, though was not actually all that young in spite of her small size. I took her home and fed her some of the turkey as it was just after thanksgiving and she ate like she was starving. Interestingly the next day with a full belly she actually stalked the meat that I gave her and then jumped into the air and pounced on it hard. I recognized the behavior from watching coyotes and realized that she was already practiced at hunting.

By the time we bought out first 200 acres about 13 miles from here she had a litter of kittens and we moved a total of about 9 cats out there onto the farm with us. I built a large 14 foot by 14 foot wire pen that was about 18 feet tall in the center of the roof. I put an old tree inside of it with extra branches and whatnot and kept them in that building for the first 6 months so that they could acclimate to the new place.

We have had many new additions to our pride over the years many people needing a home for their cats or people simply stopping on the county road and kicking their cat out at our driveway so we have always had new blood added regularly into the group.

After 27 years of this we have a very stable group that is awesome at hunting, they have even learned how to catch fish in my ponds from an older cat "Grey stray" which joined the group in about 2000, we found him in a ditch alongside the road as a young kitten. Our average population generally remains between about 12 and 15 cats, sometimes drops as low as about 9 and has been as high as 20 at times. We got pretty low a few years back due to a combination of hawks, owls and red kites hunting them, but they eventually got wise to that and our population has rebounded.

Like the OP's cats interestingly my males help to raise the kittens as well. Grey stray was great at that, he would fish catfish out of the pond and drag them into the yard for the kittens and then stand guard to make sure that no one stole the food from the kittens. It is interesting watching our cats as they behave differently than other domestic cats.

 

[Elsveta641]

Our pride of cats started out about 27 years ago with a wild cat that I found in a rock pile in the city. She was maybe 6 to 8 inches long, though was not actually all that young in spite of her small size. I took her home and fed her some of the turkey as it was just after thanksgiving and she ate like she was starving. Interestingly the next day with a full belly she actually stalked the meat that I gave her and then jumped into the air and pounced on it hard. I recognized the behavior from watching coyotes and realized that she was already practiced at hunting.

By the time we bought out first 200 acres about 13 miles from here she had a litter of kittens and we moved a total of about 9 cats out there onto the farm with us. I built a large 14 foot by 14 foot wire pen that was about 18 feet tall in the center of the roof. I put an old tree inside of it with extra branches and whatnot and kept them in that building for the first 6 months so that they could acclimate to the new place.

We have had many new additions to our pride over the years many people needing a home for their cats or people simply stopping on the county road and kicking their cat out at our driveway so we have always had new blood added regularly into the group.

After 27 years of this we have a very stable group that is awesome at hunting, they have even learned how to catch fish in my ponds from an older cat "Grey stray" which joined the group in about 2000, we found him in a ditch alongside the road as a young kitten. Our average population generally remains between about 12 and 15 cats, sometimes drops as low as about 9 and has been as high as 20 at times. We got pretty low a few year back due to a combination of hawks, owls and red kites hunting them, but they eventually got wise to that and our population has rebounded.

Like the OP's cats interestingly my males help to raise the kittens as well. Grey stray was great at that, he would fish catfish out of the pond and drag them into the yard for the kittens and then stand guard to make sure that no one stole the food from the kittens. It is interesting watching our cats as they behave differently than other domestic cats.

That is beautiful, thank you for sharing! You also gave me a wonderful idea. There is a huge welded wire crib with a sturdy steel roof near the house and I'm sure with very little work it could be a good temporary shelter for cats until we can get the new building up.

We have a tiny female like you describe. She wandered here and decided she belongs. She is about the size of a older kitten but is several years old by now. She has never given us babies so we assume she was spayed. She never goes into heat, but will act as a "comfort woman" to the toms when the queens aren't in season. She patiently allows them to mate her and the boys will groom and coddle her and bring her prey. Shes vicious to us, wont tolerate being touched and if you speak to her she will hiss and calmly walk away.
Watching a semi feral cat group is better than any TV program. So much drama, action, romance and fun lol. Between them and the chickens, I only watch about an hour of TV a week. There are better things "on" out in the yard