New farm cats

We have 9 barn cats all are spayed and neutered except two kittens that we added 3 weeks ago. I lock them up in the barn each night because we have three Great Horned Owls that take every rabbit and squirrel in sight and I'm afraid my cats would be prey if not locked away at night. We've been here 7 years and so have most of the cats. We've had one incident with one cat needing antibiotics for a cold. Everyone gets wormed twice a year and I buy vaccine from TSC. We've never had a problem with fleas - Thank Goodness. We live on 9 acres surrounded by a creek and woods.

Sick Kittens are such a sad and pathetic sight. If you keep your cats clean and vaccinate and spay and neuter - you should be fine. I wouldn't hesitate in getting all of the cats fixed after the next litter is born. In the long run you'll be happy that you did - so will your cats.

Your adult cat is getting robbed of nutrients for not only herself but her unborn kittens. You need to stop the teenage kittens from nursing. Maybe you can re-home them at the farm next door that is looking for Kittens. Just make sure they spay the little girls. Better yet, spay them before you hand them over. They may not be the Adult cat's kittens. Sometimes female cats nurse other cat's kittens without any trouble at all. We had a cat like that growing up. She even nursed puppy's at the same time she nursed her own kittens.

Good Luck with your new little creatues. I hope they do well for you. If you feed them and make them comfortable I'm sure they'll stay around.
 
jojo@rolling acres farm :

Your adult cat is getting robbed of nutrients for not only herself but her unborn kittens. You need to stop the teenage kittens from nursing. Maybe you can re-home them at the farm next door that is looking for Kittens. Just make sure they spay the little girls. Better yet, spay them before you hand them over. They may not be the Adult cat's kittens. Sometimes female cats nurse other cat's kittens without any trouble at all. We had a cat like that growing up. She even nursed puppy's at the same time she nursed her own kittens.

this is untrue as long as the mother cat is being fed a proper diet. If the mother feels she is unable to nurse while pregnant it will be her instinct to wean. many animals including humans can and do tandem nurse sets of babies. as long as good nutrition is provided the mother cat and mother nature know best.​
 
God god... your gonna have a million cats by next summer... literally. Nuts..
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also in reguards to your cats it would be much easier and healthy for you to fix theses cats and simply pick up and fix more cats as you need them. mommas with babies constantly are not going to do as good of a job hunting as a fixed adult will, rearing the babies simply takes up too much of their time and they will want and need fed or illness will result from overbreeding, stress and not enough food.
 
We got our 2 barn cats through a (free) program that vaccinates them and spays/neuters them. We kept them in a crate for 2 weeks, and keep their food in that same spot. It worked for a while...one of the cats went missing a while ago though and another one I think got adopted by a neighbor. We haven't seen her around in a while
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but they made it through the winter.

Probably going to stop by the pound and try to pick up some more.
 
If you have coyotes around your place you probably won't have to worry too much about overpopulation. If you don't, then spaying or nuetering would be a good idea.
 
babyblue: I still think it is harder on a Mother cat to nurse older kittens while expecting new ones. You disputed my previous post but then later talk about the stress on the Mother cat and disease and distraction. So, which is it?
 
jojo@rolling acres farm :

babyblue: I still think it is harder on a Mother cat to nurse older kittens while expecting new ones. You disputed my previous post but then later talk about the stress on the Mother cat and disease and distraction. So, which is it?

I agree with you. Especially since the older cats might steal away colostrum intended for the kittens - I also highly doubt they're related. Theres a kitten that popped up on my property - has all his teeth, totally weaned yet constantly attempts to suckle off my SPAYED dog and anything else even remotely resembling a nipple.​
 
jojo@rolling acres farm :

babyblue: I still think it is harder on a Mother cat to nurse older kittens while expecting new ones. You disputed my previous post but then later talk about the stress on the Mother cat and disease and distraction. So, which is it?

I see you totally ignored both parts of my posts where I said the mother cat needs to receive adequate nutrition. if the mother is starving then she will wean the older kittens on instinct or have health issues. properly fed healthy mammals rarely have problems nursing while pregnant or tandem nursing. sometimes in both humans and mammals the milk supply slows down at the onset of pregnancy, however adequate nutrition, rest and fluid intake will most of the time bring the supply right back where it needs to be. Furthermore if the mother does not want to be nursing older babies she will wean them herself.

my concern with the op is that there will be dozens of malnourished cats forced to hunt and starve and wean older babies too early, even if the cats start spreading the prey supply is going to be too low to support that many animals without human feeding and intervention. It does not seem to be the ops intention to feed or care for all the animals they create, more along the lines of dump and hope things go well. I do not agree with endless cats having endless litters that turn feral are not feed and not cared for.

as far as the older kitten stealing colostrum, you are uneducated about lactation in both humans and animals otherwise you wouldn’t comment as you have been. the mother will continue to make mature milk for the older kittens and then colostrum will start to come in when the next litter is ready to be born. colostrum even if nursed by the older kittens will continue to be made by the mother until the next litter is ready for the more mature milk. there is no limit on how much colostrum or milk any animal or human can make, it is quite simply a method of supply and demand. the more milk removed from the breast or teat the more milk will be made at future feedings. good nutrition and good hydration go a very long way in maintaining a good supply.​
 
I'd have to agree with the majority of the posts. I am an animal behaviorist and was in veterinary medicine for many years and feel it may be helpful to chime in.

Although your intent is a worthy one as it does not include poisons to rid you of mice and rats, it is irresponsible to not spay or neuter the cats. Their young offspring will be more likely to be snacks for the larger predators such as coyotes and raptors. If no predators (I highly doubt their are no predators) disease is more likely to grab hold and be persistent within a large cat colony than just a few cats as their food (mice and rats) declines.
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Leaving cats intact to breed will cause your population to increase exponentially. This creates an overpopulation that often overtaxes the predator prey balance in nature and may get to the point it no longer can be sustained which leads to disease and parasites (fleas for one and fleas will bite humans) as that is a natural way to decrease population in the wild.

Well fed cats are better hunters (as long as you don't overfeed). Give them some food once daily to keep up their energy. Cats--including some of their larger wild cousins--that have not fed enough to keep their energy up are more likely to let the more difficult prey go about their business in order to save energy for when they think success is more likely to be achieved. Healthy, lean (not thin) and muscular cats are one of the only predators to kill for the hunt itself--not just for food. This means fewer, well kept kitties will do a much better job of keeping your barn free of small rodents.
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As for the mom nursing other kittens while pregnant--although most will walk away some young mothers will nurse until they are near death. Colostrum (mentioned by another poster) is critical to the new babies and will be available just prior to kittens birth in her milk so I would avoid it if possible.
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