What I've Learned From our Barn Cats

As of this blog, we have 11 barn kitties living at Paradise where they enjoy hunting and playing around the barn, buildings, and house. They also enjoy a robust diet of M&Ms (milk and mice). We have our kitties spayed and neutered to avoid overpopulation, but we keep one intact male and female to produce litters. Due to our resident coyote population as well as owls, hawks, eagles and other predators, we have a pretty high attrition rate. We encourage the kitties to stay close to the barn by feeding them their milk there.

Only some of our kitties are named. There's Annie, which is short for Anonymous (I couldn't think of a good name for her when I named the others in her litter). Depp started out as Johnny Depp, but I dropped the Johnny when I discovered she was a girl. Snow White is not a solid white, but she's grey and white with a white face. Bob and Julia are tabbies that our vet named when they got fixed. Nip and Tuck are two solid black cats who were born with short tails. Nip's tail is just a tad shorter than normal. Tuck's tail is just a stub about an inch long. I had a Grinch until I discovered that I have three tabbies that look exactly the same and I can't tell them apart.

  

I bottle fed Annie after her mom was killed by coyotes.

Chore time is always fun with all the kitties hanging around. Like our dogs, they have there own ranch wisdom to share.

 

I've learned the following things from our kitties:

1. Cover up your poop.
2. Keep your face clean and be well-groomed. You never know when someone might see you.


Simon left the ranch to join a family in Washington.



3. It's best to kill things after dark.

4. Don't be too picky. You'll starve.
5. Many things are good and bad. Mice taste good, but they give you tapeworms.
6. It's warmest where the sun shines.
7. Friends are especially nice on cold nights.

 




Bob & Julia enjoying the sunshine.



 



It's a little chilly!


8. Don't wander too far from home. You're not the only thing hunting.
9. If you don't drink all your milk, it curdles in the summer and freezes in the winter.
10. Stealth is good until you get stepped on.
11. Whether you can count or not, live like you have ONE life.
12. Don't kill more than you can eat. Eat everything you kill.
13. Noone is the boss of you.

Depp