On the farm cats have a job. They help take care of the rats and mice in and around the buildings. Until a year ago when we sold the last of our dairy herd, the cats were fed at the kitty dish after every milking. They would line up by the milkhouse door and wait for their warm milk. If they all weren't right there, one call of "Kitty Kitty Kitty" and they would come running from all directions. DH is a cat person. The cats would ride on his shoulder while he was milking, hop up on his knee when he was in beside a cow, or jump from the hay/straw mow on to his back. Every cat had its own name and would answer to it. If a cat had mattery eyes or a cold-out came the syringe with penicillin to give the cat a shot. An interesting sight to watch. Since the dairy cows are gone-the cats still do their hunting and still receive some cat food in the barn where we have some of the beef young stock.
About four weeks ago a young cat presented us with her first batch of kittens-- seven of them. She had them in the barn, but mama cat came to the door several times a day for milk and cat food. She had kept the kittens hidden away from us and away from the dogs. Occasionally she would bring one to the house with her. Tuesday morning she had all seven at the door on the back deck. They all knew how to drink milk and eat cat food from the dish. Occassionally a farm cat would find its way into the house when the boys were small. DH would love to have a house cat, however DIL-2 is very allergic to cats. So if it is a choice between a cat or DIL-2, guess who wins without question!!!
Next post will be about the little bit of sewing I have accomplished the past couple of weeks.
Have a great day,
Linda
7 comments:
Gotta have a cat on the farm!
We have a Whiner Kitty who has been hanging around the chicken house for an unknown amount of time! She waits for me every day to give her a couple of eggs.
They're so cute!!
I am definitely, absolutely, positively a cat person!!! :)
I want all of them!!! Kit needs some friends to play with. :-)
Will you keep them all on the farm or will you try to find them homes? There's no farms where I'm from so it's something that I'm unfamiliar with!
I'd forgotten that a Mama kitty likes to keep her kittens hidden for a short while. When we were kids, growing up on the farm, we always believed she was hiding them from the tomcats for now and then, a tom would find new kittens and kill them, leaving the poor things dead in their nest. I'd forgotten that.
The kitties are so cute!! I am sure they have plenty of work to do on your farm. My granpa always had a couple of barn cats and he would give them warm milk too. He would squirt it right into their mouths from the cow, us city kids thought that was hilarious!!
Will you be able to keep them all?
Thanks for sharing the pics, they are adorable.
SheilaC
Ahhhhh they are so cute! I love kitties. So now do you spay & neuter them all so they don't multiply? Linda in Washington state
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