Guy, what kind of hobbies do you have?

[Big and Bashful]

I don't have chickens, only cats, their eggs tend to smell a bit!

[sapphire]

Tom,
Very funny story! Glad the hen is OK. I LOVE the Aga oven!

B&B,
You are absolutely correct, as a retired cat breeder, I do concur that cat eggs are smelly.

[Kirbstone]

The thing about cats, unlike dogs, is that unless you've got a bowl of milk in your hand they just won't come when called, hence the unpleasant discoveries of 'smelly catseggs' in the house.
We've banned the lot of 'em out to a neighbouring hay/donkey shed, where they're very happy and they have access to grass outside so that problem is solved.
We do have one old cat 'Sooty' who has recovered remarkably from a stroke suffered last year, holds his head down on one side a bit, and crawls into a dog basket by the Aga whenever he can. He ALWAYS asks to go out, which is OK.

[crfriend]

Some, but not many, cat do come when called -- we've got a couple that usually respond to their named and come out of hiding when we call. However, we *never* let our cats out because we have wildlife here that can be lethal to domestic cats -- things like coyotes, foxes, and bobcats.

A number of years ago we had an elderly cat who went blind (detached both retinas somehow) and adjusted just fine. We put a chair next to our bed so she could get up on it and we just learned not to move around too quickly in her presence. She was a dear, but she's long gone now.

[sapphire]

Hi Tom,
Don't you have litterboxes?

Another reason we don't let our cats outside is that rabies is in our wildlife population. I've taken in a couple of rescue kittens who got sick and bit. Because they were born outdoor under dubious circumstances, they had to be euthanized, decapitated and their heads sent to the state lab. Fortunately, neither kitten was positive.

There have been cats and kittens in and around Worcester (second largest city in New England) and Boston that have been positive for rabies and everyone involved with those felines had to get post exposure vaccinations.

My cats are vaccinated even though they don't go outdoors. Its the law here that your pet cats and dogs need to be vaccinated. If one of my cats bites me and I need antibiotics, I need to provide proof that it has been vaccinated when I go to get treatment for myself. The state requires that when I do get treatment, the practitioner needs to file a report with the state and then the state reports the incident to the town and the local animal inspector calls.
Diana

[Big and Bashful]

I have just found some video of my tribe when they were kittens, starting with one helping me play guitar, ending with all three kittens and their mum dozing off on top of me, ah, memories! I am going to try and find a machine with firewire so I can digitise and upload some catty bits, before the camcorder dies again.

[Since1982]

they had to be euthanized, decapitated and their heads sent to the state lab. Fortunately, neither kitten was positive.

That's great for humans. Not too fortunate for kittens tho.. Too bad there's no way to find out the kittens are safe without having to be euthanized. I know there are wayyy too many wild kittens "out there" but every one has a brain and "thinks", even if at a lower level than we do..

[Kirbstone]

Diana,
When our little grey cat had four kittens in the depth of Winter we confined her and them to our very large conservatory for several weeks. We put out a litter box then.
Now two kittens have gone to new homes and we kept the other two with their Mum to keep old Sooty company. (Last year we lost no fewer than three cats, so old sooty was lonely and ill with a stroke.)

Rs. Cats with fish pan.jpg

Today we had a chunk of my wild salmon to go with the brussels sprouts &c (c.f. Food & Drink in Sk4Men) and the cats got a go at the fish pan out in their shed. The new ones are a lot smaller than old Sooty. Fortunately they have no natural predators here, and cats are quite safe outside. Very occasionally one might venture out onto the road, which is where we lost one last year. That surprised us, as our drive is 150 yards long and the little road past our gate is very small and rural and no-one drives fast along it.
I'm not surprised that you have rabies in the wild in a vast continent like N. America, and strict health regs. must apply. Very fortunately here in Ireland we are totally rabies free so no such regs. apply.
Being a small island the quarantine regs. and control of animal movements are rigidly controlled, as livestock and bloodstock are important exports here.
Looking forward to B&B's cat video!

Tom K.

[sapphire]

Tom,
Cute pic!
Doesn't Ireland have fox, mink, raptors and owls? All of those can kill cats, esp. kittens. They all kill chickens too.

Skip,
Unfortunately, the only way to diagnose rabies by examination of the brain and it is more socially acceptable to hack into the brains of animals than it is to hack into human brains.

The most effective method for manaing colonies of feral cats is TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return. Within this program, the cats that are trapped are also vaccinated. Unfortunately, these programs do not contain a management program with yearly inspections of the colonies and follow up vaccinations. However, there is a pilot program underway in Jacksonville that includes microchipping the cats prior to returning them to the colonies and then annual checks and revaccination.

Diana

[Kirbstone]

Yes, we do have mink, badgers, otters and foxes and birds of prey (Herons, magpies, hawks & buzzards). The kittens are quite OK once they reach a certain size and are not molested by the wild fauna. It's the poultry & young chicks we need to protect, hence putting them all in sheds at night. We still lose the odd one in daylight.

I think I may have mentioned in an earlier post that two seperate stocks of rainbow trout in our lake were cleaned out by a local otter(s?) dining gourmet-style on them. We now stock with locally sourced coarse fish, so they have no special attraction anymore. The advantage there is they breed, so no more stocking will be necessary.

We're also free of snakes. Nothing to do with St. Patrick, as Legend would have it, but 10,000 years ago in the ice age the sea levels were much lower than today, with hundreds or thousands of feet of ice covering the place. We have plenty of residual evidence of that all over. With the receding ice the animals migrated northwards across Europe recolonising newly exposed land. Three species of snake managed to cross the then still dry English Channel, but the Irish Sea trough, being deeper was already flooded and no snakes got here. The odd one escapes captivity, of course, but they are speedily caught.
Mind you, our new Masters (We've just had a regime change) here could well take a good look at TNR.....applied to certain types of predatory male humans !!
Tom

[Since1982]

I agree with you Diana, you did the right thing, as it's really the only way today to do it. I just hope sometime in the future mankind finds a way to look for things like that without causing more death than naturally happens. I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with what you did. That method is the current method of ascertaining the reality of the situation.