If you know how many cats you have ...

[willowgirl]

You don't have enough cats!

I guess we know, at the moment, as Moxie (our only non-spayed adult female) brought her litter out of the nest tonight! Adorable grey long-haired furballs (just like her). Hopefully they will socialize with us and the other cats and be well-adjusted. Only one hissed and spit when Numb picked it up ... the rest were clearly terrified (LOL) but didn't resist.

Moxie apparently was dumped here last summer. She was a little too old to assimilate into the existing colony, and lived on its fringes, in the barn and the junk car in our backyard. We couldn't find her on the morning we took the last batch of females (mostly the other kittens who were dumped here last summer) to be spayed, back in February. In a way, I'm kind of glad, because now she won't be alone anymore, ducking and dodging ... she'll have her own Long-Haired Gray Cat colony to keep her company.

I'll have to get some pics tomorrow. They're darling!

Oh, it appears we have 19 cats. Numb says, "It's a feline version of the Duggars." ROTFL!

[Mari-in-IN]

Look forward to pics!

At one time we had over 30 and we don't live on a farm!  At this point we only have 4 outside, 1 momma and 3 babies that will end up outside, and 3 always inside. (Much more doable for us)

willowgirl, do you get a "quantity" discount when you take more than one to the vet to get "fixed"?  Been thinking of asking mine if they will work with us...

The following are the little ones we have inside at the moment-

As we always say around here "Let sleeping kitties lie!"

 

[mzgarden]

We have 3 indoor boys. We have one Momma and her two girls (all fixed). And, we have an Orange tabby male that we see occasionally - he's gimpy on one leg but seems to do fine. Can't get close to him, but would like to have him checked. And, now we have an all black one that has started to show up, again, can't get close. We put out cat food in the morning for our barn girls and pick it up in the evening. Now that the weather has cleared, the food isn't being eaten much. Game camera says that's the right count for now.

[oldmania]

Just the right number: 0

[vickilynn]

WG and Numb may qualify as cat herders: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

[Mari-in-IN]

May 6, 2015 12:07:17 GMT vickilynn said:

WG and Numb may qualify as cat herders: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

That was HILARIOUS!

Thanks for posting!

[bergere]

Just have three cats... and that is enough. One, Nari the Maine Coon, has to live on the other side of the house and be let outside during the day to kill things. She is not friendly to other cats.

Love the cat herder video!

[willowgirl]

I tried to get some pics of them when they were all curled up in the carrier this morning but it was too dark in there so they didn't turn out well.

There are two long-haired gray tabbies, a short-haired gray tabby, and a solid gray short-haired one. I think two are girls and two are boys.

This is a pic of their mama that I took last summer:

For a first-time mama, she's done a great job. They're all fat and sassy, and clean as a whistle -- not a crusty eye or runny nose in the bunch.

[willowgirl]

May 6, 2015 12:07:17 GMT vickilynn said:

WG and Numb may qualify as cat herders: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

ROTFL!
The cowboy with the lint roller was TOO funny!

[Otter]

Here, we are right there with you with 19. We didn't do our annual spay round up this year, but I think only Bob, a recent dumpee, is the only one in need of it ( and of course Bob is a girl - this is what happens when I let DH name cats)

Congrats on your kitties. I'm sure they'll be well-adjusted, just handle them daily from here on out.
Actually, here, we have kitten raising down to a fine art, and I don't let anyone even pick up kittens at that age, they just get gently stroked. It takes very, very little attention before 5 weeks old to raise friendly kittens. They are not like puppies in that they need a lot of handling. Just a tiny bit every day, so I'm certain yours will be nicely tame in no time.

[willowgirl]

Here, we are right there with you with 19. We didn't do our annual spay round up this year, but I think only Bob, a recent dumpee, is the only one in need of it ( and of course Bob is a girl - this is what happens when I let DH name cats)

LOL! I have a male cat named Liza, and no one to blame but myself for that goof-up. I actually didn't notice until I took "Liza" in to be spayed! Compounding matters, "she" was so fat that I was worried "she" was already pregnant! Boy did I turn red when the vet's office called to tell me, "We can't spay this cat ... but we can neuter him." ROTFL!

I suspect cat temperaments have a lot to do with genetics. In fact, I recall reading somewhere that there are genetic differences between housecats and ferals! When I first came here, Numb had a lot of standoffish cats. They would let you handle them, but clearly preferred that you didn't. There was one friendly female, so we left her intact and had the rest spayed. Attrition having taken its toll over the years, the colony is now mostly made up of her (friendly) offspring. As a plus, she made mostly calico kittens!

[manygoatsnmore]

I do love calico and tortie females and big orange striped males. Torties, of course, have their own very special temperament, lol. I have my one remaining tortie sleeping next to me as I type. She's getting to be a senior citizen, but still loves to break into a mad dash around the house, for no particular reason, lol. Annie is my shadow when I work in the gardens, and she is besties with Muttley, my dog (and avatar).

Annie and I have discussed taking on some kittens, but she informs me she's happy to have all my attention to herself, thank you very much! She also tells me 3 pets (me, Abby and Muttley) are all she can handle at one time, lol.

[willowgirl]

I have never met a tortie that will bond with unrelated cats!

One of our prettiest cats is a long-haired red-and-white male who was born last fall. Unfortunately, he's looking rather sorry at the moment, as he got into a patch of burdock and we had to clip his hindquarters.



Dagny and Neeky, two of our calico girls:

[Otter]

I love calicoes! Yours are just lovely.
Lol, and DH didn't care. He just finally got to name one Bob. Bob Cat. Apparently, he's been waiting YEARS for that chance!

Fascinatingly, no, I've done MUCH study on it and temperament is not genetic in cats. It's all about how you raise the kittens. I have had kittens from my own, well socialized cats and from ferals so wild that one, when I caught her, screamed, hissed, bit, kicked and released her anal glands on me.
All kittens, raised a certain way, become totally friendly, ride on your shoulder, give whisker kisses, snuggle under the covers like a teddy bear kind of tame. The only thing that interferes is that kittens will naturally also learn from their mothers, so if they see her freak out at the sight of you, they will learn that. But so long as I could get the mother to eat from my hand, I could get the kittens that kind of friendly, even if she was still so wild that touching her was risking life and limb.

Our cat Nine (had so many kitties dumped here that year I quit naming them, she is Nine of Nine) was 3 weeks old when dumped here, so no idea of her genetics, but she puffed at me for all she was worth, now jumps into my arms when I call her name, and will then hop up on my shoulder and settle, like a live stole, to ride around while I do chores.
So as long as you get a hold of them sometime before a month, you can make total pests out of them. It definitely slows things down to have Nine's "help"!

[willowgirl]

I can relate! I was trying to pot up plants this evening with Juliet getting in my way, and her brother Derp trying to climb up my leg (while I was wearing shorts -- ouch!)

At the same time, Numb was trying to fix some plumbing under his mom's house. He said a couple of the cats "found" him under there and were trying to "help" him, too. lol

[manygoatsnmore]

Lol, I sure can relate, too. Wherever I'm working, Annie is usually right there to supervise. I think she's convinced I'll fall in if I try to use the toilet alone! If I have a soak in the tub, she will sit on the edge watching closely - probably trying to puzzle out just why we humans are so strange as to actually dunk ourselves in all that water....ON PURPOSE, LOL.

[Otter]

With a name like Derp, I think you should list names! I had one named Booger.
Right now, we have:
Karma
Thistle
Wicca (black cats are fun to name )
Countess
Hobbes
Princess
Dax
B'Lanna
Nine
Itsy - short for The Itsy Bitsy Special Needs Kitty
Bagheera
Romeo
Kit
Ichigo
Bob
Tiss
Coo
Supriza
and Sassafrass

[willowgirl]

Those are some kewl names! We really should put more thought into ours. We have:

Spot
Buttons AKA "The Little One" (she was named after an identical cat I had when I was a kid) (Spot and Buttons are our house cats)
Judith (my namesake. Numb named her after me because she complains a lot!)
Dagny, Dominique and Kira (named after Ayn Rand characters, as a joke, because people on a liberal forum on which I was posting at the time were accusing me of being a Randroid)(those three are all calicos)
Inky, Binky and Sadie (our three black cats who all look like. We can't tell them apart! Numb calls them "The Supremes")
Juliet
Red (he's red)
Bart (when I let Numb name the cats, this is the result)
Buttersquash (ditto)
Derp (ditto) (Derp had a bad ear infection as a kitten, and although we treated it, it seemed to result in some inner ear disturbance -- he goes around with his head tilted at an odd angle. Otherwise, he's fine)
Miss Kitty (when Numb lets me name the cats, this is the result. I put a lot of thought into that one, eh?)
Moxie and her new, as-yet-unnamed litter
Persephone, who technically isn't ours, but belongs to some trashy people up the road who don't take care of her, so she hangs out here for the free eats.

My two out at the farm are Flower (she turned up smelling of skunk) and the aforementioned Liza, who is really a Guy-za in Disguise-a. I call him "Liza the Transgender Cat." lol

[vickilynn]

We are down to six. My beloved Maine Coon cat, Bugs, died this spring.

In the house we have a yellow and cream tabby named Mr. Pips, a long-hair calico named Daisy, and a white/gray cat named Anniebelldingdong, Annie for short. Outside we have a gray/white kitty named Nosy (Annie's momma), and two new strays this spring, a tabby I have been calling Baggins, and a black/white Sylvester. I haven't figured out if these last two are really strays or neighbor's cats. They like the food I put out, that's for sure. The inside cats are all annoyed by my one-year-old Cavalier, Jenny Wren. She loves to chase them, especially Annie. It's a game with those two.

I'm looking for another free/cheap/rescue Maine Coon. I love those cats.

Willow, your long-haired kitty looks just like one of my childhood cats. Her name was Mrs. Whistlepuss.

[willowgirl]

My condolences on your loss of Bugs, Vickilynn. Maine Coons are beautiful cats!

I finally got some pics of a couple of the babies tonight while they were playing on the patio!
The short-haired tabby

One of the longhairs, with Red (who is probably his or her half-brother:

Baby nursing. They are kinda huge, aren't they?!

And here's my sweet girl Juliet, who happened to be on the patio, too. She was one of Judith's last litter of kittens, born in September.

[manygoatsnmore]

OMGoodness, cuteness overload. If I keep looking at pics like those, willow, I'll be making Annie an unhappy cat by bringing home kittens again! I used to have double digits and it's strange to only have one cat left at home.

[willowgirl]

Well, stop and think about what it's going to cost us to Frontline all these cats ... that should bring you to your senses! lol

Oh, a helpful hint: we've found that a half-dose of Frontline is sufficient for kittens! You can split one tube between two and it will work just fine.

We also use Zodiac flea powder for mild cases, and Numb dusts the patio periodically with food-grade DE (diatomaceous earth).

[Otter]

Willow, you are about to love me!!
Get the huge dog size of frontline, and a 1cc syringe. The dosage is .5cc per cat. That saves a LOT of money. Also, the most commonly recommended wormer for cats is Praziquantel. You could get out a calculator and get REALLY exact, but I put a pea-sized drop of Quest horse wormer in a can of wet cat food, stir it very well, and split it 4 ways. It contains Praziquantel (very safe) and Moxidectin (Ivermectin family, watch the dosage) and takes care of nearly ever kind of worm cats suffer from, including heartworm. I do it when I worm the horses, there is always enough left in the tube for everyone and then some.

[willowgirl]

THANK YOU, Otter! That is very helpful!

[manygoatsnmore]

Thanks, Otter - I knew you could buy the large size and split it up, but had forgotten the dosage for doing so (really need to organize all that misc info someday). One more question...will Quest treat tapes in cats?

[my3boys]

May 6, 2015 13:52:52 GMT willowgirl said:

I tried to get some pics of them when they were all curled up in the carrier this morning but it was too dark in there so they didn't turn out well.

There are two long-haired gray tabbies, a short-haired gray tabby, and a solid gray short-haired one. I think two are girls and two are boys.

This is a pic of their mama that I took last summer:

For a first-time mama, she's done a great job. They're all fat and sassy, and clean as a whistle -- not a crusty eye or runny nose in the bunch.

Beautiful cat! And she looks like a sweetie too. She may warm up to you eventually. The fact she brought her kittens out to you is a good sign. At least you have a chance to socialize them so they can get vet stuff done.

BTW, we have 6. Our oldest girl, almost 11 now, was brought home as a kitten by oldest DS. She had been abandoned in a park. Then we adopted a stray about a year old, probably a farm cat, who blessed us with 4 kittens. Eventually youngest DS will take 2 or 3 with him when he finishes college, but for now we have 6 spoiled house cats.

[willowgirl]

Oh, Moxie is friendly toward humans; she just doesn't socialize well with the other cats. She was a little too old when she was dumped here -- about 6 months -- to fit in, I guess. The six-week-old kittens who arrived around the same time didn't have any trouble; they nested with the rest right from the start.

I'm not sure if the motherly hormones might be working their magic on Moxie, because I did see her make a friendly overture toward Dagny the other day (rammed her, somewhat tentatively, with her head). But a short while later, she hissed and spit at poor Kira for no apparent reason, so maybe not. Sigh.

Most of the time Moxie just struts around the patio keeping watch over her offspring. Like mothers everywhere, she's obviously very proud of her brood. If she could talk, I imagine she'd be saying, "I had some babies, you know. Would you like to see them? They're all exceptional ..."

[Otter]

May 12, 2015 11:06:13 GMT manygoatsnmore said:

Thanks, Otter - I knew you could buy the large size and split it up, but had forgotten the dosage for doing so (really need to organize all that misc info someday). One more question...will Quest treat tapes in cats?

  Yes, Praziquantel is the medicine used for tapes, the moxidectin catches the roundworms and ascarids and others, and Quest has both. Just be careful not to overdose.

[manygoatsnmore]

May 15, 2015 18:12:33 GMT Otter said:

May 12, 2015 11:06:13 GMT manygoatsnmore said:

Thanks, Otter - I knew you could buy the large size and split it up, but had forgotten the dosage for doing so (really need to organize all that misc info someday). One more question...will Quest treat tapes in cats?

  Yes, Praziquantel is the medicine used for tapes, the moxidectin catches the roundworms and ascarids and others, and Quest has both. Just be careful not to overdose.

Thanks! 

[allenw]

Cats 0. Cat hating Weenie dog, and Weenie dog's English Shepard apprentice means any cat that shows up here better be leaving fast.