Barn cat question

[randal]

I wouldn't mind getting a couple barn cats at my house to keep the mice and whatever down.. wouldn't mind cats that come around when I'm outside every now any then but don't want ones that would want in the house and love to come see you every time you step outside.. my questions are does this sound like a typical "barn cat" and if so how do you get them to hang around? We had a house cat inside for about 4 months, ended up making it stay outside and something got it within about a month..

[okrattler]

If you feed them just enough to get them used to staying around they will. Cats kill just to kill in a lot of cases. So even if you feed them and they run across a mouse it's a goner.

[glen]

My barn cats eat dog food right next to my dog. They wife come to my wife because she gives them hot dogs. They kill everything g that they can whether hungry or not. They just stack it on the porch. Mice, snakes, lizards are majority of what I get left out

[AgHntr10]

Do yall prefer females or males for barn cats? Fixing seem to slow down the killing instinct?

I want one or two to hang around the barn but I don't want kittens and I know if I have a tom he will probably not hang around enough to be of any use.

[BlackHogDown]

My dad lives on 40 acres outside of corpus. 4 or 5 years ago, when my younger brother was working summers at the vet's office, he nominated my dad to "adopt" three stray cats. All female. Two black, one orange. Named MJ, Magic, and Scalabrine. Lol

Immediately, one of the three disappeared. Either fell victim to coyotes or just wandered off. The other two are still kickin'. At first they were shy but now they'll come and sit at your feet when outside. They have NEVER once stepped foot inside the house. All it took was a warm/dry barn (hayloft) and a scoop of food once a week or so. You'll regularly see them playing with mice, lizards, etc before eating them.

I wouldn't imagine that your regular, run-of-the-mill house cat has what it takes to survive outdoors permanently... Just like poor Brian Scalabrine Lol

[stinkbelly]

The weatherford pound has free barn cats. You will need to pen them up for a while until they know it is their new home.

[Briar Friar]

Randal...if your gonna have a cat I hope you have a dog act as protector until the cat learns the ropes.

Ive only had one...bengal cross...and she is awesome...she is a killer. I just play rough with our cat and keep an open food bowl on the porch. She takes midnight walks with the dogs and I. She follows the kids to collect chicken eggs. When we first got her she disappeared for a week...she got knocked up. She ended up aborting her litter...I watched her eat the fetus’ on our porch. My wife was pregnant with our first child...she cried. My dogs used to chase cats...I crated the dogs and crated our cat and put the crates next to each other...they stayed this way for several days and nights. Each day I would pull the cat out and hold her and let the dogs out and socialize them...feed them next to each other...bad behavior...smack and back to the crate immediately...good behavior kept them out of the crates. Everybody got the message. Now the cat ambushes the dogs and theyre cool.

Ill likely get a yellow tom next...and he will get fixed.

[johnpaul]

I took home a friendly stray from my office and we feed him and got him neutered but he comes in every couple days with blood all over his little chin hairs LOL. Sometimes he will bring the rat, mouse, or bird up to the porch for us to see

[mchildress]

Fixed female and leave a handful of feed a day for her and water.

[2B4Him]

We have caught a few feral cats that wanted to live at our storage facility - which wasn't a good thing for our tenants. I've taken 4 or 5 home to be 'barn cats' on our 15 acres in the country. These are feral cats, not cats you'd try to pick up and pet.
Anyway - whether they were coyote bait or left for greener pastures (we just let them loose to fend for themselves), none are around after the first couple of days.

[IowaHunter]

Just pick up more cats as they disappear. Hard to control cats.

[Acameron52]

We’ve got a couple at our place that have just wandered up over the years. I feed them once a week or so and it’s enough for the two of them to stick around. They’re used to us and the dogs now but if anyone else Is there they disappear. They’ll eat a full bowl of food and still go kill something, it’s in their blood.