Critter story #5
Critter story #5
The mighty hunters continue to be busy. The other morning, I saw a very large mole left in the driveway. You see, moles are not in the tasty category. This means that they are fun to hunt, catch, and play with (which inevitably ends with the toy breaking), but they are not fun to eat. Apparently the skin of moles secretes something that tastes quite nasty. I am so very glad to have such a good method of mole eradication. There are fewer molehills around the ranch this year than there has been in years. ocicat is now off the hook as the ranch mole eradicator.
Wooo! Go barn cats! You rock!
We have all learned over the last couple of years to watch where we walk. All the world is a cat toy to the feline inclined. This also means that all the world is their dining room. So if you don't watch where you step, you might step in dinner, or leftovers, or the inedible remains, or the rejects.
The rodent problem in the barn was becoming quite bad before the barn cats joined our family. So much so that I had to put all feed except the hay in metal cans. Even then, I still regularly had rats and mice drowning themselves in the water buckets. Now, there is no more rodent problem. Even the local squirrels are becoming quite respectful. The raccoons however, are another issue entirely. Still not sure what to do about the raccoon pair that has moved in and decided that all catfood is open season. I'm a bit worried on this one, as we can no longer leave food out for the barn cats. We set food out when we are outside hanging out with the cats, but if we leave the area, the raccoons soon surface to barge through the growling cats to devour their food. It has been a month now since we've been able to leave out the barn cats' food.
The two raccoons have been around enough to have names. There is Stumpy and Stumpy's mate Tag. Tag is so named because of his ragged, scarred ears. Looks like Tag gets into a log of fights, based on the look of those ears, so we are guessing that Tag is the male of the pair. Stumpy is so named due to the her shortened tail. Looks like she had a very narrow escape once. Truly, they are quite adorable, and as such, we'd love to encourage their presence. But the farmer in me hollers "But they're varmints, dagnabbit. Ya don' go makin' pets outta varmints!". I'm also told by our veterinarian that their presence is very un-hygenic and a bad idea to encourage. I need to learn more about this. ocicat is also particularly interested in the details of the safety or danger of their continued presence.
Dang, those two simply have no fear of us stompy humans. The water hose, however, that, they have respect for. *grin*
The mighty hunters continue to be busy. The other morning, I saw a very large mole left in the driveway. You see, moles are not in the tasty category. This means that they are fun to hunt, catch, and play with (which inevitably ends with the toy breaking), but they are not fun to eat. Apparently the skin of moles secretes something that tastes quite nasty. I am so very glad to have such a good method of mole eradication. There are fewer molehills around the ranch this year than there has been in years. ocicat is now off the hook as the ranch mole eradicator.
Wooo! Go barn cats! You rock!
We have all learned over the last couple of years to watch where we walk. All the world is a cat toy to the feline inclined. This also means that all the world is their dining room. So if you don't watch where you step, you might step in dinner, or leftovers, or the inedible remains, or the rejects.
The rodent problem in the barn was becoming quite bad before the barn cats joined our family. So much so that I had to put all feed except the hay in metal cans. Even then, I still regularly had rats and mice drowning themselves in the water buckets. Now, there is no more rodent problem. Even the local squirrels are becoming quite respectful. The raccoons however, are another issue entirely. Still not sure what to do about the raccoon pair that has moved in and decided that all catfood is open season. I'm a bit worried on this one, as we can no longer leave food out for the barn cats. We set food out when we are outside hanging out with the cats, but if we leave the area, the raccoons soon surface to barge through the growling cats to devour their food. It has been a month now since we've been able to leave out the barn cats' food.
The two raccoons have been around enough to have names. There is Stumpy and Stumpy's mate Tag. Tag is so named because of his ragged, scarred ears. Looks like Tag gets into a log of fights, based on the look of those ears, so we are guessing that Tag is the male of the pair. Stumpy is so named due to the her shortened tail. Looks like she had a very narrow escape once. Truly, they are quite adorable, and as such, we'd love to encourage their presence. But the farmer in me hollers "But they're varmints, dagnabbit. Ya don' go makin' pets outta varmints!". I'm also told by our veterinarian that their presence is very un-hygenic and a bad idea to encourage. I need to learn more about this. ocicat is also particularly interested in the details of the safety or danger of their continued presence.
Dang, those two simply have no fear of us stompy humans. The water hose, however, that, they have respect for. *grin*