[I_Like_Plants]

wooo .... crazy cat person...

[AWPrime]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'K')eep your cats in your house!

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AWPrime', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'K')eep your cats in your house!

[AWPrime]

I have seen cats train their natural skills on living animals (pigeons, rats, mice), but this behavior is incidental with well fed/raised cat.

[gg3]

Hi Narz! "A birdie a day keeps the veterinarian away!":-)

Re. ye who likes plants but not animals: So you played with cats when you were a kid but now you shoot 'em. Interesting. What else did you do when you were a kid that you have a passionate hatred for now that you're a grownup?

Re. pope: Go look it up, should be easy enough to find. I found it in a book that detailed the perversions of popes through history, that was on the shelves at a local newspaper whose phone system I was responsible for years ago. Some of those popes were real sickos.

Re. X marks the spot: That occurs with male cats that aren't "fixed" by a certain age. If you get your male cat fixed early, that solves it. And also solves the problem of ferals breeding in the wild. Humans do the same thing, it's called grafitti, or nowadays, "tagging." Probably could be solved the same way as for cats, which will also help deal with the problem of humans breeding in the wild. Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Many years ago I lived in a large collective household: ten people sharing one kitchen. There was a cat. One night I heard some scratching noise behind the oven: uh-oh, a mouse in the kitchen. I called the cat in, who quickly heard the noise and sat there flicking his tail from side to side and licking his chops. As I prepared to move the oven, he got in close. I pulled back the oven and not one, but four or five (!) mice jumped down from a niche they had created for themselves. The cat pounced and got three of them in one pounce. The other two escaped down the hole where the gas line came through, which must have had only 1/2" of clearance on one side.

The cat took his Happy Meal into another part of the kitchen and finished off the three mice quickly enough, and I proceeded to nuke the oven and surrounding area with bleach and then seal up the hole around the gas pipe with instant cement. No more mouse problems after that.

It's not that I have any hatred of mice; domestic ones in clean cages are kinda' cute and perfectly acceptable. But not wild ones in food storage & preparation areas. For this there will be cats, who can go where no mousetrap would reach.

We'll probably, almost certainly, have cats in the community. Their breeding habits will be properly controlled to assure genetically diverse replacements over time, without letting the breeders get loose to start a feral colony. They will probably be kept inside: in the barn, in houses, and so on, where they can do rodent patrol without getting distracted by birdies.

Because, you see, there's one more problem with cats and birdies that no one here has mentioned yet. If bird flu gets going, probably at a higher level of contagion and lower case fatality rate, direct or indirect contact with wild birds may prove to be a hazard. For which reason clothes lines should also be protected in some way. You don't want infectious bird poo on your underwear, any more than you want your cat to be munching on infected birdies.

[kabu]

Great point and good plan, gg3.

[I_Like_Plants]

gg3 you make some good points. Still, with a cat walking all over the countertops and pissing on the freshly cut bread, or in the stereo speakers, I'd be pleased and proud to snap its neck.

Mouse traps have been invented.

Also storing things so mice don't find your hippie-haven their haven also.

Good point about birds, although it's weird, living as part of the 80% of Americans who are not haves, I've dried clothes on the line a LOT and for some reason, never had a bird shit on the clothes. Weird, huh? You'd think clotheslines would be a natural bird perch but ... nope.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'g')g3 you make some good points. Still, with a cat walking all over the countertops and pissing on the freshly cut bread, or in the stereo speakers, I'd be pleased and proud to snap its neck.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '
')If you train a cat early to use a litter box (w/ a sandlike or dirtlike consistency) it shouldn't piss on your freshly cut bread or inside your stereo speakers.

[kabu]

Since I was a boy, I've gone through 6 cats, and the only one that my family and I had a problem with was the female that was traumatized after she went into heat and had about 20 males going after her in our backyard. After that, she was sorta deranged, and nobody was really that interested in her because she'd drool and stuff- it was weird- and our repulsion to her made her become even more deranged, which eventually led to her shitting in the house. At that point my dad, sister, and I wanted to ship her off to my grandparents' farm to let her catch rats in their barn, but my mom thought that was unfair.

Oh well... no problems except for that.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'N')o, it will just track cat litter all over while it pisses all over your house. And shits in your shoes.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'N')o, it will just track cat litter all over while it pisses all over your house. And shits in your shoes.

[ALBY]

double

[ALBY]

I approve of this thread.

When i moved up here seven years ago, I inherited a feral cat colony out back.

now mind you, i like cats.

i captured and neutered a bunch with the local do gooder animal rescue lady. $10 a piece and she lent me the havaheart trap.

a couple of the females had litters. i trapped (more precisely, my wife trapped) and found homes for two of the kittens. one night, another two were in the traps and a homicidal racoon was on the trap, reaching inside and tearing the living shit out of those kittens. i fragged his ass with .22, but he ran off and died elsewhere. I was flabbergasted because it was good hit imo. so, the health department came and took one of the kittens heads for a rabies test. we adopted the other and two more we trapped. I still have those three cats and they have all been excellent mousers. the mommy cat was nice. I trapped her but the cat lady wanted $300 to abort her next litter and neuter her. I calmly told her that price was basically a death sentance for Momma Cat. She held firm so momma cat got her last meal of catfood off the barrell of my ruger mk II. Occasionally a Tomcat will wander into my AO. if they behave, i feed them and if possible get the neutered. If they mess with my male cat, they have a talk with the smoking end of my 10/22 . Facking baltimorons bring their cats up here and let them loose in the 'forest'. retards. the damage a feral cat colony inflicts on the birds and critters is ungodly. the three I have leave carcass everywhere. baby skunks, baby possum, moles, voles, baby woodchucks, chipmunks, squirells, butterflys, baby birds... they are killing machines. i sat in my treestand one day and watched my tomcat "shadow" kill 3 critters in less than an hour.

[I_Like_Plants]

ALBY I swear your post has me laffing out loud!

I love you, man!

[AWPrime]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'N')o, that's what they do. They mark their spot, they cough furballs all over the place (extra points for in your kitchen, the nearer to food the better) they foster a huge underground colony of fleas, and they shit in every out of the way corner so your house can smell of cat's ass forever more.

[gg3]

Yo, Plants, there aren't any hippies in my little utopia. Sheesh.

Alby's got the right idea, on virtually all counts.

As for fleas, you don't get those if you keep the cats indoors, and particularly, away from lawns. Though for some reason they seem to like eating grass. One could always grow a square foot of it in a tray and bring it indoors to stick next to their food dish.

Interesting about clothes lines; I've never actually heard of anyone ending up with bird poo on their line-dried clothes either. But I can't help suspecting it's because most people never look when they take the stuff off the line. I keep my clothes line indoors. Works fine, doesn't even add appreciable humidity in the winter when the windows are closed (maybe 2%).

[tecumseh]

I don't buy the training cats thing. It would be easier to train the cat to give you the bird every time he is let loose to needlessly kill wildlife because that is in his nature.

When it comes to hunting and trapping for meat when times get tough, cats are first on my list followed by coyotes. Removal of these predators first makes for more rabbits and groundhogs at a later date. Right now, I favor the coyote because he keeps feral cats in check.

[I_Like_Plants]

You cat lovers are so full of shit....

In an apartment building I lived in, some people up the hall had a cat, the were both schoolteachers and pretty nice people. Also swore their cat had NO fleas, and the cat WAS kept inside. But they let the cat out, someone caught it and ate it or something it disappeared, and soon the place was jumping with fleas since the fleas didn't have the cat to feed on. It got bad enough that I went and got insecticide and a sprayer with my own money and sprayed the hallway.

Another place I was in, the people before me in the apartment had a cat - end result: flea infestation, which took a lot of spraying. Then the psycho neighbors next to me had a cat, that liked to go into anywhere and explore it could - I figured it was a good way to give them an excuse to get into people's places, and somehow the cat disappeared.

Just now I caught sight of one of the local ferals sneaking by just under the window here, no wonder the birds haven't been around. Went out looking for it with the pellet gun, but the bastard's very shy and didn't get a shot at it. I'm going to get some tunafish and antifreeze and leave a little treat out for it. That should take care of the problem.

[TWilliam]

The religious pogrom against cats in medieval Europe (witch familiars and such nonsense) was likely responsible for The Plague (or at least a major contributing factor), since it resulted in an explosion of the rat population.

Seems I recall someone posting something here awhile back about someone being found dead of Plague here in the U.S. southwest recently. Some people might want to reconsider their positions...