just a cat

Both strays are now touchable. 
 

One big boy and one skinny boy. 
 

In reply to prowlerjc :

Stray Cats:

I'd go with a definition of strays being cats that had a home with people at some point.  Ferals not so much.

Around here, barn cats could be either.

Both boys got a spa visit today-- 

Nails trimmed, ears cleaned and testicles removed!

We'll see if they stick around after that experience. 

Both boys back around.  We seem to be the best offer with the current cold snap.

I'm calling them Moose and Squirrel, but wife isn't necessarily a fan of those names.

Moose and Squirrel are great names. I hope they stick around.

Cat facts from FaceBook:

I have my doubts about the first one.  My cat got a hold of my empty bowl of chocolate ice cream once years ago, and I caught her trying to lick it clean.  Had a bit of a panic moment since I know it isn't good for them, but some looking online said the small amount she got wouldn't be harmful.  However, now my wife and I have to fend her off every time she realizes we are eating anything chocolate, and she's not generally very food driven.

During my week off, the routine is to feed the 'Wilds' in the morning after daylight ~7:30 am and again in the evening just after sunset ~5:15 pm. Generally 4 to 5 cats come out immediately for the good canned food (Nike, Fluffy, Paulie, Tanya and sometimes Tom) and the rest show over the next 30 minutes or so - after I leave.

I'm starting a day shift week now, 7 am to 7 pm. 'Late' for feeding. I pulled into the driveway and Bob is sitting in the middle of the 'dog zone' in my yard looking at me. When I got out of the car, he sauntered away, then climbed over the fence heading to the feeding area. When I went down with food 15 minutes later, the worklight strapped on my head illuminated over a dozen pairs of eyes looking at me, blinking. As I poured the food into the bowls, Bob came right to the food and started eating. I reached down and touched his head. He backed away a few steps, but didn't run or panic. He came right back to the food. The other cats closed in as I backed away. They settled in, four to a bowl.

Bob is the name I gave to the heavy striped dark tabby. He is still an outsider with the colony. I have seen him come and go down the street to the north. None of 'my' cats go there. I think I have seen him dart from underneath my covered cars on cold mornings when I let the dogs out. Thomas still asserts dominance when he sees him, but doesn't chase him away. Bob is bold.

Here is Bob eating at the spring. He was alone there and Tom strutted up, poked his head in the bowl, pushing forehead to forehead with Bob. Bob pushed back and Tom gave him a heavy swat. (Pictures were in fading light with a cellphone)

After that one swat, they both went back to eating with Bob giving Tom a little more space.

Here's the best daylight picture I have of Bob, eating with Fluffy.

Well, there's no longer a Zoe-cat in the world.  The vet oncologist said bladder cancer is less common in cats than in dogs, which is good b/c it moves pretty fast.

Everyone should always have more than one cat.  They are social animals (well, maybe not quite so much for some torties), and it helps to still have a 'spare' you can hug after you lose one.

Coal is great on a lap, but he has too many bones, legs, and paws to be really huggable.  Maybe the Humane Society will have an after-Christmas sale.

Sorry, that really hurts.  

In reply to Oapfu :

I'm terribly sorry for your loss.  

In reply to Oapfu :

I am so sorry.  Lucy was a great comfort for us when her brother passed. 

In reply to Oapfu :

I'm so sorry for your loss.  I'm familiar with the 'tortitude' some of them display.

There will never be a replacement for Zoe, but another cat will find you when the time is right.  They always do.

After an hour with no luck, I put away the small trap and was walking down to get the drop trap when I saw a cat perfectly positioned. Seeing only the back, I thought it was James. I trapped it. Now I think it's Tanya, but I'm not sure. She has growna lot recently.  Brought her to the vet for a check and she'll be spayed if not already.

I have at least 4 cats with similar markings, maybe more. Molly, Tanya, James, and an unnamed. Hoping this is 'Unnamed'

Fluffy playing in his favorite tree while I was trapping.

'Unnamed Female' is now Ally/Alison. A little more tolerant of people than most of the colony.

She has probably been one of 'not my cats' for a long time and mistaken for Tanya.

Jiggawatt really thinks he's a dog

Another Fluffy video. Birdwatching at feeding time...

The weather has been cold. Bob wasn't around at all for a week, then showed up yesterday evening. Tom let him eat, but wasn't very friendly with him. He has a new bite mark below the left ear.

Betty-Blacktail hates me. I have stolen two of her kittens and she knows it. I think she had more kittens this fall, but have never seen them. Whenever she sees me, she runs away. Today I saw something white in a tree. That's not an owl...

Not easily accessible. I wonder if there's kittens in there?

It gets cold in the winter up here on the northern tier and the local feral cats don't usually survive the freezing sub 0 deg. Fahrenheit living under the neighbor's junk piles and I have lost 4 kitties I've been feeding over the last two years.

To fix that I found a dead upright freezer 100 miles away and built a feral cat hotel. Except for the 1.5" thick door, the whole thing is built from 2.5" expanded foamed insulation, so if it is R-5 per inch that equals R-12.5 which seems correct since heating it with a 60 watt bulb in 12 degree temps last night, it is a balmy 75 degrees this morning. I started with a 250 watt heat lamp which broke the thermometer after about an hour of running. The 125 watt heat lamp was almost just as bad as well as a 100 and 75 watt incandescent regular bulbs I have laying around. I'm hoping that a 40 watt appliance bulb will be just right since that is the only non-led bulbs I can still buy unless there is a black market for 60 what bulbs out there. I still want to replace the plastic sheathing and gorilla duct tape door flaps with some extra 1/8" clear silicone desk top protector material I have laying around. If my math is correct (always doubtful), at $0.07 per kilowatt hour, the 60 watt bulb will cost $3 per month to heat with.

The little black cat I have been feeding for 6 months hasn't discovered the cat house, but I hope he eventually figures it out. I also feed another black kitten at a pumping station I work on occasionally that I built a double walled cat house out of two cardboard boxes insulated and stuffed with straw. That poor thing jumped off a bridge after someone in a car stopped to try and rescue it on the roadway and it landed 20 feet below into a field of large rip rap rocks and that everybody thought had died. I discovered it at least a month later healthy and hunting grasshoppers and butterflies so I started feeding it under the 4 lane bride in September. He still won't let me near it, but it is very healthy. 

Remember my boy I was afraid was at the end? Kidney disease and almost 18yo.

Mrs. took him to the vet to lay him down then he got tested. 

Here he is now!:

The cats were all tucked into their dens on this cold morning, but Goostav came paddling over for some grapes and pear slices.

What you staring at?

The low temps have been around 0 F for a few days and the highs in the teens. Not normal for Oklahoma but not unheard of. The first day of the cold, I did a normal feeding with some canned food on top of the dry. The canned food froze into a solid chunk and the water from it froze a lot of the dry food. Hardly any of it was eaten. Now I am putting a Hot Hands under each bowl and it's working well. They are eating all the food.

Only Tom came out during my brief trip to the bowls tonight, but there are plenty of tracks in all directions.

We're going to see how this works out.  It's been a week since this little tater tot stopped letting me touch him, but deep snow, sub-zero temperatures and an Afghan made of Orlon may have convinced him that being feral isn't all it's cracked up to be.

He's kind of a dinker.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen the black and white one since the new year.