Why Barn Cats?
For at least 9,000 years farmers have relied upon the humble barn cat as a primary defense against mice, rats and other vermin. They are a natural means of pest control, vital to agricultural storage. That they also can delight us and be our friends is something that has developed over thousands of years. With a few modern adjustments, it’s possible for a farmer or smallholder to have a happy, useful, and relatively healthy colony of barn cats who hunt for pleasure and have longer and better lives than their forebears. The five basic secrets are: Regular Meals, Birth Control, and Basic Medical Care, Shelter and Affection (spaying, neutering, basic vaccinations, housing and affection). There are other helpful practices, like re-homing non-hunting cats, but these five are the most important ones to follow.
Feeding Cats Regular Meals
Basic feeding is a must. A full cat is a happy cat; a happy cat is a full-time hunter. Whatever you do, do not starve your barn cats in hopes that they will hunt better. It will simply slow them down and leave them open to illness and injury. The easiest way to feed barn cats is to go to the feed store and buy the biggest bag of cheap cat food you can get. Read the directions for what each cat needs per day; multiply by number of cats. You can supplement dry cat food with high protein dog food, scraps of kitchen meat, left over butchering bits, etc. But scraps alone do not provide a complete or balanced diet. Also don’t give them chicken or bird bones: the raw ones can encourage them to see chickens as food and the cooked ones can choke them. And never feed barn cats on high protein dog food alone. It lacks some of the basic nutrients that cats need to stay healthy. Some people prefer to feed their barn cats on meat and kitchen left-overs alone, but most cats do best if they have a least a small amount of commercial cat food in their diet.
Water is also vital for life and health, so be sure to provide a water dish especially in hot weather. And, be sure to break the ice that forms in Winter Time, the same way you would for your horses, cattle and other livestock.
Birth Control
Birth Control is vital for population control within your barn cat colony. On their own, cats do this by a combination of battles, infanticide, and starvation of weaker members. This is one case where “Traditional” is definitely NOT the best practice. If money is tight, start by neutering your chief tomcat. He will still fight off predatory males and protect his females; he just won’t make any more kittens. Spay your females as time and finances permit. Many vets and animal charities provide discounted rates for people in need. Call them and explain your situation. Most farms only really need about five to eight barn cats. One mother cat and her children can create hundreds of kittens over a decade or two.
If you are lucky, you will be able to start your own colony from scratch. The easy way is to call around animal shelters (or farming friends) asking for a mother cat and kittens. Explain you are a small holder who needs five or six cats, so they know you have space for them. You would be amazed how often mother and kitten combinations turn up in these places. Yes, many shelters require you to pay a deposit for vaccinations and altering. But you will really need to do that anyway, so you are just paying your costs up front, rather than later.
Basic Medical Care
Remember, like your plow horse and your sheep dog, these are WORKING animals, not just pets. Having their basic vaccinations (especially rabies) in the US, is not wasting money, it’s protecting yourself and your livestock. Beyond the diseases prevented by vaccination, barn cats are also vulnerable to injury and infection, particularly of the mouth and feet. If one of your cats is limping or seems to be having trouble eating dry food, take a look at it. A strained leg or clean cut on the pad will usually heal by itself; an infected cut requires a trip to the vet – cats can die of blood poisoning or gangrene just like people can. If the cat cannot put any weight on its leg and cries when it is touched, it may have a broken bone, which also requires a trip to the vet. An infected tooth may have to be removed by the vet. This will not hinder the cat’s hunting ability, as the claws are the primary means of catching prey. Finally, thick green or yellow mucus coming out of the nose and cruddy, weepy eyes must be dealt with by a course of antibiotics at once. If a case of cat flu is left untreated and the animal survives, it may remain chronically ill and be a walking reservoir of re-infection for all your other cats and any new ones that wander in. Such a cat (it will continue to sniffle, weep, and drip mucus weeks after it should have recovered) cannot be kept in a healthy barnyard: it must be rehomed as a permanent indoor pet (preferably where it cannot contact other cats) or, sadly, put down. Cat flu is probably the biggest destroyer of cat colonies, and, if the cats have had their vaccinations, is the only problem that will linger to sicken and kill generation after generation if it is not dealt with thoroughly. If you inherit a barn cat colony that already has endemic cat flue, consult with your vet for the best advice for your given situation.
