Mama cat.

Mama Cat
This is the mother of the two kittens we’re fostering. She’ll need a home in a week’s time. The black and white kitten is growing a lot faster than the gray one — it appears this two-kitten litter has a runt.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

3 replies on “Mama cat.”

  1. If it eats racoons, I’ll consider adopting it here (though we have 5 adopted cats already). Raccoons have driving us crazy lately: pulling trash out of our cans; messing with a drain screen, causing a recent basement flood (!); eating our cats’ food…. We even caught a pair mating in our basement once. (What a racket!)

    If dogs can be selectively bred to produce a size spectrum from Chihuahuas to Mastiffs, I’m all for trying to breed raccoon-eating supercats!

  2. I also have problems with racoons and skunks up here in CT. The skunks are fairly benign unless we happen to leave a bag of recycling or trash in the garage w/out putting it in the plastic garbage can. Then they shred it and leave a mess all over. Luckily our cats have never been “skunked” and when I have passed by one in the night it seems to happily scamper off with no raised tail or lingering odor.

    Racoons however – they are smart and strong!!! They can sometimes upen up the garbage can that I have trouble opening. We have also purchased and started using a large composting bin this year. It came with plastic stakes to hold it in the ground – no match for racoon(s) – bin found lifted on an angle and less tasty bits of food now outside of bin on ground. Then I used large metal spikes to replace the plastic stakes and put 8-12″ diameter rocks as a wall around and touching the bin. I was surprised to find these rocks, some of them upwards of 40 lbs, pulled/rolled away from the bin and the sides excavated away from, providing easy access for a racoon paw.

    My 2 male cats spend all night outside, often catching and diemboweling, beheading or consuming moles, voles, mice, chipmunks or rabbits – but for animals their size they seem to have no influence, or perhaps they enjoy observing these scavengers and learn from them or partake in their leavings like vultures or jackals. Time to invest in a night-vision, motion detector camera to view the offenders and form a strategy.

    The one good angle to this is that my daughter loves tracking and she has ample opportunities to deduce what animals have been through and what they did while visiting.

    Also – skunks have been great in digging up grubs in our yard – this is a great thing for me, because I have 2 cherry trees and 2 peach trees planted last year (one peach tree flowered this spring and is producing fruit – yipee!), and the japanese and oriental beetles emerge from these grubs and eat the leaves of the trees something fierce. The less grubs the better, so skunks feel free to stay – and spray a racoon or two that gets in your way!

Comments are closed.