Pepper the barn cat

Unlike most farms around here, we don't have a dozen or more cats. Why? Because we have Patches the queen of the felines, and even though she is nine years old now, she still keeps other cats from calling our place home when they get dumped in the country. However, I realized last year that she was really not into the job of hunting and killing mice any longer. How did I realize this? Because our barn had a mouse problem worse than I had ever seen! And when Patches would see a mouse, she would just ignore it!

So, in spite of her highness's opinion on the matter, I called a farmer friend and asked if they had any extra cats. Of course, they did! My only request was that they be males so that they could be more cheaply neutered than a female. Although most farmers don't neuter barn cats, I do because (a) it means they will stay here rather than roaming, and (b) they won't die from disease or fighting other cats or being eaten by a coyote when they're roaming, and (c) it just takes too long to train new kittens to do the job, and I know that as long as Patches is alive, she won't let any come here to live.

You're probably wondering how I managed to over-ride her highness's objection to the new cats. Well, they spent last winter in the barn office, so they were here, and Patches could smell them, and she even saw them a time or two. By the time they actually came face-to-face, she didn't object much. I would say that she's mellowing in her old age, but we still haven't had any stray cats show up, so I'm not betting on her mellowing.

This little guy is Pepper, pictured here with Lucy our livestock guardian.

His partner in mouse control is Salt, whom I will introduce you to later. Both of them are super sweet and lovable ... and deadly if you happen to be a mouse.

Cat bite frustration

Welcome to rural America, where Animal Control only deals with dogs, and where the bite victim pays to have a cat euthanized and tested for rabies. Yes, that's right, we have to pay the county $185 to euthanize the cat that we caught and drove to Animal Control. The woman said she was not even allowed to remove the cat from our crate, and that we had to pay $155 cash to have the cat euthanized, the head removed, the remains cremated, the head overnighted to the state lab, and the tissue samples run. This morning, we get a call from them saying that we have to come in and pay $185, including the $30 for overnight kennel fee -- even though the cat stayed in our crate.

So, I asked, wondering what our tax dollars pay for, "In the future, when stray cats show up, can we just call you, and you'll come pick up the cats for free?"

"No, we don't do cats or wild animals. We only deal with dogs. There are no cat leash laws or rabies requirements in the county. Cats don't have to be vaccinated. They can run around anywhere. We don't do anything about it."

"So," I said, pointing to the crate with the sick cat, "if a cat shows up looking like this in the future, can we just shoot it?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," she responded, "but I imagine a lot of farmers do that."

She also shared a little tidbit with us -- they found a rabid bat near us last year. I didn't think about it at the moment, but I'm wondering how they learned that, since they don't "do" wildlife. Now, it makes me wonder how big the rabies problem is in the county, since they don't "do" wildlife. How did they even learn that one bat had rabies? And yes, we have bats here on the farm. We see them at sunset flying around the house and barn.


On the brighter side, Katherine is doing well. She slept a lot yesterday and is worried about her math exam tonight, since she's right handed, and that's the arm that's injured. (She's taking a summer class.)

I forgot to share a funny story with you yesterday, so here you go. In the ER Sunday night, when the doctor said that she'd only heard of one person surviving rabies, and that was after spending months in a coma, Katherine said incredulously, "I'm in college. I don't have time to be in a coma." I thought, yeah, that's true, a coma would put her behind by a semester or two. It was not until I'd had a good night's sleep that the humor of her comment really sunk in.

Rabies?

Although I'm usually writing about lessons learned on the farm, today's lesson is something that we always knew when we lived in the suburbs, but somehow we forgot it after eight years out here. Even when I was a little girl, my mother always said that if I ever saw a dog or cat that looked ill or injured, I should leave it alone. But after years of dealing with our own veterinary problems on the farm, seeing an injured, sick cat does not seem like big deal. It is.

Last night after finishing our milk test at 9-something, Katherine was checking out a cat that looked injured and sick. Suddenly it whipped its head around and bit her arm. The first thing that went through my head was that the cat was not vaccinated for rabies, so we took Katherine to the emergency room. The doctor asked about the cat that bit her, and as Mike and I described the cat's condition, the doctor's demeanor became more serious, and we felt dumber and dumber.

He had mustard-like diarrhea and was incontinent. He was dragging his tail, and had visible injuries. The doctor asked how he was walking. I said, "Slowly."

"Was he staggering?" she asked.

"I don't think so."

It was obvious the cat had recently been in a fight. It could have been fighting with another cat, or it could have been fighting with a rabid bat or skunk.

The doctor began to describe the prognosis for rabies. There is no cure for rabies. She said she was aware of one person who survived rabies, and it was after several months in a coma. Based upon the cat's condition, we should start rabies treatment immediately, especially since there was a chance that we might never find the cat and be able to have it tested for rabies.

Katherine looked nervous. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she nodded, saying "Go for it."

I nodded and said, "Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too."

 The good news is that the rabies vaccine is no longer the painful, sickening series of injections into the abdomen that it was 40 years ago. The bad news is that treatment involves more than the vaccine. Katherine received her first rabies vaccine in her left arm, and she said, "Oh, that wasn't bad."

The nurse said she would be back with the immune globulin. She returned with four little bottles. Each one contained two ccs. The contents of one bottle was injected in multiple pokes around the first puncture wound. I lost count of the pokes, but it was more than a dozen. Katherine began to tear up around the sixth or seventh poke, which was when I forgot about counting. The nurse told her she was tough and apologized for having to poke her so many times. After the first bottle was emptied around the first puncture, the nurse filled the syringe with the contents of another bottle for the second puncture wound. She repeated the injections around that wound, while I rubbed Katherine's back and held her hand and tried to take her mind off of it by making jokes.

"Hey, when you go to Wyoming on the biology trip this summer, you'll be able to fight off the wild bears and wolves, since you're vaccinated for rabies now!"

Katherine chuckled through her tears. The nurse said, "Oh, you're going to Wyoming? Where are you going?"

Our efforts to take her mind off the injections were futile. After responding, "Grand Tetons," which was only a partial answer, she complained about how much the injections hurt.

After emptying the second bottle, the nurse said the rest -- 4 ccs -- needed to go in Katherine's hip.

Finally, at 1:30 a.m., we were headed home. We talked about all the cats that are around farms because people dump them in the country when they no longer want them. We have become comfortable with animals that would have sent us scurrying in the other directions eight or nine years ago. Although we only have six or seven cats that come around here regularly, the neighbor has more than 20. I'm sure they feel just as comfortable with stray cats as we do.

It never occurred to us that any of the cats would bite one of us. They don't seem mean. But when an animal is injured or sick, its personality can change drastically -- as everyone's mother has preached. Even I used to say that when we lived in the suburbs! But in the burbs, how often did we see a stray cat? And they certainly did not hang around or come and go for months. There is one cat who sticks around for a few days and disappears for weeks. No one out here gets the cats fixed or vaccinated, because you could spend hundreds of dollars a year on them, and most don't survive a year. They're usually eaten by coyotes or raccoons as soon as they reach sexual maturity and start wandering, looking for a mate. Unfixed males fight viscously with each other.

It seemed that the humane thing to do was feed them, since it didn't cost much, and it kept them out of the woods hunting for wild birds, squirrels, voles, and other little animals to eat. But doing more than that seemed like a foolish waste of money. Now it seems that we only have two responsible choices -- either vaccinate every cat around here for rabies, or call Animal Control and have them picked up.

Life and death decisions

About three weeks ago, I noticed that Sterling the llama was very underweight. It can be tricky with fiber animals, because their fiber covers up their body so well. I happened to pet him while he was eating, and that's the only reason I knew he was having a problem. I brought him into the barn so I could monitor his food intake and pooping. I treated him for parasites and coccidia since his poop was sometimes pasty. He didn't improve. And a few days ago, I realized he was hardly eating his hay. I did a little research and took him down to the University of Illinois vet hospital yesterday. We learned that he has an abscessed tooth, which will cost $600-800 to remove.

Apparently, you can't just pull a tooth in the back of a llama's mouth. There's an access problem because their head is too long. The vet would have to go through the bottom of his jaw bone and push the tooth out of its socket and into his mouth. He'd have a hole there forever and could dribble saliva and stuff.

Is it worth it to spend that much on a 16 year old llama? He'll never produce that much fiber in the rest of his life, and he's a gelding, so he's not producing babies. From a strictly financial point of view, the answer is no. But I hate making decisions like this.

While driving home yesterday and thinking about this, a Miley Cyrus song came on the radio and I recalled a recent conversation with my daughter. She said she quit liking the singer after she heard that her father got mad at her when she spent tens of thousands of dollars on clothes one month. Now she's on a budget and can only spend a few thousand dollars a month on clothes. Maybe Miley Cyrus could give up a couple shirts or pair of pants and pay for my vet bills?

Sterling isn't the only animal that needs expensive vet care. There is also Trouper, the dog that someone dumped out here, who was then hit by a car. His broken pelvis has healed to the point that he can run again, but he has some kind of serious nerve damage, because he is completely incontinent. He dribbles all the time, and when he lays down, he makes a puddle. He also has no awareness of where his right rear leg is. He stops walking with it completely stretched out behind him, and sometimes he sits down with it twisted behind him. I've spent nearly $300 on this dog already, and he has not even been neutered or vaccinated. I'm hesitant to spend another hundred dollars in an attempt to get a diagnosis of a problem that I can't afford to fix.

He can't live in the house because of the incontinence, and he can't live outside because our livestock guardian has attacked him both times he's come in contact with him, even though they should be separated by fencing. The LGD is finding a way to get out. He hasn't escaped from the pasture in at least six months, so I'm sure he's doing it now because he perceives a threat. It took three of us to pull them apart the last time. What if there's a fight when only one person is home? Living in our barn office is no life for a dog.

And then there is the horse that was deserted here by his owner. He's been here on free pasture board almost from the beginning, and a couple years ago, after my daughter's horse died at the age of 30, I emailed the owner and asked if she'd like to take Merlot somewhere else, because he was lonely without other equine companionship. She sent me a very rude email saying that she couldn't afford to do anything with him, and if I was going to desert him, I should just have him put down. That was a decision I didn't want to make. But now, he's losing weight. I'm sure he needs to have his teeth floated, but that's at least $130, if they find nothing wrong with his teeth. But what if there is something else causing him to lose weight? What if he has other health problems? I know he has arthritis in his hock, which is so severe that the muscles in that hip started to atrophy a couple years ago. He also has EPM, which is a neurological problem that makes it impossible for him to be ridden, so he's not here for any reason, other than his owner deserted him, and I haven't had the courage to put him down or send him somewhere. I've heard the horse rescues are full anyway -- probably like the pit bull rescue that I contacted when we found the injured dog. What financially-strapped, over-worked rescue wants to take on an animal that they know has expensive health issues and will probably be unadoptable?

And that ignores the two cats that were dumped out here last summer. I wanted to get them neutered so that they'd stay here, safe in our barn, rather than venturing out looking for a girlfriend and getting eaten by coyotes. I haven't been able to get them fixed because of Trouper's vet bills.

It would cost thousands of dollars to take care of the vet bills of all five of these animals, four of which I never asked for. They were someone else's problem -- someone who was cowardly and irresponsible. I could never desert an animal and pretend that all is well.

But I do not have thousands of dollars to deal with all these problems. I don't want to see the llama and horse waste away. I don't want to see Trouper get killed by the LGD or live a lonely life in our barn office. I'm sick of seeing intact male cats fighting, and I hope I never again find the remains of a cat that was eaten by a coyote.

But I'm not rich enough to deal with other people's problems -- people who are blissfully ignorant of the pain and suffering of their former pets.

It boils down to some very uncomfortable, painful decisions for me, decisions I never wanted to make.

Kitten rescue

Margaret and I were driving down Rt. 23 this afternoon, and two kittens were frolicking on the shoulder, which is completely unacceptable on a road where most people drive 60-65 mph. As we went past the kittens, I shrieked, "It's kittens!" Margaret slammed on the brakes and started to back up. The kittens were getting closer to the middle of the road, and two more cars were rapidly approaching. When the kittens saw us running towards them, they ran into the tall grass in the ditch.

We walked around calling, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty." But they were understandably freaked out and hiding. Margaret found one quickly and picked it up, but the other was doing a better job of concealing himself. Margaret meowed, and just as I was about to make a joke about her method, I heard a kitten's meow. "Holy cow! I can't believe that worked. She's talking back at you. Do it again." So, Margaret meowed again, and I moved closer to the sound. Margaret meowed again, the kitten answered, and I got a little closer. After repeating this script a few times, I finally spotted the kitten and was able to catch it.

My little kitten hissed at me and laid his ears back, trying to look vicious, but he just made me smile. I put him in my lap for the drive home, and he stuck his head under my arm, trying to hide. Once home, we put them in the barn office and gave them some cat food. One ran under the futon and refused to come back out, but the little gray and white one stuck his nose into the food and rooted around like a pig. It seemed obvious that he had no idea what to do with dry food, so I sent Margaret into the house for some canned food. Although they did do a little better with the canned food, it is clear they have not eaten much solid food. Taking another step back, we gave them some goat milk.

They were on the road at least half a mile from the nearest farm house, and these kittens are only about four or five weeks old, so I'm assuming they were dumped. I can't imagine these tiny babies leaving their mama and a good home. They're really not big enough to be weaned. One fits in my hand and weighs about a pound, although they are admittedly thin and bony. Still, I've eaten baked potatoes bigger than these babies. The little one in the photo is all fur. I'm happy to report that he quickly decided that he could trust me, and I spent quite a bit of time carrying the kitten and walking around looking at Mike's new picket fence, but that's a post for tomorrow. The other kitten is hiding in the barn office, but she'll come out in due time once she realizes she's safe.

Busy week and random thoughts

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in a week. Bad blogger! In my defense, I have been very busy. Isn't that ironic -- I don't have time to write when I have tons of things to write about!

All of the lambs are doing great. The day after my last post, another ewe lambed. She had two white rams. Since we can't really support more than about 20 sheep year-round, my husband is getting excited about all the lamb in the freezer next year. Did I mention we served leg of lamb for Easter? It was a huge hit. We used this recipe. We will definitely be doing it again!

Yesterday, I took Cicada the goat (yes, she's named after a bug) to the vet. She's been limping and not putting any weight on her right, front leg, so I was thinking it's probably broken. The x-ray looked completely normal, so $90 later, we left the vet with a bottle of anti-inflammatory meds to keep her comfortable while whatever soft tissue injury heals.

While sitting in the office, I overheard the receptionist tell someone on the phone that the cost to spay a cat is $250. The person immediately hung up. No wonder people don't get animals spayed. Is that standard? My little country vet is charging $95 to spay Sam the barn cat, which seems reasonable. A few months ago I found a site that showed the median income for people in various towns, and I was surprised to learn that it's about $15-20K in the towns around here. So, spaying a cat would be 1-2% of their annual income.

So, this reminded me of the c-section article I read a couple months ago where the people took their goat to the vet and were told that it would be $800 for a c-section. Before leaving, I asked what a c-section would cost, and they said $400. So, if a goat ever needs a c-section, I am definitely taking it to U of I. They said between $150 and $250.

Tomorrow, Sam the barn cat will be spayed. She had her kittens earlier this month, but she was obviously so freaked out by the whole experience that she had no idea what to do. She gave birth in the middle of the night when no one was out there, and she got blood all over the barn office. It looks like she kept moving from one place to another, even after she started having kittens. Although their noses looked clean, they were not at all fluffy, so she didn't clean them off. The unfinished wood floor is obviously stained for life. I'm not sure about the futon, but at least it can be covered. She did eventually figure out what the box was for and had the last two kittens in there.

Today, we're going to do some barn cleaning. The cheesemaking class Saturday morning starts out in the barn, so it needs to look somewhat presentable -- as presentable as a barn can ever look when animals live in it. I just love those barn brochures we get in the mail where they have a picture of a brand new barn, sparkling clean, with a single happy horse looking at you. I hope no one is expecting that when they come here!

Soap making, barn cleaning, and kittens coming!

What a day! We were only able to make three batches of soap, because I didn't have enough goat milk frozen. So, we must freeze more milk, so we can make more soap. I haven't made soap without goat milk in six years. Once you put milk in your soap, you just can't make soap without milk. Since using my own goat milk soap, I haven't needed lotion except in the dead of winter, because my skin is not all dried out like it was when I was using commercial soap.

I spent much of today in the kitchen. We had pasta for lunch along with homemade crackers and soft garlic pretzels. For dinner, I made a couple loaves of honey-wheat bread, and Katherine made two quiches. It's egg season again! Jonathan found two dozen eggs today, so it's time to pull out the recipes that use lots of egg. Katherine made pound cake yesterday, which actually uses more eggs than a quiche.

Mike and Jonathan worked on cleaning out more barn stalls today. I need to get a picture of the compost pile. It's huge! Hope this hot composting works! We'll have tons (literally) of black gold.

And finally, yesterday Margaret said to me that she thought Sam the barn cat was pregnant. Yes, I agree. Having never intended to breed cats, I obviously did not educate myself enough on the reproductive system of felines. On Feb. 4, I blogged about how I thought Bogie was reaching sexual maturity because he was trying to mate Sam. Well, in retrospect, I realize that Sam was in heat! I thought that when cats were in heat, they made a lot of noise. I never heard Sam make a single meow. She was (and still is) so tiny, I didn't think she was old enough to be a mama. Being a stray, I didn't know how old she was. So, today I did a lot of web research on cat pregnancy and birth.

Sam and Bogie still live in the small barn office, and today I gave her a box with a towel in it for her nest. The web articles all agreed on the importance of a nest for a mama cat. And we're providing her with unlimited high-quality food so she can feed herself and her babies. Supposedly they need twice as much food at the end of pregnancy. From what I read, I shouldn't worry too much about her being young. One article even said that problems are more likely to occur in a cat closer to two that's never been bred before. So, if indeed she was in heat on Feb. 4, she should have her babies somewhere between April 5 and 10. I guess all we can do now is wait . . . and plan to get her spayed when her babies are a couple months old.

Patches arrived on our farm five years ago, small and pregnant, and she was a perfectly wonderful mama. We had no idea when her babies were due. One day she came to the barn to eat and was quite thin, so the girls followed her to a hollow tree where she'd had her babies. They tried to move the babies to the barn, but Patches thought the tree was a much better home. One by one, she carried them all back to the hollow tree. When they were a couple weeks old, she then decided they should live in the barn, and one by one, she brought them to the barn.

At least we have some idea when Sam is due, and she will give birth in the barn office, which is much safer than a hollow tree where they could get eaten by raccoons or a coyote.

Freaking out in the Twilight Zone

Life just keeps getting weirder. The faltering economy means different things to different people, and it's hard to comprehend what it means out here. After taking a couple of kittens off my neighbor's hands, I mentioned to the vet that people were dumping an awful lot of cats lately. She said that's because the county can't afford to keep them in the pound, so they won't take any from owners. So, owners are just dumping them out in the country. That was sad enough, but I heard something even sadder this weekend.

Apparently, not knowing what else to do with them, some people are castrating stray males themselves. I won't repeat the procedure here, because it was rather barbaric -- sounds like something from the Civil War era surgical books -- and I certainly don't want to give anyone else any ideas. The person who told me about it said that most of them survive.

Then today I received a letter from a couple of Shetland shepherds who can no longer care for their sheep and are looking to give them away to someone. They had photocopied their letter and just filled in my first name after "Dear" in the salutation of the letter, so the letter obviously went to a number of people with Shetlands.

A friend also called today and started telling me about people deserting horses in parks that allow riding. Since horses cost a small fortune to keep boarded, and no one is buying horses right now, some people take them to the parks to ride them, and then just leave them when no one is looking.

And to put icing on the cake today, I had a visit from a very suspicious man. He called last week and asked a lot of questions about taking care of goats, then he said he'd stop by sometime and asked me for directions. I told him to call whenever he was ready to head over, and I'd give him directions then. Well, today my phone rang, and he said he was outside looking at my sheep. I told him I'd be right outside, and he said that I didn't need to come out. He just didn't want me to worry if I looked out the window and saw someone with my animals. He was just going to head back down the road so he could look at my goats.

"No, just give me a minute, and I'll be right out!"

"Oh, no, I don't want to bother you. You don't need to come outside," he said in this sweet grandfatherly-sounding voice.

"Well, you won't know who you're looking at or what if I'm not out there to tell you."

"Oh, that's okay. I just want to see what they look like. I don't want to bother you."

And we went back and forth until Jonathan saw him pulling into the driveway, and I blurted out, "Don't get out of your car! I have a big dog, and he hates strangers, and I don't know where he is! Don't get out of your car until I get out there!" He stopped arguing at that point, and I went out to meet him. (I knew exactly where both my dogs were, by the way.)

He was short and a little overweight with a long white untrimmed beard and no teeth. I took him into the barn to see the babies, and he said that he just wanted to see what they looked like so he'd know what size crate he'd need to transport one. Then he starts sizing up the adults, even though I never said the adults were for sale. He pointed to Coco and asked, "Is that one pregnant?" I said yes. And he started talking about what a good home they'd have and how they'd be in "goat heaven." That was a phrase he kept repeating -- "goat heaven." I know it's a metaphor, but somehow it was making me really uncomfortable. After he left, I realized he didn't ask any questions that buyers normally ask -- not even prices! He never asked any of the goats' names or production history or anything. As he went to leave, he never said anything about getting back to me, calling me later, or buying a goat. But he did keep talking about what a good home they'd have and how happy the goats would be in "goat heaven."

Okay, so, I suppose this man could be completely devoid of any normal social skills, but it's hard for me to believe that anyone could be so clueless. I had to practically threaten the man with being mauled by my dog before he would let me come out into my yard to show him my animals!

I asked him how he found our place, and he said he just went to the gas station in town and asked, "Where's Old MacDonald's Farm?" and someone gave him directions. That seems really strange also, but I don't think my physical address is on the net anywhere.

Needless to say, the barn is locked tonight! I wish I had a way to lock up the sheep. I am freaked out though, knowing two goat breeders who've had goats stolen, and reading the Shetland shepherd's story about her neighbor's cow being shot with an arrow and butchered in the pasture. We should probably be looking at how we can put all the animals behind locked doors and gates. The world is getting increasingly weird and scary.

Waiting for Charlotte

Last night, I slept in the barn with the goats. I was in the office, but it wasn't that comfortable. When it's getting close to 0 degrees F, that little heater doesn't do a great job of warming up the office. Then, I realized that Bogie is obviously reaching sexual maturity, because he kept trying to mate Sam, which she did not appreciate at all. Since they were strays, I don't really know how old they are, but it looks like it's time to get them fixed before she comes into heat.

Yesterday morning, Margaret thought Charlotte's ligaments were gone on one side. Katherine agreed, and she went out there frequently during the day while I was teaching. I arrived home last night and decided to stay out there since it was supposed to be 5 degrees F, and Charlotte is now at day 149. Nigerians don't usually go past 151 days, so she has to be getting close.

Charlotte is also Sherri's daughter, and like Sherri and her other daughters, Charlotte's labor last year was quick and quiet up until she was about to actually give birth. We got lucky last year, although it was June, so the baby probably would have been okay if we hadn't been there. A couple was here buying goats, and as I was leaving the barn to send them on their way home, I heard Charlotte scream. As soon as they were gone, I got Katherine, and Charlotte kidded within 10 minutes after we got there. So, you can see why I don't want to leave her alone for very long.

New barn residents

On Friday, I went to the neighbor's to castrate a goat that someone gave them, and I came home with two kittens. They are living in a room (with a television, heater, and upholstered chair) in one of our barns until they get used to the place. I wish they'd stay in the barns all the time. That's where we need them to eat the mice, and they'd be safe in there. But since cats are independent little critters, they'll go wherever they want. The blue striped one is a boy, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to call him Bogie, short for Humphrey Bogart.

The other one is a girl. She's a calico, and I've heard they only come in female. I had forgotten that little fact as I picked her up and started to cuddle her. Then I looked under her tail. I tried not to like her, but she is just so cute! She is also a vicious little thing! When I brought in Sneakers, the resident barn cat, she attacked him! He completely ignored her. I can't decide what to name her ... Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall both starred with Bogart in movies. Margaret thinks we should name her Audrey Hepburn, but she never starred in any movies with Bogart. Any ideas?