I have a friend who had a barn cat, no horses, just a barn/garage/ workshop. The cat died last week of old age. She wants a new cat and needs to find a mouser. How can you tell if a cat is going to be a good mouser?
I have been told that if you want a good mouser, get a kitten whose mama is a good mouser. I don’t know if it’s bloodlines or the mama’s training techniques. Probably both.
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And to further elaborate, make sure the young cat has spent enough time with Mom to actually learn to mouse. (My two house/couch potatoes catch the odd mouse that gets into my house, but they have NO idea what to do with it unless it happens to die from too much rough play, which is decidedly not pleasant! And they were born in a barn!)
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I have no idea, and I have a million cats, most of them rescued as kittens. Some are really good at it and some aren’t. The best mouser I ever had, one who rid a field of gophers, was a bottle baby from the time she was two weeks old when her mom was killed by a dog. Two other good mousers are adult females I rescued to be barn/yard cats because they have no where to go after TNR. Both of them are true ferals, raised outside. My females seem to be more dedicated to hunting. The males will hunt if it is convenient, but aren’t as motivated.
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When family friends wanted some of my rescued cats to be mousers on their plantation, I went to the humane society and got 4 cats off of death row, they actually put a code on the back of the cards on their cages saying to kill them when space is needed, and one of the cats, a 6 months old tortie, had the note “has never been outside the house.” Ok so 4 cats get spayed, are taken over where caretaker feeds them and they have to work as mousers by the house on the place, and I was told that “my” cats were terrific because they had caught mice and the tortie had one mouse under each front paw that morning. The kitties lasted a few years longer than if they’d stayed at the pound and been killed. Either gators or eagles got them like they did the lambs there, but those kitties, including the “never been out of the house” kitty were great mousers.
At one barn, the one mama cat (spayed) did not kill the rats. But when a new rat killer was brought in, she learned what to do. So if one kitty does not kill, another kitty can teach her to kill.
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I got mine as kittens from a farm down in the valley below my place. Someone I knew was helping them get their population down to more reasonable levels and get everyone spayed and neutered. They’re probably 40th generation inbred farm cats, but they’re both sweet AND murderous as hell. The girl caught a rat that was practically the same size as her within a week of them being loose in the barn… Then she skinned it and used it’s pelt as a toy for weeks… I knew then and there I found some good ones! :lol:
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I have a few TNR ferals, and they do a pretty good job. We have an organization nearby that’s dedicated to placing cats that are too feral to be good candidates for household adoption in rural outdoor barns and other similar locations. So that’s where I got my cats. They were spayed/neutered and vaccinated, then brought out to my farm, the organization loaned me a couple of large dog crates for the first few weeks so they’d adjust to the idea that this was their home, and since then the rodent population has noticeably decreased. Though they do like to deposit the carcasses by their food bowls, lol.
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My local shelter will put a note in the write up about a specific cat. Since some of those cats are owner surrenders, they try to get as much history as possible. They will also adopt out “barn cats,” and they do the feral cat trapping, sometimes trapping females with litters.
Last summer I fostered an 8 week old feral kitten to get him used to humans. While we don’t have mice in our house, his sister who was with a different family did catch a mouse in their house!
I guess my point is to check with your local shelter and see what they have to offer.
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I think it’s pretty much the luck of the draw. I have three barn cat siblings, all born in my barn to an unwelcome feral mother (I let her stay with the kittens). Their mother left and never came back once they were about 7 weeks old. These three are very different from each other (all are spayed/neutered):
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Male tabby. Incredibly lazy. Can always be found lounging around the barn, or within 50 feet. I saw him with a kill one time in the last 6 years. He likes to attack baling twine when I open new bales.
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Female black & white. The small pony’s best friend and can always be found hanging out near the horses, wherever they are. She’s usually very close to the small pony. I think she does a fair amount of hunting.
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Black female. This is the friendliest of the three (all are friendly) and purrs as soon as you touch her. She is also the biggest hunter and roams the farthest. Sometimes I won’t see her for a few days. She likes to bring things she kills into one of my horses’ stalls, where she usually eats most of it.
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I found mine dumped on the side of the road as a tiny kitten. She never got really big but she is a voracious hunter. Kills rats as big as she is. My boy ( fixed) cats are useless. When Gremlin was a little kitten I got her a stuffed mouse toy to play with. I would throw it and she would go pounce on it, throw it into the air and carry it around her mouth. Maybe I taught her? I think she is just hard wired that way. She doesn’t travel away from home. She likes her Fancy Feast too much. She likes to ride on the hood of the car when I drive in from work and if I didn’t see her I would worry.
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