Ok scat experts, help me out here - Final Update - FERAL CAT

Most wild animals are highly territorial. They don’t know where food/water is in their new location, and will likely get killed by the incumbent if they don’t starve or dehydrate to death first.

It’s also illegal nearly everywhere, unless you have landowner permission where you’re releasing.

Wildlife-Translocation-WDM-Technical-Series.pdf

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It looks like not attracting them and excluding is the first step.

How you manage your rodents has a knock on effect to larger animals. A mouse that is vocalizing for hours and trapped on a glue board is not only easy pickings for larger predators, but the noise will get noticed by things that would like a snack.

Being upset that you might have a bobcat here when you yourself are setting up the situation to bring it in is weird. A bobcat isn’t going to risk going into a structure without a pretty significant draw.

We all live in the world with wildlife and they really have as much right to exist as we do. Keeping that in mind as you protect your own space can go a long way to humane control and keeping your own footprint on that web as small as possible. You seem more interested in a “slash and burn” approach. Yeah, you might not like some of the consequences of that. Like perhaps now you have a bobcat who thinks it can find an easy meal in your barn.

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We don’t even know what it is. Calm the eff down.

This is supposed to be a fun-type thread, but you just can’t seem to relax about anything. The snap traps are NOT EFFECTIVE the way the glueboards are, I’ve stated as such. They also don’t have a 100% kill rate, as evidenced by me and another person stating they had the same experience.

Your way of dealing with things is not the only way. I will protect my horse’s feed by any means necessary, without introducing a non-native species to hunt the vermin. My line is drawn with poisons and secondary kills (but hey, I’m so shitty).

I’d rather put a panel at the top of the wall to exclude all larger animals than allow mice to live in my horse’s hay unchecked, or poorly checked. That’s my way. You don’t like it? Great, it’s not your place to worry about it.

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Totally. There are a lot of roads to Rome. Tons of different ways to control rodent incursion. All sorts of options.

Tons of ways to control rodents that may have less of risk drawing larger predators.

Which you’re complaining about.

If something bigger came into your barn to eat the mouse on the glue board, you have some onus there. The choice to use glue boards is yours.

You could … idk … try something different. :woman_shrugging:

Or not :woman_shrugging: But if something was attracted to your barn because of the buffet you’re offering, you may get more of that.

Having to kill a bobcat, or even a cat, or a skunk, or whatever, because you made a choice to leave it a meal, and then got upset because it took you up on your offer, is pretty sad.

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Oh JFC. Wildlife come in the barn ANYways, for a million other reasons than mice.

And that mouse could have been dead already. Or half dead in a snap trap screaming it’s lungs out.

You’re making this out like getting wildlife in a barn is some kind of oddity. It’s not.

Instead of trying to control the rodent incursion (which is pissing into the wind), I will exclude the larger animals. That’s my road to rome. One is possible, the other is impossible. My glue traps aren’t causing the death of anything. Neither are my “shitty” bait stations.

Chill out with the sanctimonious baloney.

Oh, and UPDATE. My husband got home before me and in the trap was a…

DRUMROLL…

FERAL CAT! It was the same little black one that got into the back yard and beat the fire out of our dogs.

To the shelter he goes. He causes too many problems around here to stick around. Please, people who have cats - keep them inside.

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Goodbye little kitty. You’re cute, but you’re too brave to live here. The doggos are the incumbents, and you bother them often.

IMG_20241223_151655.heic (2.9 MB) IMG_20241223_151700.heic (2.2 MB)

Do you have small dogs? I’ve never heard of a cat winning a fight against a dog (admittedly I’ve owned one cat ever).

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Our dogs are soft mouthed hunting dogs. They wanted to bring kitty inside, not kill it.

Kitty did not appreciate this, of course, and the dogs were being persistent, getting clawed over and over again.

Our yard is 6’ chain link with dig defense along the entire perimeter. No easy way out by design - it’s to keep the dogs in, not let stray critters out.

Dogs were covered in blood, all their own.

A relative of mine worked at Manna Pro and at one point they were releasing cats to try to control the rodent population. Over time, the kitties started to disappear… and then they realized that the rodents were so large and I guess jacked on high protein animal feed that they were taking over and killing all the cats…

Or, you could just lighten up. I’ve seen a couple of mice caught on glue traps in various places, none of which screamed at all, let alone for hours. They seemed to have a bit more self preservation than just screaming while trapped. And yes, I’m able to hear mice scream which is a weird thing to say. I’ve heard them scream before. Mice are generally present in barns anyways, they are going to draw in predators by scent, glue traps or not.

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:weary::cry: poor kids

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That was my guess. For anyone that thinks that scat is too big to be a cat, they haven’t seen feral cat scat compared to cat food fed cats.

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Your photos are not visible… the extension does not work for chrome.

Try two, using a screenshot.

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Soooo… what are your plans for him? I’m somehow presuming it’s a him. How wild is he? Do you have access to a free feral spay/neuter program? I had to wait 6 months to get the feral tom who showed up here to get gelded for free by the SPCA. And he was semi tame by then. And now he sleeps in my arms, purring, every night LOL.

Edit… I see he’s going to be surrendered. Well, I hope someone adopts him from your animal control agency.

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If he was more timid, I’d have entertained him staying, but he walks the backyard fence line about every other day, jazzing up the dogs. He’s the same one that got saliva-mauled in the backyard, so if he didn’t learn to steer clear from that, he’s not going to learn. He seemed really tame, didn’t hiss in the trap etc.

I really don’t want cats, honestly.

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With a good cat, you get your mouse problem eradicated for you. They work really well for that.

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Yes they would. Still don’t want any. :slight_smile:

I’m not a cat person, but I love my barn kitties. They are more entertaining than my dogs and loads of fun.

Hopefully your catch finds a good spot.

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When I first saw the scat, I 100% thought cat. Then I doubted myself because others didn’t! So I guess I’m not surprised it’s a cat.

I hope he finds a good home! He was probably content with his free life and reign of terror though :rofl:

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