Farm Cat

Farm cats are domestic cats which live on a farm or in an otherwise rural environment. Farm cats are different from pet cats in so far as farm cats are not part of the family. Often, they do not even have names. They are not allowed inside the home. Instead they live inside a barn or other farm structure, or under the porch or in a grove of trees. They are allowed to run free, to roam. They are also allowed to reproduce at will.

Farm cats are allowed to exist, and are even encouraged to exist, for the purpose of reducing the amount of vermin on a farm. As the farm cats multiply and exhaust the supply of mice and moles near the house or barn, they expand their territory to the neighboring fields. Without some locus of control, they will continue to expand their range and lose connection with the dominion of man until successive generations become feral.

To maintain a nexus of control, farm cats are usually fed. Once a day, or once a week, a dose of extra cream is poured out for them, or perhaps a bag of Cat Chow is sliced open and left to lay in a sheltered, dry area. Cats must be kept around the house and barn — no matter how far they should roam — or else the mice will return.

Besides the potential expense of raising the potentially large cat cooperative, the benefit of reducing vermin is balanced by the the increasing visits by carnivorous predators: bobcat, owl, coyote, and the like. They find a highly dense population of cats, particularly slow and inexperienced kittens, to be good for their population density as well. Cats make more obvious prey than chickens and goats.

Farm cats are considered an economical commodity in the rural community. Their company may be enjoyed from time to time if they should want to agree to be petted, but it is generally understood that such pleasure is the same as one derives from petting a head of beef. It is still not a pet.

The Hangar

I currently live with friends Ferne & Roger at their berm (earth-integrated) home under a hangar at a private airport. Just before they moved to the hangar two years ago, they received a gift of three kittens from a family member. The kittens were raised to age-of-majority in the home they were departing, and were immediately released into the hangar when they relocated.

Having been in the home for most of their young lives, it was understood that these three cats were indeed pets. But they were released into the hangar unspayed/neutered with the intention of raising farm cats. All three of the cats were highly affectionate and sensitive to people. During spring and fall, one simply need sit down in a reclining camp chair under the canopy of the hangar door when one or more of the cats would find you, nuzzle you or hop into your lap, and relax into your care as you relaxed from their company.

The three cats became two as the eldest was given away as a gift. Of the remaining two — not litter mates — the female (Lace) became pregnant before the male (Chantilly, or Chanty for masculine-sounding short) failed to return from an outing across the runway. Lace gave birth to four kittens and essentially weaned them before she, too, failed to return home.

Somewhere at 3-4 weeks old, one of the kittens developed a strange boil on its chest. Thinking it was some kind of benign cyst, we ignored it. However, in order to be able to specify which kitten was in trouble, the kittens all required names. Blaze, the long-hair runt, had a blaze of bright fur on her face, and the tumor on its chest. Tiger was an obvious name for the grey and black striped short-hair. Colico was a geeky name given to the introverted isolationist short-hair calico kitten. And Spike was given to the golden murky mottled long-hair with a ridge of stiff black hair like a razorback hog.

Blaze was handled frequently to assess the nature of her tumor. This apparently helped to bring out her human acceptance traits from her mother. It also helped to lead to early detection of hair falling away from the tumor site, and an eventual abscess. A quick call to the vet led to a diagnosis of it being a bot-fly grub. Yes, a large fly larva had taken up illicit residence inside our kitten — it was intended for a bunny rabbit, and was no doubt picked up by Lace from a burrow when she hunted.

We could pay for a surgery, or, as it was not otherwise causing Blaze any pain, simply let it run it’s course. The abscess was a breathing hole for the grub, and it would eventually grow to maturity and exit through the hole. Which it did, a few weeks later. A few weeks after that, Blaze was growing hair back, and the scar is undetectable in adulthood.

Blaze the young adult cat always showed an affinity for people, and Tiger’s curiosity eventually brought her into the same affectionate fold, although Tiger’s strong, deliberate personality manifests it differently. Colico remained aloof, seemingly terrified of people, and Spike followed her sister’s demeanor at first.

Colico was the first, and so far only, of the sisters to not return. Spike slowly accepted the presence of people and lost her fear. After she became pregnant, she moved from tolerance to dependency and friendship as she realized only people put out food.

Spike was the last of the three to become pregnant. Tiger was the first, followed about two weeks later by Blaze, and another two-weeks for Spike. Tiger chose to have her kittens on top of a room in the hangar, making her kittens entirely out of reach to human hands until into their teen-years when they were able and willing to walk down the ramp we constructed to the food tray. They are entirely wild concerning people, but we know they have good genes, and we are determined to develop tolerance if not affection.

Blaze nested in a location easily accessible to people, and she invited us to visit them as soon as she thought they were ready. Her kittens are in the 6-8 week age range, and seem to enjoy people as much as their sires. Blaze’s kittens are as distinct as her sisters, and have merited names. Peaches is a golden fuzzball, Smokey or Smoke is a dark gray fuzzball. The two others are shorter-haired gray stripes with white paws. One of them has a white blaze across its nose and mouth – this is Cream, as it looks like its been in the milk. The other has darker stripes near its eyes, so it has been named Bandit. Bandit is fearless of people like her mother. Peaches and Cream, Smokey and Bandit.

Spike nested in a box by a door, where her kittens were found by Cami, a black labrador. Cami removed each one of the one-week old kittens without injury and placed them on display on a rug for us to see. Needless to say she was not praised for this action and quickly learned that kittens were not trophies or playthings and should generally be left alone.

Spike moved her kittens that night, and then again after I stumbled upon them three days later. They are currently in an inaccessible corner of the hangar.

Early in our discussion of the disposition of these kittens, and the costs of feeding 16 cat-mouths (and at least one dog’s – Cami is also pregnant at this time) it was agreed that the kittens are all farm cats. If you have an abundance of farm cats, you get to take a little target practice with the .22… I didn’t say this, but I agreed to it, in the pragmatic terms of finances and rural living. Just as long as I understood the order of things.

Friday

My folks had come to visit; having met us about an hour’s drive away for the start of a town festival and the kick-off of a Pow Wow, they followed us home to spend the night in the RV parked outside the hangar. After ministrations of moving them into the camper and tidying up the hangar, it was approaching midnight. The hangar door needed to be closed as there was a potential for storms all weekend.

The hangar door is some 40+ feet long and 12 feet high. It is 2×4 construction with corrugated poly-panels. It swings up and down over six garage-style wheel channels via a cable-n-pully system powered by a wench from a B-52 bomber. It moves very slowly, taking about 5 minutes to close from fully open.

I was operating the 3-position toggle switch, while Ferne made a fuss about getting cats out of the way. I was feigning detachment, saying, “They need to learn. A little surprise will keep them safer.” I lowered the door down until it was about 5 inches from closed. Then I proceeded to surge it for a moment, letting the door down another half-to-one inch. Ferne ran from front to back, making sure all the kittens were out of the way.

As we began, she told me to wait while she removed one of the kittens from outside who for whatever reason thought that squatting down in the shadow of the big door was a good idea. Then she came back inside to check the strike edge of the slab. I lowered the door again. She ran around checking. I lowered it again. “Are we okay?” “Yeah, I think so,” came the reply. I lowered it again.

By now, I would guesstimate we were around two inches or less from the ground. In my mind, I imagined that any cat or kitten who has thought to be in the space would have realized it was coming down and escaped the confinement. As Ferne ran from the back to the front checking, I gave it a slight tap, just to nudge any kitten that might have been sitting next to the door.

“Wait! NO! RAISE IT! RAISE IT!” I flipped the switch the other direction. As the door came up, I asked, “What!?!” What followed was a long litany of swearing in my direction. My folks already bedded down in the RV nearby, Roger came over at Ferne’s shrieks to investigate. “Oh, no,” I hear him say. I am completely in the blind on the inside of the hangar.

They come around the corner holding Bandit. He was breathing, and except for his motionless rest in their hands I couldn’t imagine a thing wrong with him. Until I saw his bulging eyes.

Roger described that as the door came up, his right rear leg was over his back. Clearly he had realized he was stuck and was trying to dig himself out in reverse. How he could have allowed himself to be trapped, I can’t imagine.

I responded to Ferne’s accusations with mild indignity and detachment. “We’ve talked about this, remember? These are farm cats. If we can’t feed them, we shoot them. Let nature take it’s course, remember?”

“Shooting them is not the same as squishing them!” came the reply. “Then lets get the .22,” was my even response.

Roger held Bandit on Bandit’s left side, as we all assumed his right rear leg was displaced or broken. His ribs all seemed in place. He was essentially non-responsive to stimulus. We agreed we should roll him to his right side for a moment just to check for any breaks on the left. As we made that transition, he postured, locking his forelegs in full extension and craning his neck back in a full silent scream.

We quickly, gently rolled him back to the left, and he quickly released his posture.

“Well, if we’re not going to shoot him…” I went to find a box and several clean rags and we laid him in it to rest. I then went downstairs and called the nearest vet. His wife answered the phone; the doc was out of town. So I tried the vet in the next nearest town. His wife brought him the phone; “We’re overbooked, I don’t know that I could deal with him in the morning. You’ll have to take him into the city.”

Ferne & Roger brought the box down into the house, and we got ready for bed. The vet said there’s not a lot to do for him; waiting to treat his leg won’t make a significant difference in its healing. We agreed to wait and see if he survived the night. Ferne apologized for all the things she shouted, and I apologized for squishing him. Everyone went to sleep.

As the night wore on it soaked in that somewhere along the line these farm cats had become pets, and I hadn’t been informed. I was responsible for injuring a pet. It was not willful, but it was wanton. And then the guilt set in. It is the most horrible kind. For you see, I am very forgiving.

Except for myself.

Saturday

I was up at sunrise. So was the kitten; at least he was still breathing, and had peed the towels. I showered, dressed, and looked up vets in the city. There was a 24-hour animal hospital on the far side of the city from us where I’d taken pets before. There was also a regular vet on the near side where Ferne & Roger had taken Cami before. They opened at 8am.

I left the house at 7:45, heading for the city. Some of the web reviews of the 24-hour vet service were terrible, one person even referencing a court case. An X-ray machine would be the deciding factor. If the regular vet had an X-ray, then I wouldn’t have to risk the terrible doctor. When I reached them at 8:01, I explained my victim and asked about their equipment. Their answer indicated was heading to the regular vet.

The kitten was mostly sleepy, but every so often he would stir to yelp like mad, then back to slumber. It was heart-wrenching. It was only the beginning of the wrenching. I had prayed that God would heal the kitten and find another way to discipline me if that’s why it had happened. He had to heal the kitten; there was no other way that I could let myself live.

The doctor ordered a steroidal anti-inflammatory immediately during the initial exam. Then they carted Bandit off for X-ray. I was left in the exam room to cry.

When the orderly summoned me to the doctor’s side, I couldn’t quite read her bedside manner, but it didn’t seem bleak. Indeed, the doctor confirmed this: there were no broken bones; one thoracic vertebra was slightly misaligned, but not cracked or broken, the disks appearing slightly swollen. No, the doctor’s greatest concern was the brain swelling, evidenced by the bulging eyes.

The doc prescribed 3 doses of Metrocal (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) and two-weeks of isolated bed rest to heal from the concussion and injuries. He suggested a cat-taxi as an ideal cage, to prevent exacerbation of injuries and to protect from predators and tormenting by his litter-mates. “Two weeks exactly, or…” I asked?

“You’ll know for sure that he’s healed because he’ll be going bonkers to get out! …call us in three days to update us.”

I went by PetSmart and picked up some age-correct solid food, several cans of wet food, a pair of eyedroppers, and a set of stainless water/food bowls — this last thing was a guilt purchase.

Back home, my folks were up and everyone gathered around for the prognosis and to wish the little guy well. I was tormented, but doing my best to appear normal. We were supposed to drive back to the festival and spend the day shopping, eating, listening to music, and generally pouring money into the local economy. I had already decided I would not go. I didn’t expect that I was going to be able to enjoy myself, and I felt it was my penance for the cat.

When I expressed my thought, my dad flat-out told me I was being a stupid-ass! My mom was more gentle in explaining that they came down to go to the festival with me, that it was my idea. I relented.

I gave him several eyedroppers of water. We wrapped the kitten in more terry-rags, added a water dish and a small tin pan of litter, and let him rest.

It was late when we returned. I tried to feed the kitten some of the soft food, but he showed no interest. He had made poopies, and there was a wet spot in the towel. So we cleaned his bedding, I watered him again, and we went to bed.

I was up every few minutes, it seemed. He would be silent, then wail for about a minute, then fall silent again for.. an hour? Two? Each time I would try to water him, feed him the soft food, feed him kibble softened in water, pet him…something to address his need. And he would quiet, and I would almost sleep, before repeating the process.

Sunday

Sunrise finds me exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I shower first, since I’m already awake, but this is simply a physical status. My mind is spent from focusing so near at hand, instead of the far horizons I am used to. And I am emotionally spent from the accusations that arise from each mewing wail of Bandit.

I manage to get through breakfast, but my expressed desire to not go to church was again met with disapproval. “I’ll fall asleep!” I said. “You need to go,” he said, “if for nothing else, for… an attitude adjustment.” It was Father’s Day. How could I argue with my dad?

After church I set about trying to feed Bandit. He seemed interested, but the tiny chunks of squishy kibble or diced chicken dinner from a can seemed beyond his ability. I thought a visit from his mother might help, both to calm his fears and to supply him with milk.

The other men were on the porch working the grill, with Ferne bustling in the kitchen and Mom sitting with me helping with the kitten. She held Bandit while I fetched Blaze. We folded a large towel and placed it on the table and Bandit on that, then I put Blaze on the towel with him. Blaze examined Bandit intensely for a moment, then seemed convinced he was in good hands and proceeded to turn her attention to his food. Bandit on the other hand was very interested in his mother, but he was unable to walk yet, so he just rolled and pitched, trying to locate her by feel and smell.

At one point, Bandit locked his back claws into the towel, and launched himself, twice in rapid succession, toward the edge of the table. Images of him falling and snapping his back, or a new concussion, or any other additional guilt filled my mind as I yelped in my own agony. I pulled him back to safety, put Blaze in a nursing position and held her there. Bandit didn’t appear to know how to nurse, and Blaze was not making it easy.

I broke down. “I…can’t… do…this!…myself!… cat…I’m…a…failure…cant…help…him…cat…cant…do…this…” After an initial chuckle, when Ferne realized I was in distress she came over and hugged me. My mom, not used to this at all, didn’t know what to do except put her hand on her arm, and help hold Bandit in place. “I…don’t…have…pets…for a reason!.. I…don’t…have…houseplants…for a reason!..I..can’t…stand…to…watch them…wither!…”

My mom starts asking, “Is it because Blaze won’t feed? That’s not your fault…”

“NO…,” I sobbed, “not…the…point…” We played this guessing game for a question or two more until in a fit of sobbing I felt Ferne’s jaw jacking against the top of my head. It was absurd, and I couldn’t help but laugh, as did we all.

“You don’t have to do this. You can’t heal the kitten, only God can.”

This was good advice. But I was still at my breaking point. I put Blaze back outside, but Bandit back in his box, and I crashed on my cot. I didn’t quite sleep; I remember snatches of conversation about me and the cat, about other things, but I didn’t wake. Didn’t acknowledge them. I did my best to rest while there were others to help take care of Bandit.

I was getting my child-rearing training.

I was also learning that despite being an EMT, its different when the victim is your own. I also learned that its very different when the patient is a victim of your own hand.

After my parents left and we made ready for bed again, it was clear that Bandit was recovered enough to realize he was disabled and alone. I moved his box near my bed, and somewhere in the middle of the night in answer to unending cries, I lifted him from his box and snuggled him to me. He slept in silent comfort for the rest of the night.

I was comforted as well.

Monday

I put Bandit back in his box, and he not only starts mewing, but also jumping for the rim of the box. His efforts are sloppy, half-drunken, but its clear his back legs are not injured. He is successful enough that I am concerned he will jump out of his box. There are too many nooks and crannies in the house, too many places he could avoid us permanently, even if not intentionally.

After giving him his morning drugs, I water him, and try to feed him. Then I put him in a 50-quart clear plastic storage container. Lid off, of course. Here he can jump all he wants and not reach the rim.

I groggily clean up for work. I write a note about what he’s eaten (or not) and so on. Then I grab my gear and head out. I’m driving the pickup today, as the S-10 has some kind of engine/electrical problem. But the pickup has a radiator leak, and when I stop at Kwik-Shop, it boils over. I limp it to work and ignore it for most of the day… I can barely stay awake.

I call for an update on Bandit. He’s doing much better. Very active in his box, running circles in it constantly, and noisy! It appears he only wants to be carried around, or at least out of his box. Still not taking the solid foods well; its as if his tongue is in reverse and he spits it out instead of taking it in. Also, he clearly has a weakness on his right side — he lists in that direction when trying to walk, and his head will droop when he turns it that way.

I get home late, and its my turn to keep him company. I hold him on my lap while trying to use the computer. Roger calls a friend who is a veterinarian. He has questions about Cami’s impending delivery, and also asks about the cat. She recommends going to 1/4 of a children’s aspirin every 4th day. She suggests blending his food into a paste and syringing it if we have to. I set about immediately to soak some of his kibble in water, while Ferne gets the blender out.

An hour later, I put a syringe of cat food into his mouth, and he lunges forward to attack it! After 3 or 4 more syringes with Bandit chewing on the plastic, we decide to let him try to eat from the plastic cup I put it in. He laps at it at first, but soon begins putting his whole mouth, and later face, into it, as if he can’t get enough! Dinner ends when he manages to get food in his eyes, and we have to wash him and ourselves off from his mess.

Full of energy now, we put him on the floor to walk. He begins walking circles around the dining room, climbing over or under any obstacles encountered. His gait is a little shaky; he lists to the right still, and his approach to objects suggests he has some visual deficiencies. His head still gets tired, and eventually it hits the floor and he falls on his right side.

But, its still an improvement. Ferne looks at me with an approving smile, and recognizes the self-castigation mingled with my visible relief. Bandit and I are both healing.

Tuesday

Bandit’s escape proof box allowed us to set him in the office for the night, and all of us slept better. He pretty much is learning to stay quiet “at night”. I cleaned up, set his food out of the refrigerator to begin warming up, and set his last dose of medicine out. I hold him for several minutes until it becomes clear he wants down to walk things out. So I wrap him up and put him back in his box.

Evening is much the same. Ferne & Roger discovered that its easier to swipe a finger through his porridge and let him lick it off than to try to eyedropper him or to eat from the bowl. I devise a new technique – letting him lick it off the container lid – after he began chewing on my finger several times. I made a note to try solid food chopped up tomorrow and see if he can handle that.

Cami has been bedding down in the garage, but we let her in this evening during Bandit’s walking-it-out time. He now walks in a more or less straight line, apparently toward dark objects which he recognizes as holes. He walked straight toward Cami, bristled and hissed as he walked under her nose, but kept right on walking.

We are concluding that, while he can recognize the difference between Cami’s black and the brown of the carpet, he does not recognize objects in the ground plane, and cannot well distinguish black objects from shadows. We have concluded that he is marginally blind. Either one eye completely not functional (explaining lack of depth perception) or both eyes somewhat blurry, with low contrast resolution.

The realization grieves me deeply, but I’ve seen such improvement in just three days that I must give Bandit and God time to work over the remainder of the two weeks (if in fact we can seriously keep him sequestered that long!).

We’ve also made a point to give Cami extra attention, and she seems to appreciate both the importance of Bandit’s needs, and that we can spare some time for her.

Two weeks later

Bandit seems to have reached his full recovery, and its clear he’ll never fully recover. We’ve taken to letting him out with his peers all day while we are at work. Cami protects all of the cats with her presence, fending off predators. He walks constantly, but as he’s been exposed to his peers, he has taken on many cat-like mannerisms, including stopping and laying down in the shade, and occasionally playing.

Playing is a sad and funny thing. He will rear-up against one of his siblings, who immediately wrap him in a bear hug, drag him to the ground, and play-bite his neck. Bandit’s automatic response to the hug and attention is to mellow and just waller in the love… so the cat who is playing with him loses interest and wanders off to attack someone else. But Bandit doesn’t mind; he remains on his back purring for a few moments, then gets up, stretches out (another cat-like action) and takes off walking again.

He’s pretty much learned the patio and the “safe-distance” into the yard. He can see people (dark objects?) as they move toward him in the grass and will run to them. But he doesn’t appear to hear them or respond when called.

In the evening, we pour food in a line on the ground to feed the cat fleet; he hears the food, smells it, runs to it growling with hunger… and runs right past it. If we steer him to it, he will munch on it with intense fascination – for all of 15 seconds – then he will look up and take off walking, as if looking for more. Sometimes he wanders back and finds it; usually he wanders back and walks right past it.

As the sun goes down, we bring him inside and let him walk-it-out. He now plots full arcs around objects and takes an apparently self-created wandering path through the room. He still enjoys getting in behind furniture and boxes and puzzle-solving, with very few instances of being truly stuck.

To help him wind down, Roger picks him up and lets Bandit wedge his head between Roger’s arm and the arm of the sofa. We think he feels safe when constrained, and his face is in darkness. He will stay immobile like this for what seems like hours. However, we usually only let him do so for about an hour before we force him to drink some milk-water and make him eat a little food.

He now eats solid kibble just fine; he has his own food dish in the kitchen with his special premium kitten food. He also eats the Kitten Chow we feed his siblings when he is outside.

He remains very vocal, purring or complaining or simply commenting on the world whenever he thinks he has an audience. He loves being held, and even turned over and having his belly scrubbed — which is good because this is the only way we can treat him for fleas, which he has in horrible number because he has no instinct for grooming.

We still wrap him up and place him in his storage container with the lid ajar at night. He mostly doesn’t whine, but he does continue to roam his tiny box, perhaps all night.

All in all he seems pretty content. His peers don’t torture him, and while most of them seem to think he’s pretty odd, they will defend him from the dog. In fact, one day last week, Cami stepped on him by accident (he doesn’t turn away or avoid other animals as is instinctive, so Cami stepped where she assumed he wouldn’t be) and the three momma cats took off and chased Cami around 3 sides of the property – more than a thousand yards. Cami came home with a terrible gash on her face, almost losing an eye.

But its clear the cats all accept Bandit for who he is now.

And while I can’t say I’ve learned fully, I have had a lesson in understanding both the labor and the love of parents of special needs children. My respect for them and their tenacity has only increased. God bless you all!

Epilogue

Sometime during Sunday afternoon, August 1, Bandit disappeared.

A search ensued. The entire property was explored, and neighbors on either side also searched their lots. The formal search was ended at nightfall. Successive attempts revealed no information, and he was not found. Birds of prey were observed circling in the sky over the property Sunday evening after he went missing.

Cami gave birth to her puppies the week before. She has been pent up in the garage for most of the week. We believe that Cami’s absence caused the predators an increase of bravery. I expect that Bandit was making a straight-line walk across the yard and was picked up by a hawk.

I can only hope death came quickly. He certainly would not understand what was happening, so I hope there was no terror.

The house has been quieter, and our days have been simpler, but the gap he has left will never quite be filled.