Posted by zog
on October 12, 2009, 11:25 pm, in reply to "Re: Dang...more floods"
Hate losing pets. ya, they become part of the family. 2 years! Dang that's going to be a hefty dog..I was thinking year and a half tops. She's already several inches taller than the mature white female lab, and that dog weighs close to 88 lbs, IIRC.
No idea why you aren't getting enough rain, seems those mountains there are known for a decent year round amount.
I am thinking about manufacturing my own dogfood in bulk, think I will experiment around a little and see how hard it is. So far, the only thing I have come up with is a dedicated pot and just make them some stew every day with meat and veggies and grains in it, buy the grains bulk at the feed store and use glanage/scrounged veggies we get. They are already getting some of that already, but still just on top of their dry kibbles. Our dry food bill is 15 for the dogs and 10 for the cats every week (catfood costs loads more per lb)(higher a little in the winter months of course), plus a lot of meat and scraps and eggs.
Starts to add up. I could force the cats to hunt more, but I really don't want them going wild and hanging around the woods, just too many predators there, big hawks, owls at night, dogs coyotes and bobcats. There was a bear here last week, but some dude smacked into it with his car at night when it was running across the road, I never saw it but a few of the guys on the other side of the farm saw it several days running, then it got hit by that car, some tourist hit it really.
I've lost too many kitties as it is. I miss all the "gone" ones a lot. And the *weird* part is, it is the ones that tame up get shots, get fixed etc. I'm *trying* to get a few favorites to come in at night every night and not go roaming, because that is when they disappear. Them dumb wild barncats..nuthin. Got all I ever had still. The toms have finally come to recognize territory, like the barn and wings is big enough for all three of them, they just stick to one area they pick out.
Took about..dunno.,.dozens of fights or so to get that sorted out, plus getting the last female kitten fixed. Fights dropped down to not too many then, although that semi wild "guard on patrol" tomcat still gets first dibs on the food when I put it out, all the other cats just sit and wait until he is full.
He just do NOT take anything from any other cat. I've finally got him semi tamed enough to pet him and pick him up a little without getting chewed to shreds, so sometime when I got the scratch he is going to the vet for his tuneup, maybe that will mellow him out a little more. I like him a lot(cuz he's a tuff guy), but no other human, dog or cat here likes him. I'd love to find him a good home where he could be THE cat, singular. That would work out the best I think, but not until he is tamed up more.
That leaves two more wild toms, one is now tolerating me getting within a few feet and just last week started meowing at me, so he will tame up sometime as well. Once they talk to you and then if you can touch and stroke their back a little without them flinching and running away and that tail goes up, *you got them*, just a matter of time then. Trying to tame wild adult cats is *hard* I am finding out (still a rookie with cats here).
Kittens are easy if you can get to them right off the bat, once wild and grown, a little not so easy. There's one female here I had to live trap as a kitten to get her shots and spayed and she is T-totally wild now, almost never see her, like a glimpse here and there every two or three weeks. I see her all over when I am working and she must be *really* slick in the woods, much better than most cats, because she isn't et up yet. I doubt I'll ever tame that one up unless I could trap her again (doubtful) and keep her caged up for a month or so and just hand feed her every day. I *might* try that eventually though if she is the last holdout untamed and still hanging around here.
And boy do I wish vets were cheaper!
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