A couple of disadvantages of a "kitty door"!

[Shawn T. W.]

If I'm only home for the night, and I have my semi-truck ... I sleep in it ... I keep quite a lot of food and water out in it, so I like to keep it a nice temperature anyways, plus I don't need to bring in my CPAP machine, and it takes me a few nights to get use to my bed inside, I actually sleep better in the truck until about the 4th night at home, which rarely happens ...

All that said to say, I opened the house door this morning, I had three happy boys! AND a dead bird to great me!

I picked it up while saying I'm my unhappy voice, "no birds in the house"! And threw it in the trashcan ... Then proceeded to clean up the feathers, seems strange that such a little birdie could have so many feathers! It seemed to be "fully clothed" when I picked it up! It looked like some kind of sparrow ...

 

[Shawn T. W.]

Now Charlie Boy just brought in a young, but thankfully dead mouse!

 

[ponytug]

@Shawn T. W. Please forgive me for laughing, but I'd have to pry the mice/snakes/birds from our cats' cold dead paws. You just seem to be really adored to get such offerings for the lord of the house. Your cat stories are wonderful.

We almost never find remains of anything, even out and about the ranch. I did find a woodpecker skull yesterday, and I wondered if it was just too thick a skull and too hard to eat.

It sounds like you have your truck really dialed in. That's great to hear.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Shawn T. W.]

I've been home quite a lot lately for an over nighter ..., got home for my regular scheduled time off Friday morning ... This morning was the first time that Swartzy brought me a "treat" a vole, dead ... I did the "I'm not happy to be" and said " no critters in the house!" And tossed it in the trash! He looked at me kinda sad/confused, so I picked him up and carried him to the living room, he loves to be carried! I sat down and gave him some attention, his little motor started to idle along content ... I'm hoping they are learning about keeping there catch outside! ??? Neither of the other two cats have brought anything in since I got home Friday.

I did see on my security camera last week where one of them came up on the back deck, and went to the maze/baffle, but when I'm gone I put a cement block in front of the door, then it proceeded to toss and play with whatever it had brought up ... When I got home there was a rats head on the deck ...

Friday I added a few cement blocks to the entry way, they don't need it that big, but I may be getting bigger doggies than them, so I made it bigger ... If I have the front door open, the wind would push the double flaps open, but not with the door shut ...

 

[Torvy]

Here's a shot of our setup for the barn cats.

 

[Shawn T. W.]

My guess is the shelf is 2' off the ground?

It should stop skunks and probably opossums, but not raccoons, unless they were old and fat!

 

[Torvy]

My guess is the shelf is 2' off the ground?

It should stop skunks and probably opossums, but not raccoons, unless they were old and fat!

3 feet. Wife did some research that gave us the optimal height. Easy leap for the cats. Apparently rare for raccoons to jump up. They prefer to climb up and jump across or down.

So far, no racoons in the barn.

 

[Shawn T. W.]

That's GOOD!

Once I figured out HOW the raccoons were accessing my feeding table, by climbing up! I then shortened the mostly horizontal jump distance for my cats. (I had it up to 55" and they were doing it!)

When I built the table, I didn't figure they could climb up the center, and go upside down the 16" to get to the edge and get up, but these racoons seem to be half monkey!

My cats easily jump up to the bench, then jump across to the table, I'm sure the could go straight from the ground, but it's easier to launch from the bench I guess ...

Since I wrapped the center pedestal with hardware cloth, hooked to the earth ground, and put up 4 strands of 11,500 volts hooked to a fence charger, no more problems with raccoons stealing food in my barn ...

One end of my barn is open, I closed it off with cattle panels and barb wire to keep coyotes and stray dogs out, there is 20' open, you can just barely see part of it ... And there are gaps under the edge in spots too, so the cattle panels give the kitties a chance to get out, or in if there is trouble out there ...