A couple of disadvantages of a "kitty door"!

[Shawn T. W.]

Got home about noon today and got the baffle/maze set up ... Had some gusty wind this afternoon, and flaps/doors stay shut!

The kitties have gotten use to it ... Tonight after dinner I was in the living room with Swartzy & Charlie Boy, when I heard the doors flap shut, then Blazer started to meow, and meow, and MEOW, don't recall him ever doing that before, so I got up to go see what the fuss was . . . He was laying on the dining room floor with a dead mouse!

I picked it up and tossed it out on the deck, he ran out, I went out and petted him, and told him it had to stay outside ... Then I came in, he sat by his mouse ... About 5 minutes later he comes in again, but is quiet ... I go out he has the mouse inside again!

I grab it by the tail, and he swats it out of my hand! I grabbed it again and didn't open the sliding glass door very far, and flung it out off the deck to the ground 10'+ below, then I called him into the kitchen, and gave him a piece of cheese ... He has now gone back outside ...

At least the mouse was dead!

 

[Shawn T. W.]

Caught a picture of most of Charlie Boy leaving ... The cement block will be placed in front of the opening when I'm gone, to not provide a hidy hole for other critters ...

 

[JasperFrank]

Yesterday I noticed the kitty doors were flapping in the breeze, it was only about a 20 mph wind out ... It has two flaps about 4"-5" apart with a magnetic strip on the bottom ...

View attachment 4296963

I built a temporary 2' wide and tall "wall" to shield it, which didn't do much!

Today I was in eating lunch and I heard the flaps open and close, they open into the back side of my kitchen cabinets which have a door in my dining room 5' from where I was sitting ...

View attachment 4296966

Blazer came in and dropped a live chipmunk on the floor, Charlie Boy came over to investigate ... As I got up, it ran to Blazer, like the cat was gonna protect it from the human???

I grabbed it in a towel and tossed it outside on the back deck, both cats went out to "play" with it, haven't brought it back in yet, I put the shield on it, so they can't come back in, I gotta go back to trucking for a few weeks, I don't want to leave it open and come home to a family of raccoons or opossums!

View attachment 4296965

Rats love these.

 

[Shawn T. W.]

Rats love these.

My cats love rats!

See previous pictures ...

 

[JasperFrank]

My cats love rats!

See previous pictures ...

So its a win-win? LOL

 

[Shawn T. W.]

I've never seen the field rats that I have around in the house, they live in the fields around me ... Cats go out there to catch them ...

The kind of rats that I've heard like to live in houses, are Norway rats ... Mush bigger than theses I'm told.

I did have a problem with mice when I 1st bought the house, and the snakes that couldn't eat them all ... I got the four kittens a little over two years ago, by the time spring came, no more mice, and I evicted the snakes!

 

[BackRoad]

Interesting timing...last night I went to bed early. Had just fallen asleep and heard my wife yelling for me.

She had let the mouser cat in...not realizing it had Rocky the Flying Squirrel in it's mouth...turns out it was still alive.

He dropped it and comedy ensued with me chasing it around the house with a broom and dustpan (first thing I could grab), it's running and leaping into the air and trying to glide. Wife was running around shutting doors to keep it in the main part of the house, and the cat was trying to recatch his dinner!

Keystone cops for about 3 minutes...but I won and out it went.

I threw it into the yard...underhand toss from the dustpan, and he spread his wings and glided off into the dark!

They're kind of like the YouTube guys in the Red Bull flying suits. They don't flap, but start high and glide to lower elevations...like an elegant, controlled free fall.

What I can't figure out is how the cat caught it, with all the natural capability of a flying squirrel to avoid capture...

 

[RSKY]

Many years ago we had a cat. I installed a kitty door that had some kind of sensor on it that was triggered by the cat's collar and would unlock when the cat went into the garage. Worked great for a couple years then some raccoons discovered that if they followed the cat and pushed thru the door before it re-locked they could stuff themselves with cat food. They could always get out, just couldn't get in without the collar on. Suddenly our cat started pooping all over the garage and when I took her to the vet they asked about what wild animals she was around and when I explained about the coons they said cats could catch some bad diseases from them. She kept getting worse and I took her back and had her put down. She was very old. But I held her as she slowly went to sleep and passed.

RSKY

 

[Shawn T. W.]

I persuade the raccoons to go elsewhere from my feeding station with electric ... I get rid of everyone I can trap, they can carry Baylisascaris which is a infection which can cause blindness and coma in humans!
Symptoms of Raccoon Roundworm

Once they get use to a food source they will try to claim and defend it as "there's" ... That's how I lost one of my cats, huge battle on top of my feeding table!

They broke one of my feeders, and unplugged two of them too! The stainless bowls were under the feeder in rings, the green water bowl was up on the table ...

Both cat and raccoon hair on the ground, my Barney gave them a fight, but my guess is there were more than one of them?

A previous time I came home and they had pooped in the water! ???

And left a mess!

And are just nasty dirty critters that need to stay away from domestic animals and humans!

That's Barney the tiger laying in the pile of his black brothers, who was killed by the raccoons! My spoiled "barn cats!"

I also get rid of any armadillo I can, as they can carry Leprosy and Sarcocystis neurona, the single-celled protozoan parasite that causes the neurological disease equine protozoal, bad news for horses!

This ain't disney where all the wild animals are cute fuzzy friends!