The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Cats => Topic started by: Baois Glas on May 22, 2015, 09:54:06 am
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I know cats can be prone to wander off and then come back home, but how long do you leave them before you really start to worry?
I have 2 semi feral cats, I haven't seem them for nearly a week. They have stopped coming back for their food and haven't seen them around the yard, my younger boy very rarely leaves the barn and yard, so I'm very worried about them.
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One of my cats can be away for days on end. He seems to live on rabbits in the summer months. Although I expect he is hiding near bye and sleeping off his meal he does not feel the need to let me know that he is safe. always worries me.
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I know cats can be prone to wander off and then come back home, but how long do you leave them before you really start to worry?
I have 2 semi feral cats, I haven't seem them for nearly a week. They have stopped coming back for their food and haven't seen them around the yard, my younger boy very rarely leaves the barn and yard, so I'm very worried about them.
I have a semi feral cat and he went missing all winter and turned up the next spring I was worried sick about him. The thing with cats is no one ever owns them they own themselves. I shouldn't worry they may have gone somewhere else, cats have a massive territory, they'll turn up.
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Thanks for the replies, trying not to worry about them too much. We are surrounded by woodland and forestry so hopefully they are fending for themselves now the better weather is here.
I have been chucking the food they didn't eat on the grass at the bottom of the yard so the dogs can have it when they come out, but it's always been gone by the times the dogs come out, don't know if it's the cats having it or the birds.
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I would just make sure they have not been accidentally locked in a shed or something.
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Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it. :'( Cats are free spirits - that's part of the attraction. I still worry about mine, but he has been much better lately - possibly down to being older - and comes inside most nights. Or it may be to do with feeding him pouches as I tried to keep him on dried previously. :innocent:
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We have a cat who went nowhere for first year of her life and then out of the blue disappeared. We were distraught and after 3 weeks assumed the worst. Then she was back, none the worse. She is around all the time and then every so often she goes walkabout. We always worry but she always comes back.
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Cats are more worry than teenagers!! We had one go missing then returned months later. Turned out he had been taken in by someone who thought he was a stray.
Do you have neighbours who may be feeding them tastier meals than you? Hope they're soon home :fc:
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Thanks for the replies, I've checked all my outbuildings and my tack room and no sign of them.
We don't really have any close neighbours, so they would have gone quite a way to get to them.
Ive been standing in around the back calling them and 'meowing' to them to see if they call back, good job I don't have any close neighbours otherwise they would think I was mad!
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How old are they and are they neutered. Cats, especially boys, often go a-wandering in their second year of life once they are mature. Our neutered boys had a tendency to go for 3 days at a time, but they were house and sofa cats who very much liked the comfort of home. If they had been semi-feral I would have thought they would have gone for longer.
If you're worried you could give the council a call to see if they have picked up any bodies. Grim I know but it is always my first call when mine go a-wandering. Other thing would be to check with rescues in the area in case they had been picked up as strays.
Hopefully they will come back right as rain, miaow for food and look at you like you're an idiot for ever wondering. That tends to be what my lot do.
Dans
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They are neutered and spayed, and the boy is microchipped. I've only had them since just before xmas so this is the first 'nice weather' they've had really, so don't know if they were just staying close to shelter in the barns. They were 'city cats' so I'm sure they were used to more dangers than out here.
Think I might ask the local rescue and the local area group on FB if anyone has seen them at all.
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Country roads can be more dangerous to cats than city roads. I've had cats live on the virgin west coast main line and on a very busy main road in London without coming to harm. Moved to a small village with a 30mph road and a childrens park and lost 2 cats in 4 years to RTA and seen more dead cats by that children's park than I have in my entire cat owning life. A car speeding past every once in a while is more of a danger than a fairly consistent flow of traffic unfortunately.
The rescue should pick up a chip if the cat came to them but they have been known to migrate. Took the vet nurse two scanning machines, several questions to me of 'are you sure he is chipped?' and 10 minutes to find that one of my boys chips had migrated down to his elbow!
If this is the first good weather it is likely they have gone wandering exploring the new territory. A male cat can have a really large area. . Might be worth asking your closest neighbour if they had been trapped in. A male cat can have a range that covers several acres. Hope they are back soon.
Dans
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I have a lot of farm cats - male and female, some are tame, others feral. I leave food twice a day though. Two of the males have been gone abuot 6 weeks, they always seem to do that around now. I assume they go off hunting in the fields, and find enough to eat. Then one morning they suddenly are there waiting for food. One of the females spent the whole summer on the railways enbankment - I could see her because she was white and stood out. Another one appeared at weekend, a female, after being missing for a month and rubbed round me - food may have been the reason. So try not to worry.
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Any sign Baois?
Dans
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My female cat came back the other day, she was waiting in their barn for me when I went to check at their dinner time. She had something to eat then went back outside, but no sign of my male cat yet.
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Good news! I'll bet the male will show up in a little while :)
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Our male (entire) used to vanish at the first sign of good weather (we panicked the first year) but always returned to the warmth of fire as soon as first sign of cold weather .... did that every year ...
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Thank you I hope he is ok, she was calling for him a lot so I hope she finds him.
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That's a good sign. Females tend to wander less than males so hopefully he'll be back before you know it as well!
Dans
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I do have a lot of luck with ginger toms, neutered of course. The first we had from a kitten, he got to his first summer and would wander off for days, then a week and come back covered in fleas, would sleep for a couple of days and go off again, you could see him getting itchy feet. The last time he went he was never to be seen again.
The second, I found as an older kitten on the side of the road near to death in winter, I have never seen any animal so starved. He quickly grew into a beautiful moggy, neutered, chipped. Come summer he starts coming home later and later, it turns out next door thought he was a stray and he was living next door as one pampered cat. When we moved they asked if they could keep him, he is the king of their house and every time they see me they thank me.
I have three tabby cats one of which I would gladly give away and one long haired who would live with anybody who fed her and ended up in a neighbours bedroom asleep on their bed after climbing through a window. We are only here to feed them and pay the vet bills.
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you know the saying: " you cant herd cats"!! So true, but that's probably why we like them.
Don't despair over missing cats.
In October we took in 2 tabby feral cats, bro and sister, neutered, 9 months old. They were to be our stable cats. As soon as we opened the tack room the boy vamoosed.
Sadly we lost his sister to a car in January. So we got 2 more feral cats ( how ashamed was I to tell the cat rescue that Id lost both their cats?). this time timid 5 yr old Mum and her 4yr old daughter, also neutered.
Well, the "feral" girls are still with us, albeit about as un-feral as you can imagine and couldn't catch a cold between them.
BUT: I was telling this story to my neighbour who told me that a big tabby boy had "turned up" at another neighbour's house last November, walked in and claimed the place as his new home! Yes, its my flaming feral Tom, we called Macavity.
Thankfully, Macavity graces us with his presence 3/4 times a week, in the late evening for a spot of hunting. Then he bogs off back to the lap of luxury in the £1m house down the road!! Cheek of it!
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Well my female cat came back again this morning, still no sign of my male cat though.
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Glad to hear you've got one of your cats safely back.
Over the years I've had neutered males go walkabout on a number of occasions. Being me, if they're gone for more than 48 hours I start going out calling and looking for them, and tell local people I'm missing one of my cats, even leafleting houses in the locale on one occasion.
On several occasions, I would not have found the cat had I not spread the word... ;)
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She was back again tonight for her dinner, hoping she stays around for a little while now.
I've been out in the woods behind my house looking for him and calling him every day, I've driven around the local area and asked the local rescue and others in the area to keep an eye out for them and posted on local fb pages.
As we are in rural Ireland houses are few and far between here.
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Well I'm pleased to say my young male cat came back yesterday, he was in for both meals yesterday and in for both meals today, so hoping he is going to stay around now. :excited:
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Thankfully, Macavity graces us with his presence 3/4 times a week, in the late evening for a spot of hunting. Then he bogs off back to the lap of luxury in the £1m house down the road!! Cheek of it!
Look on the bright side, he does the mousing for you, but no worming or vets bills to bother about got to be - :thumbsup:
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Great news! Thanks for letting us know :)
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:relief: glad he's home (until next time ::) )
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:relief: :relief: