tallpines
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Dec 29, 2019 14:36:13 GMT -5
Post by tallpines on Dec 29, 2019 14:36:13 GMT -5
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Post by paquebot on Dec 29, 2019 22:29:27 GMT -5
Sounds like you are new to cats? I had pet cats before you were born! Our previous cat was officially weighed by the vet at 16#. There is food for overweight cats and we brought that for awhile. Should be feeding insructions on the bag.
If you saw my birthday report on Facebook, you know that I have one to replace my old pal which I had buried exactly a year before. Her replacemnt is ¾ Siamese and ¼ rag doll. Her markings are going to be the same as Siamese but with bars on her front legs. At about 5 months, already showing that she is going to be the most intelligent cat that I've ever had.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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tallpines
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Post by tallpines on Dec 29, 2019 23:48:04 GMT -5
As a child, I was deprived of any kind of pet, other than a goldfish. Then .... I married a farmer with a barn full of animals .... including an abundance of barn cats.
The farmer would not allow any animals inside the house. And ..... until an animal provided some financial income to the farm budget, they got nothing that cost money. No store bought food, nor vet expense. The cats needed to “catch” their supper or hope the farmer spilled some milk.
Then one day, for a child’s birthday, I brought home a new kitten and announced .... the kitten would be living in the house!
The farmer was FURIOUS! He declared ..... it would be either HIM or the CAT!
I looked him right in the eye .... and said ..... “Do you need help with packing?”
That cat lived with us for almost 20 years ........ always a well proportioned cat ..... never fat.
Now we have cat adopted from the shelter .... he’s FAT and getting fatter every day, I have looked at the lo-cal food, but, by golly ..... it sure is expensive compared to the Meow Mix he’s getting now.
Thought maybe someone could suggest a cheaper method .....
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tallpines
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Dec 30, 2019 0:12:12 GMT -5
Post by tallpines on Dec 30, 2019 0:12:12 GMT -5
So ..... we paid $100.00 to adopt a cat ..... Kind of high priced, but he was already neutered and front feet declawed, 2 years old with all his shots .
The very next week, a cute young calico wandered up our drive way ..... and the ornery farmer was charmed by the attention she gave him ...... and he started feeding her. I warned him .... calicos are always female. If he was going to feed her, he best have her fixed!
Two months later, she presented us with 3 kittens 🐱 🐱 🐱.
At 3 months of age, I took them and their Mama in to be spayed/neutered.
Two of the kittens have markings like a Siamese.... The vet labeled one as a “blue point Siamese” and the other as “flame point Siamese” The third one is a Classical Tabby with beautiful swirls and circle markings.
The Blue Point has gone to a 7 year old granddaughter in Minnesota. The other 3 are living in our garage with a well insulated dog house and an electric pet mat to keep them Cozy.
It’s so much fun watching them play. They seem to think the outdoor Christmas buntings were put up just for their entertainment.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 30, 2019 12:03:47 GMT -5
Back to the original topic. You do not need to buy the pricey food for overweight cats.
Step 1: Weigh the cat and write down his weight and the date. You need to to track his weight. Cats are usually not fond of standing still on the scale. Usually the easiest way to weigh a cat at home is to hold them, step onto the scale and read the weight. Then put the cat down, weigh yourself alone, and then subtract your weight to find his.
Step 2: If you are free-feeding (leaving kibble out all the time), STOP. If your cat is fat, he has already demonstrated that he can't regulate his appetite. That is not his fault, necessarily, because food scientists design kibble to be addictive. From a taste perspective, kibble is as appealing to cats as chips, candy, ice cream, and junk foods are to people!
So you are going to have to exercise control for him. Start feeding your cats twice per day, at consistent times every day. Read the bag and find out what the daily ration is for each cat's current weight. Give them half of their daily ration at each meal. The goal at this stage is not to make your fat cat lose weight (yet), but get all of your cats used to eating at set mealtimes.
Give them (and you!) a couple of weeks to adjust to the new feeding regimen. There will be a lot of complaining and begging. DO NOT GIVE IN. Don't give treats, feed from the table, or leave people food out where the cats can get to it. Every time you give in and give them any food outside of mealtimes, you teach them that begging works! And it takes a long time to undo that lesson.
If you use treats as part of training your cats, that's fine. Just make sure you limit the treats to training time, so they associate the treats only with the training.
Step 3: Once you and the cats have adjusted to set mealtimes, cut fat kitty's food back by about 15%. Cats need to lose weight slowly - rapid weight loss can make them sick. You want to bring your cat down to a healthy weight over the course of several months to a year.
Step 4: Weigh the cat monthly. If he is not losing, cut his food back a little more.
Step 5: If your cat is lazy, especially if he is an indoor cat, try to play with him more and get him more active. Provide a cat tree or something else he can to climb and jump on. Exercise helps with weight loss and keeps him healthy. But be aware that cats don't really do "cardio" like people - cats have very small hearts compared to their body size, so they are set up for quick bursts of intense activity, not long drawn-out exercise.
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Step 3 is where things get tricky if you have multiple cats. You may need to find some way to isolate your fat cat from the other cats during mealtimes. If the other cats don't finish their food right away, put up their leftovers before you let your fat cat out. Otherwise he is just going to scarf down what they leave behind.
If the fat cat bullies your other cats off their food, you might have to start separating him for mealtimes at the same time you transition to set mealtimes (Step 2). Otherwise the mama cat and especially the kittens might not get enough to eat!
Once the other cats realize the food is not going to be available 24/7, they will adjust to eating what they need at mealtimes, instead of nibbling all day.
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I didn't catch how old the kittens are. If they are still under 6 months, you might want to separate them and give them a third or even fourth feeding daily. But by six months of age, two feedings per day is fine. Just make sure the kittens have as much food as they want during mealtimes while they are still growing. "Teenage" kittens may need to eat twice as much as an adult cat, or even more.
Once they reach adult size you'll find out whether they can regulate their appetite or if they are going to be prone to getting fat. But since you will already have them trained to eating at set mealtimes, it should be easy to restrict their food later if you need to.
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Since you are feeding kibble, be sure that all cats have access to clean water at all times. Cats eating kibble can get dehydrated quickly.
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Post by mgulfcoastguy on Dec 30, 2019 14:00:58 GMT -5
Maybe you could get a laser pointer and let the cat chase the light around the house?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 14:49:22 GMT -5
Some cats also like those feathers on a string and pole thing, too. The diet thing is tough at firstyoull get it from the comlaint department LOL, but youll get him to live longer and healthier. That was a good plan above.
Make sure your cat is actually fat, some types are cobby bodied or have more hair,or both, and look fat when they are not.
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Post by paquebot on Dec 30, 2019 15:32:46 GMT -5
What Imp says about different breeds may apply. As a kitten, my previous cat was almost as wide as she was long. Neighbor had two neutered toms which would often trespass on Roxie's territory. If she were out, she would puff up like a furry basketball. When she topped at 16#, vet wasn't concerned but suggested food with less fat. New cat is going to be long and lean. Right now Shadow is an eating machine. She will even eat potato chips! If I eat it, she wants some. I don't think that we are going to worry about her becoming overweight for awhile.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 31, 2019 14:11:06 GMT -5
Yes, some breeds are naturally thicker. And some long/thick furred cats can look huge, especially in winter. You can tell the difference between a naturally stocky body type, a thick/long coat of fur, and a cat that is actually fat by feeling around the cat's ribs and belly. Assuming the cat will permit that without taking your hand off. Here is a guide for what to look/feel for, with pictures: www.cathealth.com/cat-care/weight-management/1255-cat-check-weight
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Post by mgulfcoastguy on Dec 31, 2019 19:44:00 GMT -5
At least you didn't post her picture and fat shame her.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2019 22:25:54 GMT -5
We hand raised 2 kittens from the same litter, Grandma cat had abandoned them as they had some sort of eye infections that made pus run from them. When Rob brought them to me, all I could think was that they would die or at best be blinded. They were so tiny, maybe a week old. One was a loudly marked calico and the other was a dusty white color. I doctored on them, we fed them bottles every 2 hours and cleaned them; I had odd bosoms for awhile as they were tucked into a sports bra to keep them warm at times, or under Rob's beard. They survived and thrived amazingly and no damage to their eye sight.
Both grew up to be beautiful cats and very different from each other, obviously different Toms had sired them. Billie turned from a dusty white to a seal point Siamese looking girl with bright blue eyes, sleek, long and rangy. Lulu, the calico, had a more Persian face and cobby body with half long slightly wavy hair and amber eyes. Lulu thought she owned Rob ( she did really ) and always slept on his chest with her head under his beard.
The vet always would think Lulu was fat at first, because of her body shape, especially when she and Billie were side by side. She never was, but in the winter she was just so round from that thick fluffy coat! If Lula fluffed herself up she looked like her head was soooo wrong, in all that fur!
Hands and a scale tell the best story of weight on a cat, especially on fluffy ones. Even on kittens from the same litter there can be big differences.
My current cat, the squatter, is about 1/2 the average size of many cats. She eats Meow Mix and only Meow Mix, turns her nose up at canned food or even tuna! So you can just cut back on his food, as above, and give it a bit of time, get him to play some if you can, too, for short periods.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 1, 2020 11:47:18 GMT -5
Loved that story, @imp. Seems that every kitten born on our farms had to go through the runny eyes problem. We had something to wipe them out with but can't recall what it was. Probably didn't matter as they all survived no matter if treated or not.
My previous cat was big to start with. Born feral so unknown parentage. Medium-length hair and I mentioned how she looked like a furry basketball when puffed up. First time she took on a neighbor's cat I could hardly believe how she did it. What happened next had to be seen to believe. The other cat laid down and folded his front paws under him. It was his way of saying that he wanted no part of Roxie. They were friends after that and he could come into her territory.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by paquebot on Jan 1, 2020 17:03:02 GMT -5
Had to laugh at what one of my kin posted on Facebook today. It shows a cat curled up in a basket but with its head halfway out. "New Years Resolution. Option #1: Lose weight. Option #2: Bigger basket."
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Jan 1, 2020 19:36:37 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2020 19:36:37 GMT -5
We had a feral cat colony, Grandma was one of them I used sterile water to flush the eyes out and then squeeze more pus out, then sterile water to flush them again after that. Oddly, in that cat colony, there were 4 seal points for a long time. They would talk to us and eat the food we put out, but never would come up to us.
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Post by coppice on Jan 3, 2020 6:20:05 GMT -5
Mau is the current bachelor can here with me at the Logan senior bunker, he was a fatty when I got him. He had his annual vet check last week, at 16 Lbs.
He gets 1/4 cup of good salmon kibbles at breakfast, and 1/3 can seafood wet for supper. With 1/8th teaspoon fiber stirred into wet food. He is utterly convinced that he is starving with this ration.
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May 11, 2020 7:04:20 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 11, 2020 7:04:20 GMT -5
I have been adopted by a stray cat. Appearance was that of a rolled up weekly small-town newspaper with legs on each corner and a tail. So skinny every bone stuck out.
I had some canned dog food left from a visit by the grands and my old dog Daymond, from Oklahoma days. The cat, now known as CleoCatra or The Damned Cat, TDC for short, would eat half a can at a sitting.
Then I bought a twenty pound sack of dry cat food, generally mixed with people-food or stew. TDC has gained at least a pound and thinks now it has a right to scratch my jeans and follow me around. TDC will NOT be a house cat but will not starve, either.
Not really familiar with cats, I generally detest them, but this one is striped all over like a tiger. Body stripes were hard to see at first, but the tail could be mistaken for that of a starved coon. Now that TDC is clean amd fattening the body and leg stripes are more distinct.
The dilemma is what am I to do now? Once you take in a dependent it is unethical to throw them back out.
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May 11, 2020 12:48:46 GMT -5
Post by Laura_in_FL on May 11, 2020 12:48:46 GMT -5
Unless you can find someone else willing to adopt that cat, I'm pretty sure that's your cat for the rest of its life.
Most important: It sounds like you have a female cat, so get her to a vet and get her spayed IMMEDIATELY or there will be kittens before you know it. Now that she's eating well again, if she hasn't already been spayed she will go into heat very soon. And a cat can have 2-3 litters per year. Some vets and shelters have free or cheap neuter & spay clinics as part of their attempt to reduce the unwanted pet population. If the cost is a problem, if you look around online or make some calls you can probably find an affordable place to get her spayed. And getting her spayed will pay for itself many times over with not having to feed and then find homes for an endless stream of kittens.
Be sure to keep a bowl of fresh, clean water out for the cat all the time, unless there is another clean, accessible water source at your place. Dry cat food actually dehydrates cats (even if it's mixed with some stew), so they need more water than if they were eating canned food or live prey.
Since your cat was super-skinny, she is probably not a good hunter. (All cats have the hunting instinct, but they have to be taught how to hunt by their mothers or they are usually very bad at it.) So be sure not to be haphazard about feeding the cat; she is depending on you for food now.
If you are willing to and can afford it, take the cat to a vet for an exam, de-worming, and shots every year. If you look around, you can often find a free or reduced cost shot clinic to make that less expensive. Also, it's been my experience that vet fees vary a LOT. Call a few vets and ask what it will cost; you might be able to find a surprisingly affordable one.
An outdoor cat is almost certain to suffer from fleas, ticks, ear mites, and worms all the time if untreated. The fleas make the cat miserable, but are unlikely to be a problem for you as long as the cat is outside. However, you don't want her breeding ticks in your yard, because they will get on you. So I recommend using a monthly flea and tick preventative - applying it just takes a few seconds once a month. Most of the flea and tick preventatives also prevent ear mites, and some also prevent intestinal worms/parasites, and even heartworms. So you don't have to use a separate de-wormer. You can buy flea preventatives from the vet, but they are cheaper at discount stores or online.
'Cause let's be real: you're not going to use flea & tick shampoo on a stray cat - not unless you want to bleed, anyway! Flea & tick collars are cheaper, but I've never used one that was really effective.
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May 11, 2020 13:09:40 GMT -5
Post by brownrexx on May 11, 2020 13:09:40 GMT -5
Once you take in a dependent it is unethical to throw them back out. Yes. You brought her back from the brink of starvation. It would be awful to let her go through that again. Keep her or find a home for her. Maybe an animal as a last resort. We have 2-3 feral cats that we feed. They never come indoors and are not friendly but we pitied them and started to put food out. Yes, I know that some people hate feral cats but I noticed a cropped ear on at least one of them so I think that they may be neutered. I have never seen any kittens and they sure keep the mole/vole population down for me.
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May 11, 2020 13:18:01 GMT -5
Post by Laura_in_FL on May 11, 2020 13:18:01 GMT -5
Even cats that are not skilled hunters will give chase to rodents and other small animals. Also, the smell of their urine and feces will act as a repellent. So even if your cat doesn't manage to kill any pests, she can still help keep them out of your garden. That's worth some ongoing cat food cost.
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May 12, 2020 5:31:30 GMT -5
Post by carolyn on May 12, 2020 5:31:30 GMT -5
@oxankle... I generally am a firm believer that an animal that shows up at your door has adopted YOU! not the other way around. and all the animals that have adopted us have been the BEST pets. even the vet has asked how we got such nice pets... ummm, because I guess God thought we needed another one? absolutely do I not go looking for animals to drag home. they just appear it seems when we need them most. You cat doesn't need to be a house cat. it can stay outside but get it vetted and make sure it is sterilized. if it is a male it will be spraying and if it is a female it will be dropping you regular deposits of kittens.
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May 12, 2020 5:42:34 GMT -5
Post by carolyn on May 12, 2020 5:42:34 GMT -5
Do I need to buy special (expensive) lo-calorie cat food? Or ..... can I give him a smaller volume of his regular food? How often, and, how much do you feed your house cat? how is your cat doing? ours was also getting way too heavy and my daughter found an automatic timed/portion food dispenser. it even records her saying.. " here Shadow" its a bit disconcerting at first to hear her in the middle of the day and she isn't home...
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Post by paquebot on May 12, 2020 10:31:14 GMT -5
A problem with a lot of stray animals is that they were dumped. Most come with some bad baggage which was responsible for them being dumped. Last one that I invited in was super nice but poor toilet habits. Also, city people often think that every farm needs another cat. Our original farm was quite isolated, 11 miles from nearest city, and yet "tame" cats would show up.
Martin
\ The truth is more important than the facts.
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May 12, 2020 15:42:59 GMT -5
Post by carolyn on May 12, 2020 15:42:59 GMT -5
A problem with a lot of stray animals is that they were dumped. Most come with some bad baggage which was responsible for them being dumped. Last one that I invited in was super nice but poor toilet habits. Also, city people often think that every farm needs another cat. Our original farm was quite isolated, 11 miles from nearest city, and yet "tame" cats would show up. Martin \ The truth is more important than the facts. Isn't that the truth. As if all animals can survive out of their normal environment as they know it. one time I found a litter of kittens with a dish of food under a pine tree across the road from the farm down the road. idiots! great dump defenseless little kitten along a fairly busy and fast road at the knoll and curve... that ought to work out well...not.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 12, 2020 15:54:50 GMT -5
...my daughter found an automatic timed/portion food dispenser. it even records her saying.. " here Shadow" its a bit disconcerting at first to hear her in the middle of the day and she isn't home... Hopefully hers is more cat-proof than the one I tried. This was a long time ago - over twenty years ago - so our feeder was a simple mechanical design. It was round, and at the top was a circle was divided into triangle sections like pie slices. You loaded the cat food into the triangles and then put a clear, tight-fitting plastic cover over the whole thing (so you could see how many meals were still in the feeder, but the cats couldn't reach the food). When you plugged the feeder in, the divided circle would rotate slowly so that every 4 hours one of the triangles would pass above a dispensing hole. If there was food in that section, the food would drop down into a bowl for the cats to eat. You could control when and how often the cats would be fed by putting food into only some of the sections. We had food in every third section so the cats would get fed every 12 hours. My smarter cat figured this device out. He would reach his big fluffy paw up inside the dispensing hole and PUSH the triangle sections in the direction of rotation, forcing the circle to spin faster. He would keep pushing until the next portion of food reached the dispensing hole and fell out. Unfortunately for him, he figured this out when we were gone on an overnight trip and ate all of the food early. So, he was pretty hungry when we got back. It wasn't random reaching that got lucky, either. A few days after we got back to our very hungry cat, I reloaded the dispenser and watched him. He immediately and consistently pushed in the direction of rotation. Periodically he would stop pushing and get up and look through the clear cover to make sure the food was getting closer to the dispensing hole. Then he would go right back to pushing. He was a very smart kitty - I still miss him.
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tallpines
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May 12, 2020 19:40:08 GMT -5
Post by tallpines on May 12, 2020 19:40:08 GMT -5
I never pursued a diet plan. But once again, I recently thought I should really begin to monitor him to see if he is getting any bigger.
So .... just a couple days ago, “we” got on the bathroom scale. His share of the pounds came out to 14 pounds.
Now I will have something to compare with when “we” weigh again in a couple of months or so.
The bad news is .... it would seem that my share of the pounds, shows an unfortunate increase! All this isolation with less exercise is beginning to show in unwanted places 😖
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May 15, 2020 10:59:34 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 10:59:34 GMT -5
More Developments: Neighbors have informed me that this is a "neighborhood" cat and and it has been living under a neighbor's shed for months. From the looks of it no one has been feeding it until I was suckered into doing so. The cat has now gained at least a pound, and I am informed that under that shed there are three kittens.
It has now been close to a month since I started feeding TDC and it has been given additions names, one being Pot Bellied Cat. It apparently likes being fed regularly and is spending a lot of time here. I think TDC should "belong" to the people under whose shed it lives but TDC may have to decide that. One thing I've noticed is that given a pot of stew mixed with dry cat food TDC will pick out and eat carrots and potato along with the meat BEFORE eating the cat food.
I have checked on de-wormers---it apparently costs more to rid a cat of worms than I used to pay to de-worm bulls.
I would appreciate advice on effective brand names and sources for such cat necessaries. Sucker that I am.
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May 15, 2020 11:14:16 GMT -5
Post by Laura_in_FL on May 15, 2020 11:14:16 GMT -5
Is the cat tame enough to catch for treatment?
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May 15, 2020 11:59:26 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 11:59:26 GMT -5
Laura; TDC wants to climb up mu jeans and sit in my lap when I sit watching her eat. Once she has a belly full she wants to be petted.
I called a local cat charity and inquired about neutering a bit ago. They told me the cheapest rate was $100. Forget that---I'm too cheap to spend $100 on a cat when I can make all kinds of points with my wife for that. Shucks, I just bought her a big box of ice cream and she showed more appreciation than the cat.
How about brand names of effective wormers, and sources? How about that flea thing that will take care of ear mites? I know rabbits and such hate ear mites. A rabbit you can hold and drop oil down its ear---I would not want to try to hold a cat so.
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tallpines
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Post by tallpines on May 15, 2020 12:52:55 GMT -5
Our house cat was already neutered when we adopted him. But the friendly little stray that wandered up our driveway was not, and she added 3 kittens to the tribe within a couple months.
I had warned the DH to get her fixed! (He’s the one that started feeding her .... so I figured he should arrange the fixings!)
So ..... now there were 4 cats to get fixed ..... the Mama and her 3 babies 😖.
We have a vet in the far reaching area that has a soft spot for cats and keeping the stray cat population under control. About 4 times a year, with the help of several volunteers, she schedules a clinic for cat neutering. She will do 35 to 40 cat neutering in about 6 hours time.
Strays and feral cats will be neutered and given first vaccinations for $55.oo each. It took an hour drive to the clinic plus $220... to get our 3 females and 1 male taken care of.
In a GodWink of sorts (coincidence), that very same week, I just so happened to win a drawing at church, where I won $250.oo! It was just the right amount to pay the vet fees and cover my mileage 😜
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tallpines
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May 15, 2020 12:56:59 GMT -5
Post by tallpines on May 15, 2020 12:56:59 GMT -5
And ..... I’ll be watching for advice on deworming .....
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