Rodents destroying the garden

[ducks4you]

I usually have a problem with PETA, except for this ad:
https://secure.mediapeta.com/peta/Images/Main/Sections/MediaCenter/PrintAds/COLDDogColor72.jpg

 

[Beekissed]

I usually have a problem with PETA, except for this ad:
https://secure.mediapeta.com/peta/Images/Main/Sections/MediaCenter/PrintAds/COLDDogColor72.jpg

Dog on a big chain, yeah, I don't like that. A dog outside in cold weather? That's where they belong, hence the fur. They wouldn't need fur if they were supposed to live in climate controlled boxes.

Clearly this dog was not left out in the cold all the time or he would have developed a thicker fur, even in that breed, so this pic is clearly staged.

 

[catjac1975]

I really understood the obsession of PETA when I saw a billboard here in the middle of one of the largest fishing ports in the US. It was portraying the vicious suffering of fish in nets.

 

[Nyboy]

Has the OP checked in ?

 

[aftermidnight]

We live very close to a small river, for some reason when you live near water you will always have to deal with rats. We've taken a neighborhood cat under our wing, he has a few problems and his owner doesn't really want him anymore so we fixed a warm place in our woodshed for him to sleep out of the winter weather.
He isn't allowed in the house but we make sure he's O.K. I'm not sure what Percy our inside cat would do if she saw a rat, she's so spoiled she'd probably sit there and wait for one of us to catch it for her.
We have a cellar, not a finished basement so we've always had to deal with rats when the weather turns cold, with him around we haven't had to buy poison for a couple of years.

Annette

 

[digitS']

You are to be commended for keeping your cat indoors, @aftermidnight .

I notice that even out where home lots are large, cats visit neighbors' property. Here, there will be a cat in my yard every 24 hours - no question about it. If it isn't one cat, it will be another. Shucks! I don't even know where they belong or how far that they had to travel. I don't believe that there are rats hereabouts but there are mice.

The neighbor's calico cat has disappeared. I'm afraid to ask about it. I've also noticed that the grey cat that I have been seeing across the street for several years isn't around anymore either.

Several years ago, a neighbor just a few doors down had a couple of cats that I would see laying around in his yard. One day when the winter weather was warming, I noticed a bad smell in my yard. There was a dead cat under my boat! I found another behind a stack of garden stakes. Yep, they were his cats ...

I've never told him out of fear that he would think I killed them. Anyway, reading this thread I have begun to wonder if I or my neighbors didn't inadvertently kill the cats by poisoning the rodents. With 2 cats gone missing this winter, I'm worried about what might be found, come spring. I put mouse poison in my chicken coop, now used only for garden storage and in my neighbor's shed where I will attach a hoophouse when my own protective growing is full. The dang mice were digging into the wall insulation.

Risky business to allow cats to run free outdoors. The Nature Conservancy and Cornell University recommend a "catio." an enclosed cat patio. Sounds okay to me. http://content.yardmap.org/learn/cats-catio/

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Steve cats might have been poisoned but doubt it was from eating poison mice. Something like south American natives use poisoned darts to hunt they can safely eat the meat.

 

[Nyboy]

In most cases outside cats have short life spans. I had my inside cat 19 years he was adult when i found him so not sure his exact age.

 

[thistlebloom]

We had an outdoor female cat that lived to be 18 or 19. I can't remember which...
She was offered the indoors and wouldn't have anything to do with it.

When she and our other cat were gone the gopher population spiked. May have, even with the cats, but it seemed related.

I have 2 new cats now, their job description is mouse and gopher patrol. We'll see how good they are at it. They get to come in the house for a visit, like my dogs, but like my dogs they live outside.

That's where the work is.

To be clear all of my animals have snug housing, warm water and plenty of feed.
I rarely see any neighbor cats on my property, but we are spread out pretty well.

 

[Beekissed]

We had an outdoor female cat that lived to be 18 or 19. I can't remember which...
She was offered the indoors and wouldn't have anything to do with it.

When she and our other cat were gone the gopher population spiked. May have, even with the cats, but it seemed related.

I have 2 new cats now, their job description is mouse and gopher patrol. We'll see how good they are at it. They get to come in the house for a visit, like my dogs, but like my dogs they live outside.

That's where the work is.

To be clear all of my animals have snug housing, warm water and plenty of feed.
I rarely see any neighbor cats on my property, but we are spread out pretty well.

Same here, Thistle. Their natural habitat is outdoors, so that's where their best life can be lived....it's not so much the length of life on this Earth that is the joy of living, but the quality of that life. Especially for an animal...they are designed for a certain life and it's definitely outdoors.

A bird in a cage may live over 50 yrs, far longer than his own kind will live out in the wild, but he'll have 50 yrs of never really having lived as a bird in this world. A long life, but not a good life, not a real one.