About a year and a half ago, I wrote about our barn cat BoJangles who was missing. I lamented about the heart wrenching job it is to own barn cats with all the dangers and troubles on the farm. We worried about him all the time! He got into tons of scuffles and close calls. He fought every cat that came close to the property, very loudly and usually in the middle of the night. But he would curl up in your lap by the fire pit and purr for hours. I am sad that Bo never returned to us like we wished. A barn cannot be without cats for too long or the mice will overrun it and then the snakes show up. If you have never seen how a horse reacts to a snake in or around their stall, consider yourself protected. So we had to rescue 2 little kittens from under my mother’s HVAC unit in downtown Charlotte and bring them out to the farm.
This was a trick! February of 2023 my mother sends me this picture of tiny kittens under her HVAC unit and we go on and on about what to do with them. We call animal control and they can’t take them because they are full. I don’t think she even got an answer from them for like 2 weeks. We decide to leave them alone and monitor until they were big enough to be away from their mother. Momma Kitty moves them to the neighbors house, probably because my mother has one of the most obnoxious little dogs you could ever imagine. And I am on the farm just hoping and wishing BoJangles comes home.
Finally, in April, I decide that we are going to need a barn cat for the upcoming summer and I cannot keep holding out hope for Bo. He would have been home already if he could. He would never willingly leave his barn. Mom talks to her neighbor, who by this point has been feeding them tuna cans and says he can’t keep up with all of them. I agree to catch 2 and bring them to the barn and the neighbor will keep 2 while mom and dad are also still around. Have you ever tried to catch a feral kitten?? Pro tip…do it much more before they are 3 months old! It took us over an hour, moving a bunch of junk in the neighbors backyard, and one seriously determined teenager of mine with gloves and blankets, but we finally got them. Boy were they angry! I wish I had taken a video of that crazy teenager crawling around through junk to catch them!
Once we got them to the barn, I realize I have no idea what I’m doing! I have only had like 3 cats in my whole life and they were indoor only. You know, liter box and a pile of food and you may not see them for 4 days. These kittens were out in the wild, far away from their siblings, and there are dangerous things on our farm. I had to come up with a plan! I took it step by step. And everyone told me I was wrong! We started with them in a dog kennel in the tack room of the barn with a litter box and food. Once they got too big (and WAY too messy) I had to seal up the cat door on the tack room and let them out in the room. They hid all the time, sometimes so well I had to search for a while to find them. As they got a little older, and it turned colder in the winter, I would close the big barn doors and open the tack room door so they could play in the barn. They were super timid, but began to run around and play. They even started killing mice! I had a lovely present in the middle of the barn one morning.
As the weather warmed up and the kittens turned a year old, I knew I couldn’t keep them closed in the barn forever. And everyone still kept telling me I was wrong! That first day of opening the barn doors scared me to death! But I think it scared them even more! Pretty soon they were following me to the pasture as I took out and brought in horses. For a while, I closed the doors at night to keep them safe, but that had to end as the weather warmed. Mick and Chick now have full reign of the farm, but they don’t venture too far from the barn and the safety of each other and their tack room. They don’t cuddle by the fire like Bo, but they are my favorites. They watch the farm from the barn doors day and night, tell me long stories while I clean stalls, and keep all the rodents out of the barn. I can pet and snuggle Chick when she’s looking for food. Every now and then I get a little nose pet in on Mick. But they are still crazy and feral as can be.
I am impressed with myself how I figured this out. They are totally dedicated to that tack room in the barn being their home. Yes, there are scary things out here that could hurt, but they have a safe place to run to for protection. BoJangles used to come to our back door and play with the indoor cat through the sliding glass door. Mick and Chick barely come down the driveway most of the time. But maybe that will change with time. They are their own little adorable personalities. And this farm is theirs to manage. Bojangles left them a home and a role to step right into.
Mr. BoJangles
I learned a few lessons this past year from this experience. One, everything happens for a reason. Two, the way I do it may not be the same as the way others would do it, but this is my show not theirs. And three, the 3day/3 week/3 month rule we always talk about in animal rescue does not apply to feral cats!
Five years later she is the matriarch of this crazy farm life we lead. She is the OG, seriously, Original Gangster! She will allow you to pet her, purr sweetly while 
southerngirlweb 