Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: EdwardS on April 03, 2020, 03:24:16 pm
-
This guy visited today. Picture does not show his size well. Stride length an average of 23" and paw print 2.5" wide. Bout 25% larger than our biggest cat. We have 5 cats, three indoor/outdoor. This guy is big enough to put a hurtin' on any of them. He didn't like me, either. Is he gonna be a problem?
(https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?media/20200403_144419.61792/full)
(https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?media/20200403_150840.61789/full)
-
could be a bobcat/house cat hybrid
-
could be a bobcat/house cat hybrid
edit: by that i mean he looks to have some traits in his head and patterning that look like a house cat, but he seams a bit bigger than any we had and he's got the short tail.
but i'm no expert he might be within norms for bobcats
-
To me it looks like it has the head of a fox. Cats have flat faces.
-
A big house cat that got his tail stuck in the screen door ;D
-
yeah I'm pretty sure that is just a large feral housecat. Coloration is all wrong for a bobcat.
-
This is a biiiiig housecat then. Not doubting you, just doing the math on paw size and stride length. I'll keep a watch out for him. Our big boy is a lover, not a fighter, even though he's 15 pounds of solid muscle. His father is eight pounds of I will end your entire family line. I fear for both, but for different reasons.
We try to bring the cats in at night because of the unleashed dog problem, but this is just a new issue. We have a feral hog, three or four unleashed dogs, a forty-plus pound real bobcat, and now this spicy fellow. I'm getting about set to spend the night out with a full quiver and some cookies and solve some neighborhood problems. We've already had a cat come home with it's tail half torn off. This neighborhood got rough after quarantine started, at least if you're an animal. People leaving their dogs to scrounge for whatever they can find is both cruel and dangerous, but here we are.
I'm already feeding the neighbor's cats. I can't afford to feed their dogs and they will attack people. They're so either hungry or wild they even attacked the neighbor's donkey. We're not in the city limits and the county is stretched to the limit. I don't want to lose another cat to dogs or anything else. They're not replaceable.
Thanks guys, will take this information to my landlord and discuss a plan.
-
Looks like a big, bobtail Tom cat to me.
I see bobcats all the time and I've never seen one with that color pattern.
-
This is a biiiiig housecat then. Not doubting you, just doing the math on paw size and stride length. I'll keep a watch out for him. Our big boy is a lover, not a fighter, even though he's 15 pounds of solid muscle. His father is eight pounds of I will end your entire family line. I fear for both, but for different reasons.
We try to bring the cats in at night because of the unleashed dog problem, but this is just a new issue. We have a feral hog, three or four unleashed dogs, a forty-plus pound real bobcat, and now this spicy fellow. I'm getting about set to spend the night out with a full quiver and some cookies and solve some neighborhood problems. We've already had a cat come home with it's tail half torn off. This neighborhood got rough after quarantine started, at least if you're an animal. People leaving their dogs to scrounge for whatever they can find is both cruel and dangerous, but here we are.
I'm already feeding the neighbor's cats. I can't afford to feed their dogs and they will attack people. They're so either hungry or wild they even attacked the neighbor's donkey. We're not in the city limits and the county is stretched to the limit. I don't want to lose another cat to dogs or anything else. They're not replaceable.
Thanks guys, will take this information to my landlord and discuss a plan.
At my place in Tennessee before moving out to Montana I had a problem Bobcat. he kept taking guineas and chickens, just leaving prints. I set traps for him for a few nights and finally caught him in a large live trap. It was a feral housecat. It was so large I had to weigh it to be sure, it was 28 pounds. Tabby cat that was larger than some Bobcat I have trapped.
-
Another vote for a monster tom cat. When they are left to roam wild they can get huge. Not to mention the cances of a bobcat knowingly walking past you like that in the daylight are one in millions.
-
Look guys. Am I seeing things or does that critter have a longer pointed nose on it?
-
Its garfield
-
Looks like a big feral cat to me. I am working on a quiver that will have that same pattern ;)
-
Many years ago like 40 or 50 the fur buyer used to give any wheres' from 2 to 5 dollars for nice colored feral cats.The tabby colored ones brought the most.I've seen some very big ones before too.
Nowadays with fur prices being down so much feral cats are every where here.We personally on the farm have around 15 to 20 of them we feed.We keep them around to keep the mice at bay.They do their job well.
Before them I had problems of mice chewing lots of things that cost me a fair amount of money to replace.
A funny story with a good ending somewhat.......Before cats living here mice had the run of the place.I had traps everywhere.Including in my vehicles.Even in the glove compartments.Disgusting!!!
One time I went to start my pick up.It started but would'nt stay idiling good.Very odd as it was a good runner.I got it going steady by feathering the gas pedal,but it still would'nt stay idling.
So I raced the engine a bit.After around 3 to 4 minutes I'd say I heard this whistling sound of various tones coming from underneath my truck.I stayed with it keeping it running,figuring there was something plugging the muffler.There was a point when it barely could stay running when all of a sudden a huge KA-BANG came from underneath the truck.At that moment the truck started idling normally but with straight pipes.
I backed up to see what blew out from my truck.Here there was a ball of congealed dog food in a ball laying there along with my muffler.Apparently the mice had horded and packed my muffler with dog food.The only way they could do that is to steal it from the dogs pans.
The pick up was fine yet.
Anyway when an old feral mother cat started hanging around here I started feeding her.She tamed easily.One heck of a hunter.Seen her with cotton tailed rabbits taken to her kittens.It is from her and her 5th and 6th generations of cats that we now still have cats and NO mice problems.
The End.
On a side note though those feral cats are very hard on our quail and pheasant populations.They catch song birds regularly at the bird feeder too.
-
I see what you are talking about, JEB. I blew made the picture larger and I think it is just a patch of lighter colored grass.
-
Many years ago like 40 or 50 the fur buyer used to give any wheres' from 2 to 5 dollars for nice colored feral cats.The tabby colored ones brought the most.I've seen some very big ones before too.
Nowadays with fur prices being down so much feral cats are every where here.We personally on the farm have around 15 to 20 of them we feed.We keep them around to keep the mice at bay.They do their job well.
Before them I had problems of mice chewing lots of things that cost me a fair amount of money to replace.
A funny story with a good ending somewhat.......Before cats living here mice had the run of the place.I had traps everywhere.Including in my vehicles.Even in the glove compartments.Disgusting!!!
One time I went to start my pick up.It started but would'nt stay idiling good.Very odd as it was a good runner.I got it going steady by feathering the gas pedal,but it still would'nt stay idling.
So I raced the engine a bit.After around 3 to 4 minutes I'd say I heard this whistling sound of various tones coming from underneath my truck.I stayed with it keeping it running,figuring there was something plugging the muffler.There was a point when it barely could stay running when all of a sudden a huge KA-BANG came from underneath the truck.At that moment the truck started idling normally but with straight pipes.
I backed up to see what blew out from my truck.Here there was a ball of congealed dog food in a ball laying there along with my muffler.Apparently the mice had horded and packed my muffler with dog food.The only way they could do that is to steal it from the dogs pans.
The pick up was fine yet.
Anyway when an old feral mother cat started hanging around here I started feeding her.She tamed easily.One heck of a hunter.Seen her with cotton tailed rabbits taken to her kittens.It is from her and her 5th and 6th generations of cats that we now still have cats and NO mice problems.
The End.
On a side note though those feral cats are very hard on our quail and pheasant populations.They catch song birds regularly at the bird feeder too.
I grew up on a large farm. Grandparents brought a few feral cats there to kill mice in the 50's. When I was a kid that number was up to 40-50 cats. Spread out across a few thousand acres of land and many barns. One day my Pa came up to the house and said Get your 22. He had gone out to one of the storage barns and those cats had started opening bags of sweet feed and eating it apparently. There was about 20 bags clawed open and ruined with cats sitting there chomping on it. Pa told me then he'd give me a dollar for every one I drug up in the yard. I spent that summer hunting them like lions in Africa. I'd get a couple, he'd pay me and on it went. When I got to 30 he told me to knock it off or we wouldn't have any cats at all! Needless to say the one that were left were wild and weary. You couldn't get 100 yards to one of them. We never had a problem with them tearing up feed bags again either.
-
I farmed myself most my life as did my father before me,my grandfather and so on for many generations.It's what we know.When storing grain on the farm as was done always for livestock and to sell it is essential to have a good number of cats around to keep the vermin at bay from our grain bins of oats and corn.When we shelled to sell or ground ear corn for livestock there would be a couple dozen cats around to catch the mice.Along with a couple good yard dogs too.We had quite the numbers of cats also.
We always supplemented our cats also with regular cat food most times.They had a job and they did it well.They were not pets but employees to the farm.
If you've ever seen a farms' buildings overrun by rats a person will see the value they are,and you'll never have enough .22 bullets to kill all the rats.The damage they can do to grain and buildings is very costly.A lot more than having cats around to suppress them.Even poisoning them does'nt slow them down if they get bad enough and the cost of poison is a lot more than keeping the cats around.
As kids on the farm we do things sometimes without seeing the big picture.I know I've been guilty of it.My father trusted me with a .22 too at a very young age,but started me with a BB and then a pellet gun first.
The feral cats the way I see it do do a fair amount of damage to our quail and pheasants along with the owls,hawks,coyotes,bobcats,and fox but they get after the field mice themselves too,and somehow I keep seeing new coveys of quail and hatches of pheasants yet too.
When mother cats here have kittens I see them almost every early morn coming out of the woods and fields carrying a mouse in their mouth and also see chipmunks that have been caught in the cat shed too.
What will kill the farm cat and smaller pet dogs around here is the old coyote.Especially around places occupied by elderly couples or possibly disabled that don't get outside or show activity on the yard much.The coyotes will get emboldened enough to come onto the yard to kill cats in broad daylight.Especially into the deepest or coldest part of the winter when food gets pretty scarce.