Querque Cats

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Comment by princess aurora on August 13, 2008 at 1:09pm

i just got into duke city fix i cant believe there is a group like this amazing!!!! hi everyone!! i have 4 cats!!! isabel, snowball, spot and baby tutty

Comment by spoon on August 8, 2008 at 8:45am

Spoke too soon. Lily just learned to kill this morning. She dragged a tiny sparrow off the grape vine, pulled it inside the house, and was torturing it in my mother's bedroom. It was bleeding everywhere. I cut its head off. That's what they say to do with injured chickens. Poor baby had a huge hole on her side.

Comment by Pat OConnell on July 29, 2008 at 7:22am

Since I apparently haven't introduced myself here, I have three cats, all living in Albuquerque with my wife (I'm in Minneapolis for a job).
Frankie and Sammy were rescued from a pet shop who wanted to put them to sleep because they were too old to sell as kittens. Our cat loving daughter brought them home as Father's Day presents.

Frankie is a gray tabby, who has decided I'm his human (not the other way around). He's the smallest of the three, and the other cats sometimes pick on him. He's also the smartest of the three.

Sammy is an orange tabby, and is huge. He's sweet tempered, but never quite learned how to clean himself properly, so the other two cats clean him like he was a kitten. We have to QTip his ears all the time.

Noel is a tuxedo kitty (color. She's originally an alley cat, is the feistiest of the three, and obviously considers herself the leader of the pack, though Sammy sometimes disagrees. She adopted my wife when she was walking on Christmas Eve checking out the lights. I got a call "I got little kitty, and she won't go away. Can I keep her?" Hence the name Noel.

Because they're all in Albuquerque and I'm not, I miss them.
They recently got shot renewals while I was in town, and got microchipped. Sammy took it stoically, but the others were not happy about the poking and chipping.

Comment by mombat on July 7, 2008 at 11:48am

Our kitty came to us as a 4week old stray, she was the most inept hunter ever. After 3 years though she is now bringing down birds and so we are trying to keep her inside.
When the chickens are bigger they will probably be able to scare off the cats.

Comment by spoon on July 5, 2008 at 9:24am

Well, that's a relief. I just got 7 chickens! Granted, they're never alone together, but I'd rather not be pulling cats off chickens in the future.

Comment by Mike Connealy on July 4, 2008 at 6:42pm

Stalking and capturing prey seems to be instinctual in cats. Much of the play activity in kittens is preparation for the hunt. However, killing and eating what is caught is something that apparently needs to be learned from a mother cat that knows the ropes. Our two strays, adopted as small kittens, were enthusiastic and persistent mouse hunters, but they never killed their quarry. I always had to scoop up the mice in a can or jar and dump them outside.
We've always kept our cats in the house, though the male is very curious about what is going on in the outside world. When we lived in the desert north of Las Cruces, there were way too many big predators to permit the cats outdoors. In Albuquerque, the dangers are different, but just as real. I get a few complaints when I'm going in and out, but I feel like we are making a compromise that benefits everyone in the end by keeping our cats indoors.

Comment by spoon on July 4, 2008 at 5:50pm

I've hand-raised my own kittens since they were left for dead at about 2 weeks of age. They are almost grown now, but have never met another cat. I am just starting to get them used to being able to go outside during the day. Will my kittens ever learn to hunt?

Comment by Zoe on June 30, 2008 at 10:46am

I hope the homes you've found for the kittens who will promise to get them spayed/neutered. Do you think you can talk to your neighbor about calling NM Animal Friends (881-7297) about their feral cat spay/neuter program. They will provide you with a trap and have free surgeries available for ferals. Otherwise, finding homes for the kittens is, unfortunately, a finger in the dam.

Comment by Mike Connealy on June 26, 2008 at 9:49pm

If the kittens are eating cat food they are more than four weeks of age. You might compare them with the pictures at the beginning of the "Outsiders" discussion. I nabbed two of those kittens as they were eating soon after I made those pictures. The last one evaded me for another ten days or so and was slower to tame down, though she is doing well now. With a different litter, I had better luck trapping them by feeding them in a wire cage, and then shutting the door with a string. That's a bit primitive and time consuming as a method, but it worked and all are now headed for new homes.

Comment by Mikaela Renz-Whitmore on June 25, 2008 at 4:04pm

Hey, Mike - Thanks so much for the tip(s)!

How do you recognize what 4-6 weeks looks like?

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