other farm animals…

…in Southern Norway…

house-cats…

The exclusive club of cats that are allowed to stay in the house, has a pretty limited number of members. Always some who want to join the club, but life-long membership is required and strict control applied.

The black kitten that sat patiently waiting for phone-calls from friends and complete strangers, is definitely not a kitten anymore. He has put his mark on the cat-population on the farm and elsewhere over the years, and still does.

When he finds time to take breaks from serious cat-matters, his favorite place is on the sofa, or he settles in front of the fridge where we keep his favorite food – Norvegia.

He plays tough guy out there, while still acting very much like the kitten he once was when he's indoors. All he's asking for is to have us for himself, with no other cats within striking-distance. Sounds reasonable, but doesn't always work.
 

The longhaired little lady doesn't pay too much attention to the black cat though. She enters the house whenever she likes, and just takes over. She also likes the yellow cheese, and she insists on getting her fair share. Besides: while I'm writing this she still has kittens to feed, so her priorities are clear.

The little lady is slightly camera-shy, so it is comforting to rest in mummy's arms when it is time for close-ups.

These days she is otherwise quite busy making sure her little ones are doing well. She has reserved an area in front of the house as playground for her kittens, and makes sure not a single cat gets near her area and her precious ones.

Well, one can't accuse the lady for not being a caring and careful mother, and her little ones seem to grow up fine. We'll see how and where they'll end up later in life.

barn-cats and stray-cats…

The number varies greatly, as only a few seem to be permanent members of the barn-cat club while all the others come and go as they please. They work hard in the rodent-control department, and are paid in milk and some cat-food (which actually is dog-food).

The pack-leader at the moment is Molly 'the cat', who has been around long enough to get her own “column” on this web site.

Despite being a barn-cat she does feel so much in control that she enters the house now and then when doors are open, but she leaves pretty quickly if spotted on foreign territory by one of the house-cats.

Molly finds it much safer out there in the farm-yard where she's in control of almost everything that goes on, and in the stall-area where she controls the “the milk-bar”.

Being in charge seems to be very important to Molly, and she takes her self-imposed responsibilities very serious. Sometimes a bit too serious, I think, as the other females are perfectly capable of taking care of their own offspring without any interference from Molly. Guess she can't help it, but the other females think she is a nuisance at times.

The longhaired house-cat and Molly simply don't get along at all, but they solve it by staying off each others' territories and not cross each others' paths whenever they can avoid it, so it is usually not a problem.

Barn-cats come in all colors and shades, and kittens are of course as cute as can be – and they are everywhere.
A few of the little ones may let us get really close, but most prefer to keep a distance and are only interested in one thing from us: milk. That's ok.

Since cats come and go and disappears, the number of cats around the cat-food and milk varies from around a dozen to several dozen during the year. The permanent members of the barn-cat club usually get their share, and the others are not really ours. We don't really mind having them around, but we don't mind when they leave and the numbers go down either.

living on the farm…

The cats are here, so I guess they find this farm to be an acceptable habitat. So do we, and we don't mind sharing it with some of these creatures.

sincerely 

Hageland 12.aug.2008
last rev: 01.jul.2009