My house must be known as a halfway house for young cats who “get themselves in trouble.” Yes, it is a safe haven for cats to have their babies, rear them until they can live well on their own, and then the mothers can take off and leave the babies. Alternatively, the mothers can raise the kittens somewhere else and then when they are sick of parenting duty they can bring the kitten to my barn and dump it off. Other people have humans who drop off unwanted cats. My cats are dumped by their mothers.

My newest addition showed up a few weeks ago. There was a strange adult cat around for a few days but I never saw her near the kitten so can’t say for sure she was the mother but it seems likely. She’s gone now. The kitten was really wild but seems to want to be friendly. She is coming around more now although I still can’t touch her. (By the laws of barn cat genetics all kittens that show up at your house end up being female.)

barn cats

The cat on the left is a four year old who was born here. Her mother took off as soon as the kittens were six weeks old. She started the tradition of dumping babies here. (I know that the grey cat is not the kitten’s mother because I trapped her and spayed her.)