A friend suggested that most people treat their cats as "fur babies" and consider them one-by one, but I treat these cats -- which are hardly "mine" -- as a group. We know that how we think of things has a big impact on what we do about them. I stopped thinking of these cats as my family and began to consider them as a "colony," a sort of biological project. They are enchained, knitted, through generations. I did not choose them -- they simply claimed what they thought was a good space for cats. Electric warming, regular cat food, lots of noisy things to knock off surfaces.
This is the colony at the moment:
2 fertile cats, one the daughter of the other. The daughter is devoted to the mother. We see humans with that relationship. These two cats produce kittens. If I succeed in eliminating their kittens while they are outside, they grieve for almost a week, even if they aren't nursing.
When kittens come -- and sometimes these cats abort or never become pregnant -- if I can catch the moment, I usher them on out of life through drowning. This is an old practice among farm wives. When I dislocated my shoulder, I lost track of a lot of things and failed to end kittens early. The daughter-cat as a newborn was about to be ended when her mother suddenly saw what was happening, grabbed the baby by one backleg and carried her shrieking though the trapdoor to the dirt crawlspace under the floor. I followed but she hid the kitten in an inaccessible spot where it grew up with no light at all. In the end she came staggering out of the darkness, but her hormone status is addled. She has many tomcat characteristics and is ferociously aggressive when strange tomcats come calling.
During my addled recovery from the fall, my guard was down so I didn't prevent what became two big solid-but-soft tom cats I call the bachelors. They are not so friendly. The mayor of Conrad suggested I contact the vet there to see if any ranchers wanted mousers. Then the temp went to ten below zero and I didn't have the heart. I guess the ranchers didn't either. If one responds to spring, these cats are available.
In the meantime, two more kittens arrived, one mostly white that I call Salt and the other dark so I call him Pepper. Both male. The white one is fond and likes me. They were both cute when they were little, but are now long, slinky, pushy, demanding cats. But I would keep them and castrate them as my limit of two, if I were being sensible. They both occasionally have periods of respiratory distress, sneezing and dripping, so they can't be given up for adoption.
4 kittens, newborn
That's six cats. Then both old females gave birth and I had six additional kittens. The daughter, Tuxie (black and white), the one who grew up under the house, had kittens with troubles. One died at birth for its own reasons. I helped along the other two. But Blue Bunny, the cat who's lived here the longest, produced four kittens, all of which have eye troubles, gummy eyes, sometimes sealed shut, so that I spend time cleaning eyes with cotton balls. Now they are eating canned food and semi-box trained. They still nurse, just not so much.
There's another tomcat, the Mooch, a battered ancient creature who comes in the night after a week of battle, recovers on whatever overstuffed chair doesn't already have a cat in it, then disappears for a while. I've never touched him. We all just go around him and he avoids us.
So I thought it was ridiculous for an 80-year-old woman with very little income to have all these cats. I began calling veterinarians.
To spay a cat: $97 to $135
To neuter a tomcat: $60 to $69
To kill an adult cat: $50 to $53
They refuse to kill kittens. It makes them feel bad.
The cheapest solution would be to kill all the adult cats. $200 plus transportation for thirty miles.
In the past, human farm males were asked to cram a tomcat headfirst into a boot and snip off their balls with scissors or a knife. Normally part of raising livestock is removing testicles from male meat animals. "Soft-hearted" people had better stick to plants.
I am humiliated and embarrassed that this cat situation is out of hand. Not just cost and smell and mess, but also because of my five years of animal control in Portland going into the homes of demented old people overrun by cats and inches deep in excrement. No one complained about the people being half-in and half-out of death. They wanted the cats removed. I didn't have to clean the house, but I called social services. No time or duty to do follow-up.
When I moved to this small town, some people were friendly and hoping I would have something interesting to offer them. When I said I was really more of a rez person, some drew back, some turned hostile. I tried to say I came to write and didn't plan to spend long hours gossiping and playing cards. In fact, I wanted to be left alone. This was bad news for the kind of small town person who thinks they are in charge of everyone else. They told me that the last woman who came wanting to be left alone -- even if she died -- got exactly what she wanted. She died. No one knew until -- you know. I did. Animal control officers remove the pets of people who have died alone when the police have to deal with it.
2 "Queens" + 4 kittens
This moment there's a very living kitten swarming up my leg. A seedy character, he didn't turn up when I put out cat food for the kittens. There is always one kitten missing, never the same kitten. When I went searching, I found this "four" in my reading chair, embraced by one of the bachelors. This big cat had been chasing kittens earlier and I was afraid he'd killed this one, but it was safe, not particularly pleased by being awakened. The leg-climbing kitten reached the keyboard, which some kitten had peed on yesterday, and wanted to taste my coffee. I took him out to the front room. The missing "four" had returned to the furry soft bachelor and was blissfully asleep. I tossed Mr. Adventure in with it and the bachelor made room.
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