Hi, All;
 
Has anyone here ever taken in a ferel cat?  I was listening to Art Bell
a couple of nights ago.  He has mentioned several times that he is a
cat lover who has several cats.  Several months ago, he discovered a ferel
tabby living under his house.  He managed to capture him and brought him
inside, and has been trying to tame him ever since.  Since the cat is a
real spitfire, Art named him Rocket.  First Rocket lived in an
inaccessable corner of the bathroom, then he moved "his spot," IIRC,
behind the kitchen stove where he stayed for a while.  After several
months he started socializing with Art's other cats and with Art and his
wife.
 
Anyway, a couple of nights ago, Art had Rocket in the studio with him while
he was broadcasting, and he picked Rocket up to hold him for a minute.
This was NOT what Rocket had in mind, however, so he engaged posi-traction
and left a couple of slightly bloody scratches upon the person of Art Bell.
So after all these months, he still isn't completely domesticated!
 
Speaking of Ferel cats, about 6-7 years ago, I spotted a shorthair gray
ferel coming through our yard, catching birds or whatever else she could
find for dinner.  I decided to try to bring her inside.  (We - my room-
mate and I) were petless at the time, and we're both cat lovers - my
roomie was once known as "The cat lady of Brunson Michigan."  But that's
another story... Joan and her cats!  (I may have told that story in here
before.)  So anyway, I put out a little moist cat food under the clothes
line where her daily rounds took her, and sure enough, she stopped to
eat.  I went out to see if I could catch her - She was pretty leery of
me, but she let me pick her up and take her inside.  She was pretty wild,
but clean and not starving.  She was solid medium-gray in color, with very
faint darker tabby markings, and she had the most BEAUTIFUL golden eyes,
so we named her Goldie.
 
Goldie was not overly human-friendly, though she tolerated us pretty well,
and after a while she got to be almost a lap-cat, (but not quite.)  But
that cat absoloutely redefined the word STUBBORN!  She was TOTALLY
untrainable!  IF she wanted to go into a forbidden area, I don't think a
can of mace would have stopped her!  IF she wanted to sleep somewhere that
we didn't want cat hair, (like for instance a cooking utensil), she would
have died in the attempt to get into it and sleep!  There was a small
cupboard over the desk where I had my computer, and one time while I was
working on the computer - I had left the cupboard doors open - She bounced
from the floor to the back of my chair and into the cupboard and curled up
before I had a chance to stop her!  That was where I kept the disks for my
computer and I did NOT want cat hair in them!  She had been scolded
several times in the past for getting in there.  I think it may have been
her stubbornness versus our attempts to set limits that kept her from
becoming a lap-cat, or at least she was NOT happy at having RULES to
follow!!!  She usually slept on the floor by the foot of the bed, and her
purring could be plainly heard, not only in the bed but in the next room!
 
And then, as female cats do, she went into heat... and the whole darn
neighborhood knew it!  So, to get some peace, (and sleep), we borrowed a
big old orange flea and ear mite factory from a farm, just to get her to
shut up!  He knew what to do about the situation, and peace was soon
restored.  Out of the litter of 5, I still have one of the males, Spiker.
We found good homes for all of Spiker's littermates.  The next time she
came into heat Spiker wasn't old enough to do anything abnout it, but the
next time, when he was about a year old, he sure did!  It was shortly
after that littler was born that Goldie decided she had had enough of the
domesticated life.  So she abandoned her barely-weaned litter and slipped
out one night when a visitor left.  She was never seen again, as least by
us.  To this day, I often wonder what happened to her: If she's still
living the ferel life, if she found a home without rules, if she got
picked up by animal control, or if she had a worse fate.  I will probably
never know.   :-<
 
We kept Bashful from that litter.  Bashful was a LOT like Art's Rocket...
a wildcat from the word go!  I made it my special mission in life to tame
that kitten!  It took me two years to tame her, and I really worked hard
at it, but I finally managed to tame her.
 
When Bashful was 2 years old, we let Spiker do his thing.  We kept one of
the females from that litter and found good homes for the rest.  That
little girl, Scamper was the fastest thing on four legs!  I think she
could travel the length of this apartment, (about 30 feet), in less than
a milisecond!  If you saw an indistinct grey streak go by and heard the
wind whistle, it was Scamper!  Any faster and she might have hit Mach 1!
 
Now I have Scamper's daughter, Shadow, the sweetest little cuddlebug you
ever hope to meet!  She is two years old, and now kittenticipating for
the first time.  Her little belly is blown up like a balloon.  I just
checked her eight nipples, (I thought cats had 6!), and two are getting
well-developed, with two more somewhat developed, so I am guessing 2 to 4
in the litter.  (I have always found that to be a pretty reliable
indicator of litter size.)  From the development of the two, and the size
of her belly, I'd say she is getting pretty close to presenting us, (Ross
and I), with her babies soon.  I don't remember the date Spiker "took care
of things," so I can't give a guestimate of the due date... We'll just
have to wait.
 
Out of all the litters these cats have had, I have only had to send two
kittens to a farm to be barncats, and reports indicate that those 2 have
adjusted well and are earning their keep keeping the rodent population
down.  The rest have all gone to loving families.
 
And before someone uses words like "Neuter" or "Fix," forget it!  I'm
sorry, but I cannot resist the thought of a litter of kittens once in
a while, and I keep it down to less than one litter per year, (actually
closer to a litter every two years.)  With an average survival rate of
about 3-4 kittens per litter, (these tend to have 4-5 per litter), that
averages out to about 2 kittens a year... it's not too hard to find GOOD,
LOVING homes for that quantity.
 
So how to I keep a healthy tomcat from "taking care of things" in the
presence of an in-heat female?  Two things.  First, the females in this
line don't come into heat at as early an age nor as often as most cats,
so that's 3/4 of the problem solved right there.  Also, if I tell him
NO and back it up with just the threat of a squirt of water, he won't
do as nature says... in fact, I have to give him permission TO do what
comes naturally!  (Don't ask how I do that... suffice to say, we
understand each other.)
 
Catch you later... Purrrrrrrs.  ^oo^
   Ivy, who is waiting to see...   8->
 
... In the image of the lion made He kittens small and curious.
 
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