FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 12

[HairOfTheDog]

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club - (very out of date) Who's Who *pics*

This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share, usually about our horses, sometimes about our dogs, gardens and other stuff we do. :~)

I have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will ping everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list.

So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends.

Previous threads:

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11

New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!

[HairOfTheDog]

Maybe you can split the juice between them? ;~)

[FrogInABlender]

...The smell of tuna is definitely a cat drawer. Anytime I open a can, within seconds, no matter where he is at in the house, he is there at my feet yowling at me...

My cats are that way when I bring home a rotisserie chicken from Wal-Mart. When I pop open the little plastic dome that they come in it's just near instantaneous, I have 3 squalling cats under my feet and rearing up on the counter wanting a bite...and they usually get it.

[AnAmericanMother]

KMR is good for all young cats. Much better than giving them cream or milk. Cottage cheese is also very good, as is yoghurt. What you want to avoid is milk that hasn't been curdled or fermented (like cheese or yoghurt) because it does loosen their bowels.

I would get a high-quality kitten food like Prairie, Pinnacle, or Breeder's Choice, then switch them to the dry once they're mature. If you can sprinkle a little of the cat vitamin supplement on top, so much the better.

Some people cook for their kitties -- there are plenty of recipes on the internet. I never bothered back when I bred and showed cats, just used a high-quality balanced food as the core of the diet, then offered treats of yoghurt and cottage cheese, tuna (yes, tuna!) grilled chicken scraps, and a little garnish of mixed veggies.

[HairOfTheDog]

They’re eating good brand dry kibble. I’m going through a pretty large bowl of it every night. I just want the canned (or tuna) to help draw them in to me. They only get that when I’m on the porch. ;~)

[AnAmericanMother]

Perfect. Tuna as the treat directly from the dreaded human.

It's a cat magnet.

I did have one Siamese queen who didn't like seafood in ANY form - not fish, not canned tuna, not shrimp, not lobster. Never could figure out what was wrong with that cat! She DID love T-bone steaks and lamb chops though, and she once stole a whole dressed chicken out of the sink where it was draining. It was almost as big as she was. I caught her while she was trying to drag it under the sofa to enjoy it in privacy -- it was too big to fit, and she was yanking on it and its little wings and legs were jerking with every pull. Looked like a chicken was doing calisthenics on my living room rug . . .

[HairOfTheDog]

Heh.... That’s hilarious :~D

[AnAmericanMother]

That cat was a nut, but her son that I kept was even nuttier. Among other eccentricities, he imagined that he was a leopard in the jungles of Africa, and he would jump up onto the tops of doors (this was a big powerful Siamese male) and hang there, with his hindquarters balanced on top of the door and bracing himself with his front feet. Then when somebody walked through the door he would drop on their head with an unearthly cry.

We put him in the back bedroom when we had visitors. Not everybody appreciates having a large cat drop on them from doorways. But he used to drape himself around my neck like a large fur stole, and just hang there happily, purring. And he loved to swim -- he would try to share my bathtub. He inherited that from his mother, you had to shut her out of the bathroom or she would be paddling around in the tub before you could get in.

[Duchess47]

The State humane society here will provide vouchers for spay/neuter of feral cats so it usually only costs me about $20 per cat. Call them and see what they say. Usually the only requirement is that you release them where you trapped them. That was always fine with me since I don’t mind them working my barns and storage buildings. I feed them all once a day, every morning with dry food and half a can of tuna mixed in, along with fresh water.

[HairOfTheDog]

That’s what I’m hoping for... a good deal like that. And they’re perfectly welcome to stick around and become barn cats or couch cats if they want.

[Duchess47]

My indoor and feral cats get tuna on their dry food. They have for 10 years now, about a Tbsp per cat. No coloring, no additives.

[FrogInABlender]

That sounds like a really cool cat. Personalities like that make them so interesting to play with.

[Duchess47]

I think if you contact them, or the animal shelter, they can give you the information. Don’t tell them they are not going to remain feral or they will figure they have you hooked :) Just that you have three feral cats hanging around, if you trap them, who can spay/nueter and do they provide funds/voucher.

[HairOfTheDog]

Good tip.... will do!

[FrogInABlender]

...I did have one Siamese queen who didn't like seafood in ANY form ... She DID love T-bone steaks and lamb chops though...

She must've been a lioness in a previous life. She don't want no steenking FISH! She wants some RED meat! ;o)

[AnAmericanMother]

And make that steak VERY rare, please!

Siamese originated Cat Personalities. Of course they are very vocal, and into everything, and very demanding for attention . . . but as far as I'm concerned they're the best breed of cat going.

[FrogInABlender]

I think they're gorgeous but I've never had one. All my cats have just kind of "happened" to me. I've always thought that Abyssinian's were really cool looking too. Like little cougars.

[AnAmericanMother]

Abys are another of the Oriental breeds, they're somewhat like Siamese. They're quieter, not as wildly eccentric, and they tend to be "one man cats" while Siamese are usually quite friendly and curious to everybody. They come in two main colors, red and ruddy, if you don't count some of the wilder variations that breeders have come up with. There are as many as 8 or 10 different Siamese color variations, but the Big Four (Seal, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac) are still the overwhelming majority.

If I couldn't get a Siamese, I would go for an Aby or a Burmese, another oriental breed that's related to the Siamese.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Well, I started feeling well enough to go out and mow a bit. Took some pictures. First a very dirty horse.

I got all the dead fall piled from around the dead tree, and a pile of rocks that I'm not sure where they came from, piled up with the bobcat the other day. Looks a lot nicer.

And somemore loose rock that has grown lately, piled up.

This is what I have mown.

And what I have left to mow on Harley's side. If you look between those two trees on the left side, you can see a dirt road. That's the trail/road that takes you back to all the trails I ride. You can faintly see a fence post back there, that is the very back of my property.

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

Cool :~) I just came back in from lunging Bay... He’s sound and sassy, and cleaner than your horse, I might add ;~) Ugh!

The place is looking good! Can’t wait to see how it all lays out when I can see it.

I can’t help but think I’d have made some walls and such out of all those flat rocks. People ~buy~ rocks like that around here.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

LOL...people buy them around here too, not from me tho:(...but anyway, they pay some one to haul them around, and build things with them....it’s really hard hauling them around. I’d love to have a rock wall....just don’t have the strength to build it:)

I was going to gather some of the smaller ones up, to fill in the whole in my drive....alas, the d@#$ bobcat is broke down again...

Becky