Tamed barn cats were the best growing up, they trusted us enough to let us watch them and kittens in the back of the barn with all the straw bales while they were cleaning and cuddling their pretty kittens for hours.
We always had at least 2-3 mommy barn cats having kittens every year, about 1/2 didn’t make it to the next year (the life of a barn cat is rough) but the mothers would always take such great care of their kittens and later in the summer we would see her take her adolescent kittens out to train them how to hunt.
Barn owls are deadly to young cats ... and young raccoons I’ve discovered.