Rat Killers

It has been almost 3 complete years since our two cats died.  Sheltie and Christie were sisters and were 13 years old when the last of their 9 lives expired.  We've missed having cats around. We've also missed their ferocious desire to hunt out and kill rats, birds and the occasional squirrel.

Since their demise, the rats have grown in number.  As they say, "When the cat's away, the mice play." We've seen the population of rats in the barn skyrocket and have even seen a few in the garage.   It was high time that we restored order around here.  We began looking around for kittens and found a couple of kittens from a friend on Tricia's facebook.  The kittens were sisters.  A few days ago they brought over a laundry basket of kittens and Russ and Benjamin each picked out one.

Russ' kitten is the one on the left and Benjamin's is the one on the right.  They are living in the garage for now, but we'll introduce them to the barn at some point.

At first we were a little concerned about how they would fare with Big Boy, our Great Pyrenees dog.  Big Boy makes sport of chasing down and violently killing possums, rabbits and other varmints.  We were thinking that Big Boy may enjoy eating our new kittens, so we kept the kittens in a kennel for a few days.  Then we released them while we kept a close eye on Big Boy so he wouldn't snack on the kittens.  Believe it or not, Big Boy wasn't interested.

How could you eat a kitten in a Croc?  Really...

For some reason they like sitting in my Crocs.

I have made a personal note to make sure I check the Crocs before putting my feet in them.  The kittens show lackluster skills in using a litterbox that the boys set out in the garage and I don't want to find a 'surprise' when I slip my feet into the Crocs.

Although I'm not a cat person, I have to admit that they are kind of cute.  They need to grow up quickly though.  Some of the rats on the property are much bigger than them.  The cats will have to earn their keep around here by putting a dent in the rat population.  We'll be anxious to see how our new Rat Killers perform.