My understanding of the phrase ‘barn cat’ is that the cat lives in a barn, usually on a farm. Not all farm cats live in barns which is why I started with the meaning of ‘barn cat’.
Starting with that premise helps to formulate an answer to the question. A true barn cat should be semi-domestic, or looking at it from the other side of the coin: semi-feral. But the cat has to be tame enough to accept being taken to a veterinarian for regular treatment because he or she will need to have some human caretaking.
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This is because he’ll be hunting rodents or at least that is the intention. He’s almost bound to get fleas and worms. There’ll have to be regular checks and treatments for parasites. And of course the usual vet visit for other needs such as injuries.
Also he’ll have to accept human contact because the owner should feed him regularly and take care of him; be concerned about his welfare in the usual way. It would be wrong to demand that a barn cat entirely feeds himself. There may disagreement to that suggestion but that’s what I think. If there are farm animals in the barn the heating will be supplied!
So a good barn cat should have a wild side; be semi-feral but domesticated enough to accept and like human contact both with owner and vet and be an interested hunter. Not all cats want to bother to hunt. Some are better than others. It’s a individual trait.
It is probably accepted that it is very difficult to relocate feral cats from a colony site to a barn and farm life. It may not work.
I’d have thought that a suitable cat could be found at a rescue center. I’d like the views of others on that. A barn cat’s life is the modern day equivalent of the original domestic cats around 9,000 years ago. I believe that it is very good life for a cat. It is a very natural life. Although it would be a little harsher than the life of a true domestic cat. Therefore the lifespan may be shorter on average.
One last point; a barn cat would have to get along with other animals such as horses and cows. I have a feeling that cats are predisposed to getting along with farm animals. It probably comes naturally. In fact, I’d expect them to get along better with farm animals than people.
If people advocate for cats as rodent-control on farms and ranches they’ve already doomed them to being destroyed by drowning or shooting when it becomes a financial liability more than any asset. Ranchers and farmers worldwide are fully aware that cats’ Toxoplasma gondii parasite can cause the very same birth defects (hydrocephaly and microcephaly), still-births, and miscarriages in their livestock and important wildlife as it can in pregnant women. Consequently, this is also how this cats’ brain-hijacking parasite gets into your meats and onto your dinner-tables, from herbivores ingesting this cat-parasites’ oocysts in the soils, transferred to the plants and grains that they eat. Herbivores can contract this parasite in NO OTHER WAY. Not even washing your hands in bleach nor hydrochloric-acid will destroy this parasites’ oocysts if you have contracted it from your garden or yard that a cat has defecated in.
This is why any cats are ROUTINELY destroyed around gestating livestock and wildlife-management areas in the most efficient, humane, and least-expensive method available. Common rural practice everywhere. The risk of financial loss from dead livestock and important native wildlife from an invasive-species cat is far too great to do otherwise. This cats’ parasite is now even killing off rare marine-mammals (dolphins, seals, otters, and even rare whales) along all coastal regions around the world from run-off containing this cat-parasites’ oocysts. Letting cats roam free is absolutely no better and just as criminal and morally reprehensible as throwing indiscriminate rat-poison around on everyone’s property, and indeed the whole planet.
Children on farms and ranches also learn how to be a good steward of their lands when it comes to invasive domesticated species like cats, with one simple statement from the ecologically responsible parents, “If you see a cat more’n 100 yards from any building, shoot it! It’s up to no good.” They don’t bother with expensive spaying and neutering cats, that’s too time consuming and costly for a work-cat that’s not doing its proper job. That’s how animals are “domesticated” in the very first place; keep-alive that which benefits humans, destroy the genetic lines of that which does not. The very same way that you got your house-cat species in the very first place.
The next time you bite into that whole-grain veggie-muffin or McBurger, just envision biting down on a shot-dead or drowned kitten or cat. For that’s precisely how that food supply got to your mouths — whether you want to face up to it or not. It’s not going to change reality no matter how much you twist their mind away from the truth of your world.
If you want to blame someone for the drowning and shooting of cats, you need to prosecute yourselves–every time you eat. Enjoy your next meal! At least 1 cat paid for it with its life.
Well, a lot of farmers have barn cats. Barn cats are well-known in the community. I think that you are exaggerating. There is a vaccine for sheep apparently. You know what could be ironic, in fact it would be incredibly ironic if the reason for your acute anger and paranoia about toxoplasmosis comes from an infection of this protozoan. Perhaps you got it! You are infected! And it is driving you mad.
I think it’s just you jumping onto the bandwagon whenever you can to put across your mantra which we have all heard before a million times. At least it seems your comment which I’ve skimmed did not contain any insults. If it did mind you, you could be up for prosecution in the British criminal courts because in this country the police are arresting trolls who harass people.
People who are infected with the T. gondii parasite have their minds hijacked to defend the lives of the parasite’s required host. Your defense of cats is actually the parasite telling you to save and proliferate its required host so the parasite can reproduce even more. Neither you nor your cats exist for their own wants and desires anymore, those have been taken-over, you and your cats only exist now to proliferate a brain-hijacking parasite. That’s all you are today, a required vehicle for a brain-hijacking parasite. Nothing in the world can convince you otherwise. Do you know why? Nobody can argue with a single-celled brain-hijacking parasite. Not even your own mind. It’s a biochemical process that is now beyond your control. It’s far too late for to comprehend and understand that.
One other thing, there is no vaccine against T. gondii. Please stop lying to everyone. Even a cat that has developed a strong antibody count from a previous T. gondii infection is not immune from becoming reinfected many times during their lives. Confirmed in peer-reviewed studies. Please stop lying to the rest of the world. It’s too late to stop lying to yourself, a permanent lifetime brain-hijacking parasite in your mind has seen to that.
There is only person I know who demonstrates the symptoms of toxoplasmosis…..you 🙂