Marcia, just to let you know I'm very aware of the dangers a cat or any other pet faces by being left to roam wild. The screens Rascal was going through were not on a screen porch but any window on the house that was open so much as a crack. We had the choice of either making her an indoor/outdoor cat or never opening a window in the house ever again! I tried every method I could think of to keep her an indoor cat and nothing worked. My other cats are only outdoor when I am outside with them and go back inside with me. Khyssa is trained to always come to me when I whistle for her and Koneko is completely harness trained. I have always spayed or nuetered my pets as soon as they were old enough and I always get them the full range of yearly vacinations, including kitty luekemia. In the past I've rescued a number of pets that were out running loose in the neighborhood. Usually with the dogs I'm able to find their owners without much trouble but not so with cats. I once had a three-legged tom cat decide to adopt us but at the time I couldn't bring him into the house. I still got him nuetered and got all his shots and took care of him until I was able to find someone to adopt him. I also found a whole litter of white kittens that someone had dumped along side the road that I ended up taking to a local rescue group since all of them had goopy eyes and I just didn't have the money for that large of a vet bill. One of my sister's boyfriends gave her a baby flying squirrel as a gift but she quickly lost interest in it. I ended up being the one taking care of him and found him to be a very affectionate and intelligent animal. We had him for several years but then I bought my own house and with having several cats at my house I couldn't keep Rocky, the squirell, at my house as well. At the time he was living at my parents house but my mom really didn't want him there since he was a bit messy and his cage tended to smell a bit. By talking to an exotic pet store owner I was able to find someone with experience raising flying squirells to take Rocky in. I've been known to nag and scold friends or family members who don't get their pets nuetered or spayed in a timely matter. I'll even go out of my way to find them assistance in getting it done. People shouldn't keep animals unless they are willing and able to take proper care of them. Kara

I have a cat sanctuary. Just this week took in a cat with 5 LBS of matted fur. Vet gave the lion cut. Have other long haired cats in my care prone to severe matting. My advice is regular grooming. Shaving fur off in Summer, (all my long haired cats love being short haired cats) and removing mats with a seam stripper or thread cutter (no scissors). If you have a sewing kit there will be one in there. It looks like a two pronged fork with a ball on one end and pointed on the other. You can just run it under the matt without fear of cutting the skin. Works like a dream.

Its sad when we try to talk to people like this for their own good, and yet they back away convinced we are against them and dont understand when in fact we do. They are WWWAAAYYY too many cats in this world, your cat dosent nead to have a litter. They are animals they do not desire kits, sex and lust yes, love their kits after they are born yes, but do not desire them as would humans after they grow up then mom probably wont care about them anymore. If you spay her she will be happyier and a better pet, she wont have heat cycles she wont have cancer. Its good that you plan on spaying mom and nuetering dad but still its dangerous for her to have a litter, How old is she? How old is the father? A cat can have babies or make babies at 4 to 5 months. Please get her spayed, you will be saving yourself money, plus if you volnteer at a shelter and foster a preg queen you still will be able to get kittens and the costs will be for free or reduced.

I use an old three-gallon enameled pail I bought at an auction and an old pot lid that fits on the top (to keep the nosey cats out). It lives either on the floor or on the counter, depending. It's emptied to the compost pile last thing at night when one of us make the rounds to check on things in the barns before bed. In the summer it is sloshed out at the outdoor tap and left upside down to dry overnight. In the winter (does that still happen these days?) it is brought in and left to freeze in the wood room when we bring the last firewood in for the night. During major preservation orgies I use a giant SS bowl (probably 2 feet across) that gets filled to heaping and dumped as needed. My late MIL used a SS pail (with a lid - actually the lid I now use, sans pail; I wonder where the pail went?) for her compost enroute to her chickens. My own Mother used a lidded ceramic casserole as a collection point, dumped every morning after the egg shells from breakfast were added. My compost pile is literally a pile. During warm weather I stick a fork in it occasionally and have at it once or twice per season with the bucket loader to tumble it. Most of the time I just let Nature takes its course. If it gets too big, I just started dumping stuff on the ground next to it. Easy-peasy. Once in a awhile I add the gleanings from the (pet) rabbits' cages to boost the nitrogen component, but that manure (and more particularly, the bunny pee) is too "hot" to add it all the time. Mostly the cage-gleanings go on their own pile that I manage more intensively than the veg. compost pile, which is a totally laissez-affair. Every summer I plan to use saplings to make a nice cage around my veg. compost pile - laid up in a loose log-cabin-like framework. But in two-plus decades here I have always chosen the slattern's approach of just dumping stuff on the ground. That really pleases the skunks and opossums, no doubt. In the end I get nice friable organic matter that I slap around the garden so no evidence of my decades of sloth is apparent. L.