3 Vegetarian Barn Cats for Sale!

Well it sometimes seems like they are vegetarians!  Trying to control the grain loving rats living in our barn is a real chore.  I have been using the cats, a poison allowed by the Organic Standards, and last week I started to use traps baited with peanut butter.

Pooh Bear, our Great Pyrenees dog watching over the baby goats

I set the trap near the goat milking stand in a corner and the next morning had a large rat.  That morning I also found a rat outside the barn half eaten by Greta (we saw her the night before chewing on its head).  The next three evenings we caught one each night in the trap.  No more rat droppings on the milk stand in the morning - I thought I must be finally controlling them.  That morning I opened the bin where we store our potatoes and on top of the straw covering the potato bin within, was a nest of six huge, LIVE, rats.  I screamed and dropped the lid but one of the rats tried to jump out and the lid came down on his hind quarters, trapping him.  He was screaming (not sure if I was at that time), and everyone ran into the area, the goats jumping up on the lid of the crib, and Pooh Bear, our Great Pyrenees dog that lives with the goats, ran in and started gnawing on its head.  I tried to pull Pooh Bear away but he is 115 lbs of muscle (some fat) and he didn't want to give up a free meal (he is currently on a vet ordered diet).  Finally I got between Pooh and the screaming rat and beat it to death with a bucket.  Oh my.  Last night Pam said she would enjoy a potato dish, but I changed her mind, offering to cook fried chicken gizzards instead, thinking NO WAY I'm going in the potato bin.

BTW, Pam said I can't sell the cats.

This baby was rejected by her mother so Pooh Bear became its best friend