Moving barn cats

Minelson · #1 07/14/09, 08:56 PM

This is a lot like the city kitty moving thread but a little different so I thought it best to start a new thread...
I am moving. Our new farm is 6 miles from here. I have 5 out door cats. They were born and raised here...2 years old. All spay/neutered utd on vaccs. They have their own insulated shed that is heated to 34 degrees in the winter. I feed them in there every night and lock them up because of coyotes. THe only time any of them have been in the house was when they were recovering from spay/neuter surgery. They stayed closed up in the guest room to recover.

Any suggestions on how I move them? They are very friendly, social kitties. There are out buildings I could lock them up in for a few days...but it might get kinda hot in there during the day. It's going to be total chaos with the move. I also have 3 dogs, 2 indoor cats, 3 goats, 13 chickens and 2 horses that I have to settle in. The out door cats and the chickens are going to be the hardest.
Advice please! Thanks!

Willow101 · #2 07/15/09, 06:52 AM

I'd give almost the same advice for the barn kitties....just change the location of their introduction. Lock them up for a couple of weeks and see how they act. Take it from there. Make sure that where ever you lock them up it is loaded with familiar things that help them recognize that location as home.

One question. Are you bringing their house with them? That would really make it easy as that is something familiar, can be used to lock them up and would really feel like home. Barn cats do tend to roam their territory and you aren't moving that far away so I would expect that they might want to find the old home again. Your cat house might be the key to convincing them the new farm is home.

Can you talk to the people moving into your old farm and warn them the cats may have some confusing moments and go back there? While the distance between the two farms is outside a normal cat territory...it isn't much outside that territory so it would be easy for them to find their old place.

Willow101

brody · #3 07/15/09, 07:04 AM

exactly what I would say Willow

keeping them shut down somewhere is key ... but you are close enough to home you'll have to be extra vigilent - I'm glad they are used to nightly lock downs - I think that will help a LOT!

good luck with the move - I hate moving

Macybaby · #4 07/15/09, 08:04 AM

I've moved my cats several times. For the outdoor ones, I keep them locked up for 5-7 days and make sure to love on them lots during this time so they accept that I am at this place and will come back each day so they don't have to go looking for me.

For the inside cats, I don't let them outside for the first several days until they are settled in, then only let them out for short periods of time so I can keep an eye on them and make sure they are OK with accepting their "new" home.

When we moved from WI to SD, I had one barn cat with three kittens decide to take off. She stuck around for a week, then one day she and two kittens were gone. Next day she came back, hung around for a day and then left with the third kitten. The kittens were being weaned and she was teaching them to hunt also. I think she went to the neighbor's a mile up the road and decided it was a better place. Two weeks later one of the kittens showed back up and stuck around. Never saw the mother around again. She was not a real friendly cat in the first place.

Bug was the last cat we moved. DH was staying at the old place for a while, and I had been moved sevearl months before we moved her. She looked around, saw the other cats that had been her friends, saw the horses that she knew from the old place and it was like she said "Oh, so THIS is where everyone went!" and she settled in very easily.

The first time we moved it was very tramatic on the house cats, one hide under a chair for a week and at one point I thought he had snuck out on me. We moved again about 7 months later and he handled that much better. When we moved to SD four years after that, he was fine. That cat had been born in our first house and for 8 years had never gone anywhere other than the vet.

BTW - it's real fun having 8 cats in assorted carriers and making a five hour trip. We hired someone else to move the horses - took the guy 13 hours from the time we loaded them to when they showed up. He picked them up at 2 am, then drove to a rest stop and slept 8 hours.

Cathy