Frostbite

A sickly Tom cat came to my house years ago. His ears were frozen off, and he was pretty ill. I treated his frozen ears with antibiotic ointments. I put drops in his ears for ear mites. He had a horrible cough without diarrhea. I had penicillin on hand and gave him a shot in his back thigh. I had asked my vet what dosage was suitable for a cat before I gave him his shot.

He was a beautiful white Tom cat. He did not seem to mind my constant doctoring. Tom started to put weight on gradually. He was skinny when he first arrived on our farm. He stayed in a vacant dog house with straw in it. I kept treating his ears and giving him penicillin shots. Tom started coming out of the dog house and eating with my other farm cats.

Tom would let me pick him up and carry him around the farm. Tom had penicillin shots for a week before he was ultimately better. Toms’s’s fur looked beautiful, his ears healed, and his ear-mite free. He was a handsome-looking Tom cat now. Tom always slept in the dog house at night. I guess he felt safe in the dog house at night.

I could not find Tom one day. I had treated Tom every day for about a week and a half. I looked for Tom for some time but could never find him. One day I went to a friend’s house, and there was Tom. Tom looked happy and contented. I never told my friend that her new cat was Tom, the cat I had nursed back to health.

I figured Tom got tired of my doctoring and decided to move on to a house where they did not pester him daily with shots and other treatments. All I cared about was that Tom was healthy.

Outdoor Cat Building

My Father made a building for my outdoor cats. He built the structure for my cats because he knew how much I loved cats.

The building is made with two by 4’s and outdoor plywood. The cat building is insulated and is set on skids, so it does not touch the ground. There is a shelf in the building that my cats can sit on. One side of the building has an old chicken nest filled with fresh straw for my cats to sleep in. I have a shelf by the window in the building that is a good place for my cats to take a sun bath while they lay there. I have a heated stainless steel water dish for my cats in winter. There is an enclosed heated cat bed for my cats to get cozy during cold winter nights. I also have a heated mat with a cover over it.

The original cat flap wore out over the years. I made a new opening out of a piece of plywood. I took a large coffee can and marked around it on the part of plywood. I used a jigsaw to cut out the opening on the piece of plywood.

Raccoons were eating up my cat food. A friend told me how to make the opening raccoon-proof. I took several pieces of ductwork for a furnace and fastened them together at different angles. The raccoons cannot maneuver the different angles and, therefore, cannot get in my cat building anymore to eat up all my cat food in the middle of the night.

I put an oil stain on my cat building yearly to protect the plywood from the elements. My outdoor cats love the building my Father so kindly made for them. I hope your cats have an excellent facility to stay safe and cozy.