The past five years I have helped an older couple every morning and evening with their pet horses and I also look after the barn cats. Now I’m in a seemingly hopeless situation where after a year, the 1-year-old spayed female has claimed the barn as her territory and is violently chasing away the 4-year-old neutered male, and the barn owner is fed up and wants her gone ASAP. I already have two indoor cats in an apartment and don’t know anyone who can take her.
These are not typical barn cats because I have spent so much time with them since they were both kittens, so they are basically housecats who live in a barn. I am very attached to both of them. They love people and dogs and they love running around the barn and (separately) sitting on my lap and getting cuddles. The owner has never known anything but feral barn cats and he’s extremely attached to the male, who is one of the friendliest and outgoing cats I’ve known. He will run and jump into my arms.
I have had many cars but only ever introduced them in regular house/apartments, and a barn is something different. I really horribly guilty that I didn’t take action earlier but I assumed they were working things out when really the opposite was happening. He doesn’t have any aggression towards her at all and seems perplexed by her chasing him off.
However it seems he actually ceded the barn territory to her over the summer, and I rarely saw him but knew he was eating his barn food every night and was bringing moles as gifts. Now the weather has turned and he needs to be inside the barn during the day and she’s not having it. The owner saw her puff up and howl and try to attack him, and he’s done with her.
The initial introduction seemed to go well. The female, GK, came with another male kitten, Nube, last November from another state (where they were caught from feral mamas) at around 8 weeks old, and they soon started playing with the resident male cat, Tux. He was interested in playing with them and they got along fine, although she didn’t like rough play. Occasionally as she got older she would act aggressively and chase him away while other times be just fine with him around. She’s still a bit smaller than him.
The two young ones rarely went far from the barn. Tux has a large territory he patrols during the day, but always comes back at night to eat and to see the people (there are other horses the owner takes care of). For the first two years he was kept in a large crate at night for safety, but now he’s allowed to roam freely.
The barn is old and only has one room (tack room) with a closing door that can be used as a safe room, and this is where the two kittens were kept at night to keep them safe. Unfortunately in July the owner said it was time for them to be free at night, which I tried but failed to talk him out of, because while Tux is mostly black, the new pair are very light, and there are occasional predators (coyotes, owls, maybe bobcats). I was afraid they would be playing outside. Nube lasted about three nights before he vanished, and I was livid. After that I insisted that GK was shut back in the room at night. This unfortunately meant she wasn’t getting used to Tux at night.
We have two separate feeding stations in the barn - one in the tack room for her and another one for Tux, but she and Nube always ate from his dishes when he wasn’t around. The dishes are high up so the owner’s dogs don’t get into them, and I think what happened is that he jumped up there while she was eating and scared the hell out of her. A couple times the dishes were knocked over and I noticed he started being very cautious in climbing up there, going very slowly and peering up first before jumping. I think this really traumatized her and she’s been in high alert mode ever since. And since she has been attacking him, he’s equally in high alert.
The owner’s wife has promised me that they will find a home for her (after I got upset about him wanting to take her to the shelter) but I don’t really trust that fully because of his attitude. Being around the horses is really good for my mental health and I’m trying my best not to turn this into a conflict with them.
She’s been mainly shut up in the tack room the past few days except for a couple hours when I knew Tux was sleeping elsewhere. I’ve also been going in and playing with her. However we also have large crates that are full of blankets that they like to sleep in. I thought maybe we could lock her in her crate that’s in the tack room so she could get used to Tux more.
I read about the tip of giving special treats only when the other cat is around. I brought tuna this morning Tux was sleeping in his crate. I shut the door and gave them both tuna separately but inches apart. They loved it and ignored each other otherwise. However he hissed when he first saw her and I can see he’s very threatened.
I would like to get them to play with cat toys, because they both love to play, but the only safe room is firmly her territory. I don’t know if he would be able to relax in there.
Would love any advice at all. I don’t know if this situation can be salvaged but I think we owe it to her to at least try. She’s so happy in the barn and I feel terrible for failing to make them a priority.
Thanks so much. 🙏🏻