Concerning tomcats and their you-know-what’s:
When I was young, I was rather interested in a Mennonite farm girl, Anna. We were going to a singles event and she’d asked me to pick her up. I was a tad early. “Oh, Tom, good, you’re early. Dad says we have a job to do ‘cause there are too many kittens around.” We caught the dominate tomcat and wrapped him up in a big sack. “Hold him tight.” Then she took out her pocket knife and rendered him, um… ineffective. Not to mention very upset. “He’ll stay dominate for 6 months or so, but there won’t be any more kittens. Then he’ll loose interest in the whole thing and another will take his place.”
To maintain your population of farm cats, you need a couple producing mothers. Things happen to them.
We had an old mother cat who had kittens. Didn’t know where. “Where are your kittens?” Typically, she didn’t answer. Saturday came along and Mom was fixing to do laundry. There, she found Dixie and her kittens, quite comfortably settled in the wash machine. Mom moved the kittens to a box, did the laundry, and kept the lid closed. The old cat didn’t seem to mind.
