There are feral cats; there are barn cats. Then there are Tom and Carla’s feral barn cats. They’re in a class by themselves.

You can’t pick them up or grab them, and you certainly can’t cuddle them. So why have them?

That one I can answer. A few years ago, the barn was overrun with mice and rats. When I finally decided enough was enough, we trapped several dozen mice in two weeks. Mice and rats had to go. We needed cats.

Boy, did we get cats! After episodes with spaying and neutering, our herd — or whatever you call a bunch of feral barn cats — is stable at eight or nine. We have six black cats and one lone-wolf gray cat. Then there is “the orange cat.” There was one orange cat among the original offspring. Last spring, another orange cat appeared. By now, I seldom see two orange cats at once. But each has a personality, and some days the orange cat acts like the original cat, some days like the drifter. So maybe we have eight cats, maybe nine.

What we don’t have are mice and rats. I haven’t seen a live one at the barn for two years.

Cats in the window

The sheep get fed twice per day. The cats get fed once per day — in the morning. If I feed them at night, racoons and opossums show up after dark and eat what the cats haven’t finished. So, they have adapted to the once-per-day feeding routine.

How have they adapted? At least two black cats meet me at the back door every morning. OK, technically, they’re somewhere on the patio or in the backyard, and they follow me out, keeping a safe distance of at least 20 feet. I call them the sentry cats. Is it the same pair every day? Beats me!

I feed the sheep first, and then start doling out feed for the cats. All the while, two or three stand just outside the barn door, observing. By then, at least one is in the tiny, 1-foot-tall-by-2-foot-long window at the end of the barn above their feed pans. They’re all black cats. The gray cat is holed up in a corner in the straw somewhere if it’s cold or perched on a post just outside the back barn door in the summer. He’s anti-social. He really needs a counselor. He will only eat if I put his food in a separate pan away from the others. And if one of the orange cats is around, he or she is on the outside, prancing and waiting.

Here’s where the fun begins. How scared of humans are they? I dump feed for the black cat gang in three pans. Every time I come near a pan, any cats trying to get a head start scramble. Several often head for the small window.

How many cats can you fit into a tiny window? Three, if you count the one hanging on the barn wall, literally suspended in midair. And then it depends on which cats are in the window. The smallest, all black, meanest hombre snarls at whoever else is in the window, and it’s another cat, not a person!

Why do I tolerate this crazy cat crew? No mice, no rats!