Mighty Mouser: Miss Kitty

Mmmm that was a tasty snack, got some more?

Miss Kitty is the Momma cat around here. She is the physical mother to several if our young cats and figurative mother to some of the older!  She came to the farm three winters ago.  Like most of our cats we aren't sure where she came from and assume someone dropped her off.  She was in rough shape, as we worked to nurse her back to health it quickly became evident that she was "with kittens".  Unfortunately, she chose a poor place to have them and we lost one to the cold before we could get her and them in a warmer spot.  She has proved her worth since then and become a wonderful addition to our mousing team.

Showing off her pretty tortoise shell while being camera shy.

Miss Kitty is a unique color of cat called a calico - it means she has three colors, white, black and orange.  Calicoes aren't common, and due to the required genetic combination for this color they are almost always female.  Only about 1% of calicoes are male, and of those males 99.9% are sterile.

Dad has always preferred calicoes for farm cats for multiple reasons.  The first two are kind of interconnected, calicoes are very good mothers and they are very good mousers.  Whether they are good mousers because they are good mothers or vice versa could become a protracted circular argument, but that doesn't make either fact less true.  The other reason Dad likes them is he thinks they're very pretty :)

Miss Kitty has lived up to the general calico reputation, she is a great mouser and mother - she even tries to mother cats that aren't her kittens! 

While being rather camera shy Miss Kitty is a very affectionate cat.  She is one of the first to wrap around your leg on the way to the parlor.

She would much rather give lovings than photos.

Add these traits to her beautiful fur features and it's no wonder that she made it to the rank of "Mighty Mouser"!