Unsolved Mysteries: Fat Cat Edition

Unsolved Mysteries: Fat Cat Edition

Evie’s birthday barn kittens Flip (seen here) and Cutener are the most roly-poly cats I have ever encountered.

At only 8 months of age, they each weigh over 18 pounds and are replete with the saggy belly flaps I normally associate with sedentary, middle-aged house cats. When Cutener was resting on the window ledge the other day, I counted 3 complete rolls where his belly met his back leg. It’s disturbing to see half grown kittens so fat they can hardly clean themselves properly.

How are these little turds so very fat at such a young age? Well, it’s not from watching video games and drinking Mountain Dew nonstop....no, it’s because they are two of the worst little egg suckers I have ever met.

Throughout last fall and into this winter, our total egg supply dwindled far faster than season change/moulting/aging hens accounted for. For weeks, I just found sticky remnants of broken eggs in our nest boxes and began blaming the hens for being terrible, awful, no-good egg eaters, even though I had never witnessed anyone actually breaking open an egg. But Occam’s Law states that the most likely explanation is usually the right one and the shoe fit, so the hens wore it.

But why didn’t make sense is that we were also missing all of our errant hen nests of eggs too. Our chickens have free range of the whole farm and inevitably that means at least a few hens decide nest boxes are sooooo passé and make nests in all sorts of weird places. If the dogs find them, we usually know as they like to carry their found treasures up to the house to consume. But usually we find them in due time (because the hens usually choose a high, hard to get to spot like the top of the tractor 🤦‍♀️) with 10-20 very suspect old eggs that get thrown to some very happy pigs. But throughout the fall I had not found a single odd nest anywhere on the farm.

Meanwhile, during this same period, Evie’s kittens grew progressively fatter and fatter...though they played outside all day and all night. Barn cats aren’t supposed to get obese...especially not young ones. But I digress...

For Christmas, my dear husband solved our problems by getting me a rollaway nest...one where after the hen lays her egg, it simply rolls into a secret compartment only humans can access. And this new nest box, combined with a timely barn entrance, was how the ultimate Unsolved Mystery of the farm was put to bed.

For not a few days after we installed the next box, who did I find prowling in it but the two obese kittens? They were systematically checking each nest and were visibly disappointed to find each empty. One day I even found one inside the nest and reaching a paw down into the egg compartment to flick it back out. Literally they were caught red-pawed!

But still I wasn’t completely sure that was how they had gotten so fat until over Christmas break I walked into our main barn, where a few of my special needs chickens live, and found the kittens creepily sitting on either side of a hen busy laying her egg in the rag box. By how patiently they were waiting and how unconcerned the hen was, I could tell this was not an unusual event.

The moment the hen got up, both kittens pounced for the egg and then broke into a brawling, squalling cat fight over who would get it. I then watched as Flip cracked it ever so delicately with his teeth and slurped up the egg-y goodness. The great disappearing egg mystery was solved! Along with that of the mysteriously rotund kittens.

Now that they can only catch a few odd eggs from errant hens, I am hoping they slim down to normal cat sizes. But I guess if they get too fat to fit into any chicken-sized spaces, I will win in the end anyway. 🙄