hit barn cat with large mower blades

speedracing944 · speedracing944's Garage

I have a old Ford 8N tractor with a 6' wide Woods belly mower. The blades were just sharpened 2 weeks ago. My wife and I have a safety checklist we go through before mowing. The kids need to be in the house with my wife and the chickens and goats are locked up before I start. The reason for this is the tractor can slice right through a 2 1/2" dia stick like it is butter.

3 days ago I hopped on the tractor to mow the yard. I started the tractor and let it idle for a good 45 seconds. I then engaged the PTO and was slowly letting out the clutch while the tractor was at near idle. I had the clutch out about a 1/4 of the way and the blades started to rotate when I heard 2 thumps from under the deck. I immediately put the clutch back in and then I saw one of our barn cats run out from under the mower deck. It was running a little funny. I went in the house and grabbed my wife to search for the cat but it was nowhere to be found.

Fast forward 3 days. Last night the cat came back to the barn.My wife picked it up and noticed 2 gashes on its rear femur. The femur is completely broken in 2 parts and the leg is just dangling from the skin and muscle. My wife thinks the leg would have to be pinned at a cost of $800 - $1200 or have it amputated (not sure of the cost).

We are taking the cat to the vet and most likely having it put down.

masraum · 06-30-2009, 04:54 AM

Bummer, sorry. That sucks.

Poor kitty.

Rot 911 · 06-30-2009, 05:03 AM

Sorry about the cat, but things like that happen out on the farm. Speaking of which, why not just a .22 to the head and bury it?

svandamme · svandamme's Garage

i've seen barn cat's on 3 legs with 1 ear and 1 eye...

If the price is to much, to fix it ... at least consider to amputate,
might suck for the cat, but sucks less then taking the big nap...
It will adjust in no time...

targa911S · 06-30-2009, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by svandamme

i've seen barn cat's on 3 legs with 1 ear and 1 eye...

If the price is to much, to fix it ... at least consider to amputate,
might suck for the cat, but sucks less then taking the big nap...
It will adjust in no time...

+ 1 on that. Barn cats around here get kicked by horses, stomped by cattle and chased by pigs all the time. They adjust pretty easy. I'm sure you feel bad, but you did use all your precautions.

GG Allin · GG Allin's Garage

You know, they say cats have nine lives for a reason. Cats bounce back from these types of injuries easily.

VenezianBlau 87 · 06-30-2009, 06:55 AM

But, you don't want the poor critter to suffer in the meantime.

Tim Hancock · 06-30-2009, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kurt v

sorry about the cat, but things like that happen out on the farm. Speaking of which, why not just a .22 to the head and bury it?

+2

Mothy · Mothy's Garage

Cat with 3 legs - you could call her Eilene

competentone · 06-30-2009, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurt V

Sorry about the cat, but things like that happen out on the farm. Speaking of which, why not just a .22 to the head and bury it?

My thoughts precisely too.

And don't misunderstand, I love cats, but having grown up on a farm, one learns that the "barn cats" are "disposable."

onewhippedpuppy · 06-30-2009, 09:32 AM

You don't take barn cats to the vet.

Gogar · 06-30-2009, 09:35 AM

Hey, tripods have lots of love to give . . . . .

BlueSkyJaunte · 06-30-2009, 10:54 AM

We've got a tripod too--missing the front right leg. She was sleeping in the undercarriage of my neighbor's truck and got caught in a belt when they started the thing up.

Have it lopped off and the critter will get around fine. If not, don't bother paying a vet to do the euthanasia. .22 to the back of the head is kinder--that way the cat won't be stressed out by the vet visit and it'll be over quickly instead of the "slowly go to sleep tortured fade-out" that the vets like to put pet owners through.

pwd72s · 06-30-2009, 11:08 AM

I'm hoping you choose life for the cat. Damn, more than a fe cat haters on this board. Great "tripod" pic...love it!

masraum · 06-30-2009, 12:04 PM

I used to work with a guy whose cat was hit by a car, and paralyzed from the waste down. It could climb onto things using it's claws. He used to run home at lunch because it couldn't poop by itself so he'd squeeze it. That's devotion.

Seahawk · 06-30-2009, 12:15 PM

Sorry to hear about the cat...I take the same precautions you do when I bush hog, they are truly dangerous implements.

Take care...accidents happen.

masraum · 06-30-2009, 12:20 PM

I used to work with a guy whose cat was hit by a car, and paralyzed from the waste down. It could climb onto things using it's claws. He used to run home at lunch because it couldn't poop by itself so he'd squeeze it. That's devotion.

BlueSkyJaunte · 06-30-2009, 12:20 PM

Hope you're not including me among the cat haters, Paul.

We did have to put one of our cats down--he was on the road to racking up multiple 1000's of dollars of vet bills for a recurring problem. When you have a small child in the family the decision becomes much simpler, IMHO.

What I didn't appreciate was how our vet dealt with the whole thing. Judgemental/guilt trip followed by overly melodramatic "ceremony" as she put the cat down. Made me and my wife miserable, and the cat wasn't too excited about the trip to the vet either.

targa911S · 06-30-2009, 12:30 PM

My vet came to my house to put Big Henry down, he went on his own bed. But I live in the country and around here vets make house calls.

KevinP73 · 06-30-2009, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbrouder

You know, they say cats have nine lives for a reason. Cats bounce back from these types of injuries easily.

Ever Wondered Why Cats Are Said To Have Nine Lives?

By: Justine Hankins

April 2003

Or how they always seem to land on their feet after a fall?

The proverbial curiosity doesn't usually kill cats. The inquisitive feline has a knack of dodging death by a whisker. Cats are intrepid explorers and fearless acrobats. After all, a creature with nine lives can afford to take risks. According to Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase & Fable, a cat is said to have nine lives because it is "more tenacious of life than many animals."

The clumsy biped is understandably impressed by the feline arts of stealth, poise and athletic prowess. But why nine? Nine, a trinity of trinities, is a mystical number often invoked in religion and folklore. The cat was once revered in Egypt, and this is probably where its nine lives began. The priesthood in On - known to the Greeks as Heliopolis and now a suburb of Cairo - worshipped Atum-Ra, a sun god who gave life to the gods of air, moisture, earth and sky, who, in turn, produced Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. These gods are collectively known as the Ennead, or the Nine. Atum-Ra, who took the form of a cat for visits to the underworld, embodied nine lives in one creator. A hymn from the fourth century BC says, "O sacred cat! Your mouth is the mouth of the god Atum, the lord of life who has saved you from all taint."

Vestiges of this ancient, cat-worshipping religion lingered in Europe until at least the middle ages. The cat was no longer divine but was still regarded as magical and otherworldly. The ailuromorphic gods are long forgotten, but the cat's resilience still inspires fascination, which is why the myth of the cat's nine lives has endured for so long.

Medieval Europe was a tough place to be a cat, and they were sometimes thrown from high towers. The origin of these rituals is obscure but the cats often survived the ordeal and seemed to walk away unscathed, much to the amazement of spectators.

Legend has it that Baldwin III, Count of Ypres, threw some cats from a tower in AD962. The Belgian town still marks the event with an annual cat festival. A procession celebrates cat history and cats are thrown from the 70-metre Cloth Hall tower. But there is no need to write to your MEP, only toy cats are used these days. Live cats were used until 1817, when the keeper of the town recorded that, "in spite of the height of the fall, the animal ran off quickly so that it might never be caught again in a similar ceremony."

The miracles of the middle ages became the science of the 19th century, when the cat's remarkable ability to survive a fall was finally explained. In 1894, the French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey held a cat upside down by its legs and dropped it. The resultant film, captured by a camera that took 60 images a second, demonstrates how a cat lands on its feet. As the cat falls, an automatic twisting reaction begins and the cat manoeuvres its head, back, legs and tail to lessen the impact. Cats, it seems, have an instinct for physics.

Don't try this at home, though. Cats aren't all that tough; they don't always land the right way up, which is why your average pussy cat jumping from the garden fence will occasionally come home limping, bruised or fractured because of a badly timed fall. Still, studies on cats falling from skyscrapers suggest that up to 90% survive, albeit with broken bones and sore paws. The distance is crucial. Too much and the cat will splat, just as we non-feline mortals would. Too little and the cat doesn't have time to correct itself. There is much to admire in the cat's grace and agility. But don't forget to close the upstairs window, just in case.