Cat thinks it's a chook

FOUR legs, two pointy ears, whiskers on his face - Bustopher might look like one, but he is far from being an ordinary cat.

The four-year-old feline thinks he's a chook.

When Naomi Oliver's chickens laid their eggs and didn't show much interest in the incubation and the upbringing of their offspring, the animal-lover's feline took over the command in the chook shed - and started incubating the eggs.

PART OF PECKING ORDER: Bustopher the cat is far from an ordinary feline - he thinks he's a chicken.

"I am not sure if he knows that he is a cat, he doesn't really behave like one," Mrs Oliver told the Northern Territory News.

"Bustopher often wanders around in the chook pen, playing with the chooks as if he was one of them, not a predator."

But it wasn't until her chooks laid a few eggs in a nest outside their shed that Mrs Oliver discovered her cat's quirky affection for her poultry.

The first pic sent in showing Bustopher perched on his precious eggs

"I was looking for Bustopher and found him sitting on the eggs, obviously trying to incubate them," Mrs Oliver said.

"When he was still there after three days I started wondering what was going through his head - but I am sure he thought he was doing a great job."

Mrs Oliver said her cat only left his nest once or twice a day to grab a feed and have a nap on her bed, before heading back to his hatchlings-to-be.

"He's a real character, and obviously friends with my hens but when nothing hatched after three days he gave up on sitting on the eggs."

Original Post by ANNIE SANSON  on February 20th, 2010 NTNEWS

Cat Chases Bear Up Tree

June 13, 2006—Perhaps not since the Cowardly Lion has an animal's appearance been so at odds with its attitude.

On June 4 a black bear wandered into a West Milford, New Jersey, back yard, was confronted by a 15-pound (7-kilogram) tabby cat … and fled up a neighbor's tree. Hissing at the base of the tree, Jack the clawless cat kept the bear at bay for about 15 minutes, then ran him up another tree after an attempted escape.

Finally, Jack's owner, Donna Dickey, called the cat inside, and the timorous trespasser disappeared back into the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said of Jack in an interview with the Newark Star Ledger.

Unlike cats, bears aren't typically territorial, roaming instead over vast areas that would be impossible to patrol for intruders. With a habitat that includes much of North America, black bears are seen fairly often in this region of New Jersey.

Full-grown black bears weigh between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) and measure as much as 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. Their diets can include fruits, honey, insects, acorns and animals as big as moose calves—a fact apparently lost on Jack.

Original post—Ted Chamberlain : nationalgeographic

Born and Living in Tree

A handsome gray and white cat known as Almond has taken up residence in Ron Venden's yard on Highway X in rural Green County, Wisconsin. Even more astounding, Venden claims that he never has left the tree since he entered this world in June of last year.

The sequence of events is not exactly clear but apparently Almond's mother gave birth to a litter of kittens in the tree last spring but for some unknown reason neglected to take him along with her when she pulled up stakes. The sixty-six-year-old retired carpenter, who now raises chickens as a hobby, discovered Almond's presence soon thereafter and took it upon himself to become his surrogate mother.

With the aid of a twelve-foot ladder, he has installed an automatic kibble dispenser and twice daily treats Almond to a bowl of salami, meatloaf, and milk.

In order to make living in the maple bearable throughout Wisconsin's long, brutal winters, Venden cut a hole in its hollow and fitted an all-weather straw bed inside of it. He topped off Almond's winter abode with a combination tin and tar paper roof.

So far, the impromptu cat house that Venden has cobbled together has worked out rather well for Almond. "You can see the cat looks pretty healthy," he told the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison in a video on January 19th.

Looks, as everyone knows, can be deceiving and that is especially the case with cats. In particular, if he never leaves the tree it is doubtful that Almond is getting all the exercise that he needs in order to prevent his legs from atrophying.

The inordinate amount of climbing that he does is definitely beneficial but a cat needs to walk, run, and gambol as well. It also could be the case that he has developed a psychological issue and is terrified of abandoning the security blanket provided by the maple.

It thus appears that Almond has found a lasting home with two guaranteed meals a day. "I'm not going to stop ( feeding ), no. If I'm gone there will be someone here to take care of the cat," he pledged in the video cited supra. "I'm not going to leave her. "I want to see how long it stays here."

Original Video from : DiscoveryNews on Feb. 22, 2011