Feral Cats & Bobcat

randolph45

New member
My grandma has about 15 cats and you can't pet a single one of them. Still yet she feeds them twice a day. I went over for my weekly visit Sunday and she asked me if I had seen her bobcat. I assumed she just meant there was another new cat. After further asking questions and gaining a description of the critter, I believe that it very well may be a bobcat. She says he comes up of an evening and eats with all the other cats and then goes back down towards the barn. I haven't seen the critter myself nor any pictures, but is this possible/likely? Anyone ever run across a bobcat that is friendly and eats with other animals?
 
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Haha who knows, they train lions to let us put a trainers head in thier mouth in the circus. One thing for sure even the tamed ones will never lose a wild mentality/instinct.

Lonnie
 
Easy meal twice per day. Sure dominance in strength and size. More easy meals if times get rough with the other cats. Why not.
 
We have one at our local hospital I work at and it runs around with the other cats and I swear it is half and half if that is possible I dont know. Looks like a bobcat acts like a bobcat has bob tail produces kittens that look like bobcats its just small.. it is part bobcat or a midget bobcat that has crazy cat friends..
 
The family that lives by where I used to work on the farm had a bobcat/house cat mix. Its name was Bob (of course) and it had a mid length tail, pointed ears, bobcat looking legs and some bobcat facial features. Other than that it looked like a grey house cat and for the most part acted like a house cat. I believe they bought him from someone who breeds them but I don't know that for sure. It looked enough like a bobcat that one day when we were working in the shop during the winter we looked out the window and saw Bob sneaking through the switchgrass. He got the 22-250 pulled on him until my buddy saw it was Bob so we scooped him up and took him back to them. Poor little feller got a prolapse and ended up dying from gut problems. Cool looking cat!

Shelton
 
There has never been a documented case of a wild bobcat breeding with a domestic cat. Ever. My wife is a board certified critical care veterinarian and also has a specialty license in zoological medicine (wildlife). She laughed when I asked her about this. She did say, however, that there are domestic cat breeds that look very similar to bobcats.

As for the bobcat feeding alongside the domestic cats, that's entirely possible. I've heard of stranger things. Not all "predatory" animals are necessarily 100% predatory. They are also opportunists in some cases. Cat food = easy no-effort meal. But it wouldn't surprise me if the cats go down in numbers over time .......
 
Originally Posted By: HidalgoThere has never been a documented case of a wild bobcat breeding with a domestic cat. Ever. My wife is a board certified critical care veterinarian and also has a specialty license in zoological medicine (wildlife). She laughed when I asked her about this. She did say, however, that there are domestic cat breeds that look very similar to bobcats.

As for the bobcat feeding alongside the domestic cats, that's entirely possible. I've heard of stranger things. Not all "predatory" animals are necessarily 100% predatory. They are also opportunists in some cases. Cat food = easy no-effort meal. But it wouldn't surprise me if the cats go down in numbers over time .......

Hey don't throw stones at the messenger hah, that's just what they were told when they got it. What's the breed that looks like them? I'm betting that's what it had to be.
 
SORRY Shelton. I wasn't trying to be an azz. Nor was that directed solely at you.
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There are several breeds that share markings that are similar to wild bobcats. There are also breeds that are "genetically bred" to resemble bobcats and have odd genetic makeups (don't ask me what that means, lol). You can find these for sale and advertised as "bobcat hybrids" but in reality they are not that at all.

Some domestic cats that look similar to wild bobcats:

American bobtail cat?

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Or maybe a "pixie-bob" ?

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No worries! I know you weren't bein an a**, just setting fact straight! It looked like the bottom one but was more a grey color I do believe. Neat little cat none the less!
 
I have always wondered about such a thing myself. My son is an insurance agent, and one of his customers claim to have a half bobcat-half housecat cross, and I've seen the pics. According to them, they had seen a bobcat hanging around their farm, and then saw it "playing" with one of their barn cats. Several months later, kittens were born that resembles the bobcat. The pictures I've seen are of a grey spotted cat with a bobtail and a head that looks like a bobcat. A friend of mine caught a cat in a live trap several years ago, that looked very similar to the other cat, and was the wildest thing he'd ever seen. I googled the question "can a bobcat mate with a domestic cat", and got several hits that say it has happened. Whatever the case is, I cannot imagine that such a critter would make a good pet.
 
Originally Posted By: HidalgoThere has never been a documented case of a wild bobcat breeding with a domestic cat. Ever. My wife is a board certified critical care veterinarian and also has a specialty license in zoological medicine (wildlife). She laughed when I asked her about this. She did say, however, that there are domestic cat breeds that look very similar to bobcats.

As for the bobcat feeding alongside the domestic cats, that's entirely possible. I've heard of stranger things. Not all "predatory" animals are necessarily 100% predatory. They are also opportunists in some cases. Cat food = easy no-effort meal. But it wouldn't surprise me if the cats go down in numbers over time ....... +1
 
Curious what she feeds them and if it is a bobcat, then that would be interesting.
After studying and trapping bobcats over the past 12 years it is for sure they eat fresh meat. They shy away from rotten and/or tainted meat. We have shot a deer or two just before dark and had to wait til morning to tack them and only to find that a bobcat had already found them and ate a little and covered the deer with leaves. We set up trail cameras at the sites and got pictures of the bobcats.
 
You should have seen the cat that was brought in while Desert Ram and I were getting his bobcat pelt tagged by game and fish at the last PM convention. A guy had shot it in his garden, took pics of it, skinned it and brought it down to the game and fish department. I swear it looked just like a cross between a house cat and bobcat. It had a big head, pointed ears with tufts, smaller body like a house cat, all of the markings of a bobcat including the bobbed tail. There was a buzz in the back as they were examining it.

Ultimately they told him, and us, that it was just an abnormal house cat. Desert Ram even got a pic of it because it was so bizarre.
 
A cat is a cat. I've been out night spotting jacks. I've seen barn,{feril} cats around a ranch house at night. Not 100yds away was a large bob cat. He might of been looking for his next meal. But if one of those ferils was in heat, I'll put money on him slapping her along side the head and having his way with her. Instead of diner.
 
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