Who needs a vacation with an immersive cat and duck experience? If you get to the end of this page and think, “I want to do that for a few days!”, let us know and we can probably find a place to disappear to while you stay at Loving Farm and get a taste of the day-to-day pet love we get here all the time.

These are the things we do to make our resident kitties and ducks as comfortable as possible while staying with us. As 2025 we care for five kitties and five ducks. Balance.

Cats, in order of arrival are Tux, Gray, Max, Oscar, and George.

George kind of lets himself in and out as he has a secret cat door that no one else has learned about. Tux and Oscar are completely indoors, and Gray and Max go outside periodically, depending on their health and the weather.

Ducks

Howard and Dayz are are khaki campbells, on the cusp of 8 years old at the time of this writing. Mamma, Mia, and Baby were adopted in 2024 to give Dayz some friends and backup as Howard is a robust and pushy drake who has yet to hit is manopause. If you know anything about duck behavior, you know that the males can make for a horrible life for the females, so it is best to get a good ratio of females to males to keep them healthy and unharmed.

Howard is named after Howard the Duck and lives up to his namesake.

I am going to share our daily routine with this menagerie. When someone cares for them, however, our main expectation is that when we come home everyone is fed, hydrated and healthy. If they want to go extra and spoil them, by all means, we welcome that, but we admittedly feel over the top in our care for these critters.

7:30 wakeup.

We used to get up and going between 6 and 6:30! Now we purposfully put off their breakfast until 7:30 to try and get us awake when the sun is coming up. One of us prepares the duck breakfast, putting a full scoop in each of the four compartments between their two food dishes. We sprinkle oregano, vitamin powder and turmeric on top of it and kind of shake the dish to get a coating on it. If it is super cold outside, we bring enough warm water from the bathtub to at least top off their green water buckets to melt the ice and heated water bowl.

I usually take the food down to the run and put their food dishes where they should stay pretty dry, then open their coop door to let them out into their run. We try so hard not to keep them in their house for more than 9 or so hours at a time since we don’t leave water in the house which can lead to poor air quality that is harmful to their health. As a note, we don’t let our ducks free range without supervision as the hawks are hungry and will try to take them away if left alone. We have had a close call and do not wish to tempt fate.

Back in the house, Perriee usually gets breakfast preparation off to a start at the hibachi grill. Tux can only eat his very expensive prescription food which prevents his body from forming bladder crystals that could kill him. I am sure some of you fellow cat-lovers have experience with this condition. His food has UR on it, and we put it in the tan bowl. Tux eats behind the wire hallway door, by himself but close to the opening for socialization purposes, as he is also a cat who does not like other cats so much. Loves humans to bits.

We knowingly adopted a cat named Marucus (2016) with a severe case of it for our cat, Mr. Mittens (2025) that we had hoped he could live with, but it was too much for his little body. We only had him for several months. When we adopted Tux in 2017 and later found out he had the same condition, albeit much milder and responsive to the food. It’s almost as if Marcus sent him to us as a gift. I digress.

There is a diagram on the wall which can be used a guide on how to divide a can of Friskies (totally not sponsored, can someone help with that?) for the remaining 4 cats. You will quickly find that Oscar is a ravenous eater. He loves food so much. Because of this, he will attempt to eat the food off of the plates while you prepare it. It is helpful to have two people to guard the plates so you can serve them all at once. The motivation behind this ritual is the fact that when Oscar is left to his own devices, he will eat food until he pops. You know, he throws it all up on the floor.

Max will help clean it up, but who really wants to witness that? I did read in a cat-care book from the library that mother cats are known for this when raising their young. Feel free to dispute this. I don’t have the source at hand to back it up. Its ok though, you should just spare yourself.

We probably should not, but we are want to let them lick the can lids as we open them. It saves a few drops of water from rinsing them off before putting them in the trash, cause you already know they will be dug out of there by said cats if you don’t clean them first. Of course, Tux does not participate in this step as he has no interest in licking the lid of the salmon UR food that he eats every. single. day. of his life.

George is the biggest, so he eats more of the Friskies can, then divided equally by the remaining three on the yellow plates. Oscar gets the least, and be sure to smash some dry food onto his pate, as it creates a “slow-feeder” situation which lets his belly receive the food at a more normal pace. Then Gray can have the next smallest portion or equal to Max. They can all have a few nuggets of dry sprinkled on their pate, or on the side, as the rest of the kitties just eat normally.

This brings us to another twist: Gray. She is a bit of a nervous lady, which we fully support. Her apprehension of new humans has probably lent itself to her as a survival mechanism. Saying that, she may not show herself, or you might see her go run and hide for meals. I would say this is fine for a day or so, but if you get into day 3 and have not seen her eat, we would ask for you to try to toss her a plate of food in a quiet corner, while watching that none of the other cats go and eat it from under her. They absolutely will.

Once the plates are full, you take them over to the wire covered door and place Oscar’s nearest the door on the OTHER side of where Tux eats at. This is for their personal development. As I mentioned, Tux does not care for cats very much, and him and Oscar have had quite a journey in getting to cohabitate peacefully. We are at a much better place than when Oscar was new.

Duck pool changing days are Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday during which we also scrub them out with a mint-vinegar-water mixture to disinfect them a little bit.

Introducing the Loving Farm Pride Program!

To cover the cost of the cats’ topical medications (about $98 a month for three of them), we are opening up a monthly, Loving Farm Pride Program where you can get bouquet and a loaf of bread, two times in the month for $30 (two bouquets and two loaves or small bags of kettle corn, total, $40 value). We will start with 3 spots per month, beginning in April, which will cover most of the cost of topical meds for Max, Gray, and George.

Let us know if you want dibs on any of the months! Purchase as many months as you want at a time. If you want a shout out or a plug of something during that month, for participating in our weekly newsletter, we can do that too. We have over 200 subscribers who are the best supporters.

If we keep the cats on track, Oscar and Tux should get a reasonable pass and not need them since they stay inside. Believe me, we do keep them in as much as they allow it. This will help offset the cost, keep them healthier, and get more flowers to you at the same time. Email or call today!