Back in May of 1994, a girlfriend of mine asked us to take in a pair of adult bobcats she had purchased from a Texas breeder, who was keeping them in rabbit cages.  She wanted these bobcats to have a better life, and even though she had no facilities of her own, she bought them anyway.  And since we had three empty cages at the time, we agreed to house them.

And so Bobby and Dot moved to our place in western Arkansas.  I image they might have been wild caught in Texas, I’ll never know, but they were not tame, that’s for sure.  Bobby is a beautiful animal, 35 pounds, with a close nap brownish colored rossetted pelt.  He has an unusually short tail, less than two inches long, and a beautiful face. When I bring these two bobcats their dinner, he always greets me at the door with his muttonchops flared.  Dot’s pelt is sliver-gray with big black dots and blotches, but rarely did I get a good look at her, she is so shy.

The following spring Dot went into estrus and bred with Bobby. I wanted her to have privacy for the birth, so I moved her into another unused cage when she was due to deliver.  I’ll never know if it was because she didn’t like being moved, or if she didn’t like the smell of the berthing box (it formerly housed an ocelot) or if she just didn’t have any milk, but she gave birth to three kittens and never attended to them after cleaning them up.  Every breeding season since, she has produced and cared for two litters a year.

My husband heard the pitiful cries of the baby bobcats and found one had crawled through the fencing of the cage and was in the yard! He put it and it’s siblings back in the house, but Dot proceeded to drag them back out of the house onto the cage floor, so we decided to pull them for hand rearing.

The two females and single male were hungry. They eagerly took the bottle.  And we learned that you had to be careful feeding bobby babies as they would over eat and bloat if given the opportunity.

This was years ago and the following accounts of our medical successes and failures are based on my memory of events, and should not be taken as absolutely accurate.  It is hard to recreate events that happened so long ago.

Raising kittens from birth is challenging. These kittens had no protective colostrum in their system.  We fed them around the clock, day and night, but on the fifth day, I did something extremely risky.  I was too tired to get up in the middle of the night and so I fed them late that night and did not check on them again until early morning.  And when I did,  I discovered the male kitten was totally limp.  Soaked in sweat from the heating pad under the carrier. I had inadvertently cooked him.  He had “gone flat”, a term that is quite descriptive, if you ever see one in this condition.

I immediately gave him lactated ringers solution under the skin, about 2 cc’s and then 20 minutes later again repeated this procedure.  I called my friend Betty Young, who is extremely knowledgeable on feline veterinary care, and she advised me to continue the sub-Q fluids and then start tube feeding.

This kitten did not have the strength to suck a bottle.  And so began our introduction to tube feeding.  I had managed to re-hydrate him and correct his electrolyte imbalance with the lactated ringer’s solution, but he was in a very fragile condition. Together, Bart and I measured the distance from his mouth to the bottom of his ribcage and marked off the tube and while one of us held him still in our hands the other carefully slid the tube down his throat and filled his stomach with KMR formula.  We had to repeat this procedure five times a day, for five days, before he was finally strong enough to suck the bottle.  I remember wondering if he would ever suck the bottle again.  But the crisis did eventually pass and in the process, he earned the name Wimpy, because that’s what he was – a very Wimpy kitten.

And when his sisters were 10 days old, they fell ill. I woke them from their afternoon naps and instead of immediately squirming and squealing for food, they yawned and stretched.  That is a red flag – trouble in paradise. We gave them lactated ringers solution sub-Q and took their temperatures. They both had fevers.  We drove them to our most knowledgeable vet, who happened to be 70 miles away. I had brought formula and bottles for the drive, but I regret not bringing lactated ringers solution and syringes.  They started going downhill and one was extremely critical when we arrived.  They spent the night at the veterinarian’s home, and one female didn’t survive.

And when the remaining female was 17 days old, she developed pneumonia – most likely aspiration induced, as bobby babies are very greedy with the bottle and get over-excited and can easily inhale formula into their lungs if you are not careful.

She was hyperactive and gasping for breath and I stayed up with her all night long. The next morning I drove her the 70-mile trip to the best vet I knew, and they put her in an oxygen tent and gave her a bronchial dilator and a shot of heavy-duty antibiotics.

We discussed the problem of having no colostrum in these kittens and it was suggested by the vet that we gather some blood from a queen to be spun down into serum and injected into the kittens to boost their immune system.  We left our kitten at the hospital for the night and returned home and sedated a vaccinated queen and took her to a local vet to draw blood.

The next morning, we expected to be told that our kitten didn’t make it, but instead we were told she had improved greatly and was ready to go home.  We brought the blood we had drawn the night before, and were totally amazed when we saw our kitten calmly breathing and sucking the bottle.  We discussed the procedure and at first the vet had changed his mind about the serum injection idea, but I think I pressured him into trying it, after we had gone to the trouble and expense of gathering it on a Friday night, after normal vet hours.

And so the vet injected the spun serum into the peritoneal cavity of our female kitten and sent us home.  After 60 minutes of driving, the kitten suddenly stiffened up and stopped breathing and I told Bart the kitten just died.  We couldn’t believe it.  But after 30 seconds, she relaxed and drew a breath.  That was the beginning of a 5-hour ordeal leading to her eventual death.

We made it home and called the vet – I was sure it was a reaction to the serum injection. He thought the seizures were related to calcium imbalance or hypoglycemia, or toxic shock from the bacterial overload.  We will never know for sure – she had a very serious case of pneumonia the day before and obviously had a lot of systemic bacteria throughout her system.  On the other hand, I know now that the serum injection should only be tried in the first 24 to 48 hours after birth.

This kitten proceeded to have several more seizures throughout the day.  I desperately read over my Zoo and Wild Animal Vet book, my Merck Vet manual and we tried everything – from Karo syrup, to calcium glutamate, to magnesium and potassium supplements , but all to no avail, and eventually her roller coaster ride ended in death.

And that left us with just Wimpy, who was by this time, quite strong.  And two weeks later, I flew to Wisconsin and picked up a litter of three, 6 week old bobbies.  We sold two and kept one – which we named Missy Woo.

The two bobbies bonded immediately and we hoped to someday produce kittens from this delightful pair.  But when they were about 10 weeks old they came down with a mysterious illness that left them anemic, feverish, and anorexic.  I consulted our vet and we treated them with antibiotics and sub-Q fluid, and lots of lixotinic vitamins, rich in iron, copper and B vitamins, for their anemia.  We force-fed them their bottle formula and lavished all our love and attention on them.

They hung on like this for two days, and slept in our bed by our heads, but couldn’t seem to break their fevers. And Sunday, they took a turn for the worse. Wimpy’s nictitating membrane was covering his eyes; something that hadn’t happened earlier.  His fever was running around 103 to 104 steadily. He was so weak, and I knew he would die that day. And so while my husband lay with them giving them comfort, I began gathering up all the bobby toys scattered about the bedroom and house and I braced myself for the bitter end.  Bart realized what I had done and we both cried.

We laid beside them all morning into the afternoon and prayed to God for a miracle and begged them to hang on.  And then, later that afternoon, when we could stand the pain we felt no more, we left them sleeping on our bed and we moved ourselves to our porch.  We immersed ourselves in passionate lovemaking – releasing ourselves from the fear and sadness and hopelessness we had endured for the past three days.  And it was several hours that we spent away from our beloved bobbies. Then it was time to face the grim reality.  We re-entered our bedroom afraid of what we'd find. We discovered our formerly dying patients staring at us with new vigor and bright eyes. We had been granted our miracle.

Their fever had subsided and they were on the road to recovery.  It took about another week for them to finally be all better, their fever waxed and waned several times. I took them to the vet on Tuesday, and he wormed them and gave them a shot of dyperone – which is an anti-pyremic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic. And that seemed to help also, but the mystery illness just had to run its course, which was almost 10 days from start to finish.

That was the last time these two cats have ever been ill. Today they are nearly 4 years old.  Raising them has been a joy.  They spent the first 11 months of their lives entirely in our homes. My husband and I both work part time, and some days we would work the same days, and we would leave them home alone and return to find that they must have spent the day sleeping.

Missy Woo and Wimpy never destroyed anything.  They never used their claws to scratch the furniture, they never broke any knick-knacks, they never chewed anything – they never went through a bitey-phase.   We never had to teach them “No-bite” – they never even opened their mouths on us.  We never had to teach them “no scratch”.

They were playful and energetic, so sometimes we would move them onto the porch to vent their boundless energy. We did have to keep the toilet seat down or they would go fishing, splashing toilet water all over the bathroom walls and floor. And they did kind of whoop-up on my gardenia bushes on the porch, but that was the extent of their destructive behavior.

They were purrfect, except for their spraying behavior – that’s what got them banished from our house.  They had reliable toilet habits as kittens– always used the kitty litter, but when they were 11 months old, I noticed a smell on the porch. I pulled up the rug in front of their litter pan and discovered they were peeing on the carpet. Missy Woo had her first baby heat and was marking around, and Wimpy was following suit. It was time for our beloved house bobbies to move outdoors.

Bart built them a wonderful compound that connected to a porch window by an arched wooden tunnel about 12 feet long. They could come and go as they pleased.  And today, they have half the porch for themselves, with their own double bed (mattress covered with a protective plastic cover and sheets and blankets) their own couch (covered with a throw) a picnic table, a rocking chair and a custom-built cedar cat tree with carpet covered platforms.  Outdoors, their compound has a pool for summer weather, elevated wooden ramps all around the walls, a cedar tree tower in the middle, a two-story log cabin, and a few clumps of bamboo trying to get established.

And when this pair of bobcats was 16 months old, we adopted a 4-month-old, vaccinated, domestic kitten. We carefully introduced him to Missy Woo and Wimpy, who now weighed about 20 pounds each, and it was love at first sight.  They adored Darlin and would greet him with woo-woo’s and groom him and lay with him.   In fact, in the three years we have raised bobcat kittens for sale, every kitten we produced has loved Darlin.  He has a way with the bobbies and it was our highest hopes that he would one day mate with a bobcat.

These two bobbies are very affectionate to us, and very bonded to each other. As fully mature, sexually active adults, they can be moody – they can be growly – and it is rare that they will consent to letting me pick them up and squeeze and hug them.  But if the mood is right, they will

I love to visit them on the porch, when they are cuddled together on their bed and I will lay beside them and stroke their soft fur and whisper in their ears “I love you” and they purr so sweet. And then they will stand up and try to pee on me. That is the one behavior you have to get used to if you want to share your life with a bobcat. And neutering is no guarantee it will stop that marking behavior. Face it,  Bobcats = Pee.

Wimpy is our tallest, longest bobcat – his legs are as long as our serval’s legs, though much thicker in diameter, and his feet much larger than a serval. He probably weighs close to 40 pounds.  He has wonderful black facial stripes and his body is beautifully rossetted.  Missy Woo is substantially shorter and fatter, built more like a raccoon, and weighs around 30 pounds.  She’s more of a brownish tan, and her rosettes are in low contrast to her background color.

These two are very secretive about their sex life, even though they live in our house; we have only seen them breed a couple of times.  Missy Woo’s neck does get all chewed up in the spring, and I imagine they are doing something, but they do it in private.  Surprisingly, she does not make the characteristic female bobcat-in-heat call either. They sort of remind me of teenagers hiding their passion for each other from their parents. So far they haven’t conceived, but we have our fingers crossed for this kittens this year.

In 1996, we kept a kitten from another of our breeding pair of bobcats. Her name is Muffin.  She too, has never placed her teeth onto us. It’s as if her mouth is glued shut.  She is very affectionate, and always greets you with purrs.  She was a joy to have in the house – her house manners were impeccable. Never broke anything, never sharpened her claws on the furniture, and always used the kitty litter box. But she, too, has moved outdoors.   And she enjoys our first open-topped natural habitat exercise area, which connects to her cage.

I don’t know how we ended up with such well-behaved bobcats. And I hear about all these naughty, mouthy bobcats and I shake my head and count my blessings.
I know that one should fully expect to have to teach a bobcat “no bite”, and you should have to spend countless hours protecting your belongings.  So anyone reading this – do not expect your bobcat to act this way.  We are just very lucky, I guess. And very grateful too.

Lynn Culver
141 Polk 664
Mena, AR 71953
501-394-5235
culvers@voltage.net