Cats on farms in the United Kingdom: numbers and preventive care

The aim of this study was, within a UK sample, to estimate the number of 'pet', 'farm' and 'feral' cats living on farms, describe the characteristics of farms with any type of cats and describe the resources and preventive care provided to 'pet' and 'farm' cats. For 'farm cats', chi-squared tests were used to analyse associations between their presence/absence and the following variables: organic/conventional farms; farm location (England/rest of the UK); farm size (less than 100 hectares/100 hectares or more); and type of farm (livestock compared with arable). Number of cats Type of cat Number of farms without cats of this type (%) Number of farms with cats of this type (%) Prevalence (95%CI) Range Median 25% quartile 75% quartile Pet 54 (51) 52 (49) 0.49 (0.37 to 0.56) 1-8 2 1 2.75 Feral 90 (85) 16 (15) 0.15 (0.10 to 0.23) 1-8 2 1 4 Farm 37 (35) 69 (65) 0.65 (0.56 to 0.74) 1-27 2 1.5 6 Excluding sample farms without any cats, the range, median and IQRs for the numbers of cats on farms are also displayed. Vaccination frequency Farms with either pet or farm cats Farms with both pet and farm cats No pet or farm cats Pet cats only n (%) Farm cats only n (%) Pet cats n (%) Farm cats n (%) Yearly 9 (42.9) 3 (7.3) 12 (40) 3 (10.0) - Less than yearly 2 (9.5) 1 (2.4) 1 (3.3) 0 (0) - Once as kittens 4 (19.0) 7 (17.1) 8 (26.7) 6 (20.0) - Never 6 (28.6) 30 (73.2) 9 (30.0) 21 (70.0) - Total 21 41 30 3 To our knowledge, this is the first UK study to investigate associations between farm characteristics and the presence of cats.