Reader beware

[sugarplumfairy28]

I'm so sorry if this is upsetting for anyone else, but I really don't know who else to ask.

Our 7 year old male cat, Suru has been missing for 7 days, this is not the first time. Our house backs on to paddocks and fields. Several fields are used for hay. When asking neighbours if they had seen him, nextdoor told us how they witnessed a cat (when shown a photo of Suru, said it was him) out in the field when the tractor and its attachment was there turning cut grass into rows of hay. The neighbour said they watched him crouch down and then the machine went over him.

We have permission to enter the fields, and have spent 2 days walking every inch of the field, searching the rows and surrounding area, and we have found nothing, nothing at all, no 'parts' of him, no blood stained grass, nothing. Now we're not farmers but surely there would be something of him if he did indeed get caught up in it? Just need to note that the machine that was out there, did not cut the grass just making rows.

We are obviously extremely distraught and are desperate to find him or any ray of hope we should keep looking.

Oh shit, that's horrible.

If there's no 'evidence' he may have just got frightened and run away. Is he microchipped?

I’m not buying that story. I’ve heard of baby rabbits getting combined but the farmer did honk his horn at them but baby animals wait for rescue from mum, Adult animals run.

I think you’d find remains/blood.

It was mean to tell you regardless, it’s better to think your cats found another home than been run over by a tractor fgs.

It sounds strange to me too, a cat's instinct is to run, not crouch down in the open.

Keeping fingers crossed he's fine and you will find him.

You can’t get near them with a vacuum cleaner.

Cats stick to field perimeters, our cat used to walk around the edges of fields.

He is not a stupid cat by any means, he is very friendly but also used to going out. I've never seen him in the field while the quad bike is out there let alone a tractor. He does sit in the middle of field and he does hunt there, but I would have thought he would run.

He is microchipped. It looks like the rows have been flattened today so we'll be going back out there soon.

Have you done all the usual lost cat things - put his litter tray outside if he uses one, or his bed? Local Facebook pages, local cat rescue Facebook? I really doubt that he would have been caught be the tractor, he would have run. My cat protection branch has just returned a cat to is owner after being lost for two years, so don’t despair. Is he chipped?

We're actually in Germany, we also live in a very small village. We have spoken to all our neighbours, we live opposite a stables and they all know him and are aware he is missing. We have contacted our equivalent of council offices who are either to be told of a found cat or they collect cats who have been found and passed away. Also posted on our village Facebook page. The day he went missing we found his brother after a week of him being missing.

We have been out at dawn and dusk calling him, checked all the places we know he sleeps in if he is out over night every morning. We've been round all the little out houses we can get to. We are on the edge of a forest and my worry is there are a lot of places so vast that he may have been injured and gone into hiding.

I've been back out and checked the field and still found no sign of him. My son is in pieces, and I have nothing to tell him, good or bad.

I'm so sorry OP - I also think it sounds massively unlikely he wouldn't bolt when he heard the machine. Plus it seems quite odd that your neighbour just happened to look out of the window at that exact moment and see it happen? If your other cat was missing a week and turned up that day too? It might sound very odd but are you sure neighbour hadn't been taking the cats in and trying to keep them?

We found his brother at our other neighbours house. They have a separate loft above a large shed/storage room in their garden. We heard meowing and they helped us search, the meowing stopped when their cat appeared in the garden so we stopped looking. We went out in the field and called some more and heard meowing again, went back, knocked again and eventually we found him with the help of the neighbours. No issues there, it had been open, no-one saw him go in and it got locked up again.

The neighbour the other side, who told us all this, are very nice always stop and chat if we're in the garden, the guy is always pottering about in the garden or his work shop, is frequently in and out of my Dad's workshop downstairs, they have very large windows that look out onto the fields, so I'm not sure they'd say something to be malicious, it just bothers me that they say this happened last Tuesday or Wednesday and I know they spoke to my Dad on Thursday and they didn't say anything about it, only when my husband asked directly on Friday.

My gut is telling me something about it all isn't right, but just this overwhelming want to have him home too.

I think there's hope, OP. Wait a while. Don't give up on him just yet. All hopes and prayers that he turns up.

I'm assuming the farmer was using a hayrake, rather than actually cutting, so turning the hay and moving into rows ready for baling?
I can't imagine a cat just sitting there and letting himself get scooped up by the takes, but I can imagine complete panic and running until he was lost.
You would have found a pretty much entire body with puncture wounds if he'd been caught up in that.
Maybe extend your search area, incase he's holes up petrified and disorientated.
Then the usual advice of litter tray outside, blanket, vacuum cleaner contents etc.

Weeds that's right, the grass had already been cut and before he went missing, and then some kind of hayrake. You've basically said what we've been thinking, plus he is not a small cat by any means, but he is oddly well camouflaged which I think is why he likes hunting out there.

The picture is of the field and surrounding areas and I think why I am so worried.

Have you been able to speak to the farmer, so he could ask whoever was driving if they remember anything?
Even if they could tell you which direction the cat went ( assuming he ran somewhere), that would be a start.
It's a big field, but you'd assume an animal would head for the edges for cover.
Have you checked the barns in the background of that picture?

The owner of the land lives opposite us, he usually does the field himself, but hasn't been told of any accidents.

I would also assume he would head for cover, our house is just out of shot on the right, he really wasn't far from home if this did happen. There are two perimeter roads that go around the fields, the inner line of trees and one right by the distant trees, we've been round both and all the shelters in the photo and still nothing.

All we can hope is that he just strolls home, because we've heard no meowing, no sign of him in the ditches, nothing, absolutely heart breaking.

No news, SugarPlum?

Today is 3 weeks and still nothing. We assume that the neighbours must have been correct to some extent and we have lost him.

I’m so sorry

I'm so sorry to hear this, it's awful especially if you can't get any closure.

Our dcat was awol for 6 months. Don't give up op!

Thanks everyone. Our son is absolutely heart broken, his only 9 and doesn't remember life without Ru. Just wish I could tell him something a little more comforting than No I don't think his coming home.