feral cats

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

My inlaws are always giving me heck for being on DK so much... but last night my MIL asked me to ask you all something...

My inlaws have feral cats. They live at the neighbours property, but they come to visit most days, and the inlaws feed them with either store bought (corn) food, or returns from the pet store DH works at (now we live here too). The Mommy cat Barney (she lives in a barn) had a litter in 2010, all kittens died within the year apart from one - Spooky (shes super shy). Barney then had another litter summer 2011. Unfortunately, Barney then died while the kittens were still nursing. Spooky (who is tiny) must have had a litter too because she was obviously pregnant (either they all died or the 2 smaller of Barneys kittens were actually hers) as she then took over as Mommy cat. My inlaws did see the kittens nursing on both Barney and Spooky.

DH and I have been wanting to scoop up the cats and take them to the local rescue, but the inlaws said no. Anyway, 2 Tom cats are hanging around, so my MIL is ready to let them go - she doesnt want them to have more babies (Spooky is so tiny and something happened with her last litter, and the kittens arent even a year old yet), and she knows most if not all of them will die within a year. My FIL however, doesnt want us to catch them - he likes having them around. Last year one of the kittens (Buddy - now dead) would go inside the house and hang out for a while. Thats not going to happen this year though, as there are 3 cats and 2 dogs in the house now.

So... how do we go about catching them? We have 2 kennels - a bigger cat one and a smaller cat one, and the cats will sniff us when we go to feed them, but only 1 will let us stroke him. I have no doubt they will all find a home quickly, they are all such pretty cats. DHs boss is a board member of a local cat rescue (they have cats in their pet store for adoption) and they have foster homes (unlike the humane society) so they will get some TLC and a chance to be less feral!

Is there a way we can put food in the kennels and rig the door to close? We can try to grab them and stuff them in a kennel but it will be hard. They will be really wary of us once we catch one..

This is Spooky last year with Tigger, Barney and Buddy (all dead)

This is Gimli (tortie), my favourite and the smallest. The name just came to me (my cats have LOTR names), and Buddy Junior (my FILs not so very imaginative name for the very friendly one - the largest now, and definately male!) photo taken about 4 months ago

This is Bandit Junior - named after a black and white male cat who belongs to a family a few kms away. he comes to visit occasionally. Do you notice a theme to the names yet?? photo taken about 4 months ago

And this is Spooky junior - sorry my inlaws arent very imaginative with the names! photo taken 4 months ago

[F, Calla & Luca]

Beautiful cats. I think your best bet would be with something like the Hav-a -heart traps.  These cats might be OK with the small ones and you might fine one on Craig's list or something.A rescue might even loan them out.

http://www.havahart.com/store/live-animal-traps/1090

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Kaytlin, most shelters and rescues will not accept feral cats. They are not usually suitable as pets, and they are also extremely inbred, as the kittens within a colony will start mating with each other very early. They are also usually covered in parasites. So unless you have spoken to a rescue or shelter who told you that they will take them, forget about trying to trap them. If you bring them to a shelter they will be euthanized as undadoptable animals.

The solution to feral cat populations is a trap, neuter and release program. There are many throughout the country, and that's what you need. These animals don't usually want to live indoors anyway. Neutering them solves the problem of overpopulation and increasing genetic issues with each generation.

Here are some resources to find a trap and release program; you can also do a google search for your in-laws' area:

http://www.aspca.org/adoption/feral-cats-faq.aspx

http://www.feralcat.com/feral-tr.html

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=153358

http://www.alleycat.org/

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/feral_cats/qa/feral_cat_FAQs.html

http://www.austinhumanesociety.org/volunteer/feral-cat-program

 

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

In PA, we have a group that will give you traps to catch the cats, and once caught, get them and spay or neuter them, and then return them back to you. We had a real problem with feral cats when we moved up here. The Humane Shelter might have traps to use, too. All of our feral cats eventually disappeared, but one. After she was alone outside, she started banging on our window to come in, and we finally let her. She has never left.

[F, Calla & Luca]

And she remains a beauty.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Never in a million years would I think that was once a feral cat. Gorgeous!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

When we moved into our house, she was running around outside. She would not let us near her or have anything to do with us. At one time, we had seven feral cats waiting at the door for me every morning to feed them. Eventually, a neighbor told me she thought the woman who sold us the house just left three of her cats outside when she moved, but she wasn't sure.  Three years went by and I fed this cat and others, provided shelter, and she was the only one smart enough not to be trapped. She would never let you within two feet of her. NEVER! Then one by one the other cats started disappearing and this cat started standing at our window and pounding on it. It was awful. I don't know how she survived for all those years outside with her bright white coat, etc. I finally could not stand the banging and let her in. Somehow, we corralled her to take her to the vet for her shots and when we got home, she banged on the window to go back out and for three days she hid in the woods, but we would get glimpses of her. Then she started banging to come in again. We opened the door and did not see her for months. The litter box proved she came out, but she hid for months. She is very skittish and lets no one, but me, and not for long, pick her up. It took two years for her to get comfortable with us, but since we got our dogs, she will not come up from downstairs.

She sleeps with my daughter, but you can not hold her down or restrain her in any way. The funny thing is she loved our old Lab, Hershey! In the years that we have had her, she has only tried to go out twice and both times, she got very scared and ran back inside. I think she is afraid we will not let her back in. Maybe she was not feral in the truest sense of the word, but she lived outside without human contact for years.  We love her!

[Becka]

Now that is one pampered kitty! No surprise that she stuck around! :)

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Karen is right about the shelter. I did not know this, and captured one kitten and took it to the shelter and I called when I got home to see how it was doing and they had already euthanized it. For this reason, I did the program Karen is talking about....Trap, Neuter, and release program.

[Linda, Guinness, Molly, Snickers]

My mom had feral cats in her neighborhood.  The humane society had traps she borrowed to catch them, then she took them in and had them all spayed and neutered for a small fee and returned them to the neighborhood.  She feeds them and some of them have tamed enough to come up to her but they can no longer reproduce dozens more feral cats. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

And just how many dozens more feral cats is staggering:

"Feral cats have an average of 1.4 litters per year, with an average 3.5 live births in each litter. That equals 4.9 kittens per year, per female feral cat. Indeed, a pair of breeding cats and their offspring can produce 420,000 kittens over a seven-year period."

http://solanoferals.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic...

 

 

[Lorraine Bromley]

We have a trap neuter release program in our area and it is working to keep the population down and to have the ones left in alot better shape physically. This is the humane way to deal with this. The only way to adopt a feral cat is to get a very young litter and socialize them very early. You can use humanely bated traps. The females and males should be neutered as the males fight and get ill easily from infections and also cut down on the howling and such. They want to keep them around but I doubt they want to find dead carcasses around that could not survive. Encourage disease and death to continue. Please consider the trap neuter release idea and possibly rehab. That would be extremely difficult though. 

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

the local humane society does not have a trap, fix, release program, im not sure about the cat rescue, I have emailed them. I do believe all of these cats could become great pets - they are shy, but will sniff our hands and have been coming up to the deck since they were just a few weeks old (I have a photo of them nursing). All 3 of my cats were taken from the streets, though at about 3 months old and integrated into house pets just fine. DHs boss is on the board for the rescue and she says to take them in to them, but ill see what reply I get from my email.