Feral Cats

Surely, there are enough kitty lovers on ILx to give me some advice/thoughts here. More info: There is a tomcat in our neighborhood who we see actively impregnanting cats. The neighbors across the street (who are total fuckwads) have about 7 cats who live in their driveway of varying ages. Some definitely are the kittens of this tom and I imagine more are on the way.

I've been considering trapping and neutering him to put an end to his philandering. Of course I'd also have to get him vaccinations and stuff and in the process of luring him to be trapped I'd have to feed him. This might earn us a new cat. One of the young cats from across the street has also taking to coming over to our place and I've been feeding her. She's woefully underweight and pretty sweet. I'm thinking of getting her spayed and looked over too. I kind of worry about the neigbors being "WTF?" but they obv. have lower standards of pet care than us. They might not even notice.

I fear once I start down this path there will be no end. Lots of loose kitties in our neighborhood.

I think you are being very good and noble and just ask that you take care not to into a crazy cat lady with a home that smells.

:/

Yes I'm actually less interested in making them indoor cats which is why I'm not sure about doing this. We have a cat and two dogs and feel that's enough animals for now. But I'm worried that if I start getting directly involved with these cats I'll feel bad about them roaming around. At the same time I feel bad knowing skinny little unwanted kittens are being birthed right in front of me.

Hm, my granparents live in a big country house and they used to have wild cats living around it, but all I know about it is that one ended up tame and the others ran off somewhere. It wasn't really an urban environment, though, so I think they just left them all to their own devices.

In terms of performing medical procedures on cats that are not yours, I would be wary. The neighbours might be fine with you sorting out a broken leg, but not with spaying. Have you spoken to them? Would it be possible to do so without causing friction? If the tomcat is completely ownerless, then I'd say to definitely go ahead and fix him.

The tomcat is def. stray. He's a totally scraggly, scarred up little dude. But he would have to be trapped, he's not socialized like the little kitten from across the street. I also worry about recovery as I'd have to keep them penned up in our garage for a couple of days and we have big dogs. :/

The neighbors. . .good lord. They're a fucking trainwreck and we do not want to attempt to talk to them. They have police/emergency vehicles at their house at least once a week. We've witnessed two, kick-off the flip-flops, knockdown fights in their driveway. We have no idea how many people live there but it seems to be an ever-changing, growing cast. And based on the traffic and "visitors" we've observed we're pretty sure they are drug dealers. They moved in with one cat and like I said now have seven.

The cats never go inside and I never really see the people interacting with them. Based on how skinny the one who comes to our place is I'm not even sure they even feed them. I could report them to animal control but that would just get them a visit and warning which I'm sure they'd ignore. After that the animals would be taken and possibly euthanized.

grr.

My father-in-law used to solve the cat overpopulation issue around their house with a burlap bag, a brick, and an annual trip to a nearby creek.

Actually, that tomcat probably needs to be euthanized.

Well he probably definitely would be as I don't think he's even slightly adoptable. The kittens would have a chance as kittens are usually snapped up first. But still the shelter is crowded and you never know. Hard to be sure what's a better life, shelter where it's possible they would be put down or life on the street where they might be hit by a car/mauled by dogs.

There would just be another alpha ready to step up and take his place as cat-daddy of the 'hood.

In terms of population control, it's much more important to spay females.

I've donated $ to the Feral Cat Project, but have never trapped feral cats myself. I think it is just in the Puget Sound area, but they have lots of good info on their site.

My ex-boss used to do this in collusion with the local animal care and control and a private organization, but I don't remember who they were.

You're in Austin, right, Sam?

http://www.austinferalcats.org/help.htm

i took in a feral cat recently. she's cool but it freaks out from time to time and scratches. but i keep her indoors as much as possible and make sure she's fed and has water every day (i think she must have been abandoned rather than born in the outdoors because she's actually housetrained etc). i need to take her to get spayed / see if someone has lost her though.

edit: sorry for the horrible grammar in the above post

http://www.synthmania.com/Misc/SeriousCat-sp.jpg

or:

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/12/7/129046773477556360.jpg

We have a neighbourhood cat that comes around quite often and sits outside our back door and on our windowsills looking in at our own cats. Last night he was tapping on the window to come in, poor thing must've been freezing but can't take him in with 3 cats already including a very territorial male. I don't think he's feral though, just very outdoors-y, I'm sure he belongs to someone on the street.

yeah it's a weird thing, there are a lot of feral cats in the neighborhood where i live. the one i took in just seemed to come around a lot. sometimes i get angry if other stray cats eat the food i leave out but then i realize that they're probably really hungry and for them it's a big deal to see a bowl of food.