What to do with stray cats?
There was a female cat left behind when a couple moved from our town. They lived next to us. The female cat is not spayed of course and it was left outside to defend for itself. Male cats come down near our house because they know there are females. The one female multplied into a bunch more, but now there are only two adult females left overall because the elements must have gotten the best of them. Those two females then had a litter of kittens each producing about 8-9 kittens. Again the elements took over and now there are four kittens left. Aside from that we had already caught two adults who unfortunately passed away due to health problems. We have been feeing them continuously since we knew they were there. My sister is verya tatched to them and now calls them her "outside cats". The male cats are coming around again meaning that the there are at least now 3 reproductive females, hence, more lil kittens. We have don’t really have a local spca, the cloest is a hr away and the so called organization around here will not return my emails when I ask for help with them. Anyway, my sisters wants to be able to keep them but they are wild now and they do have Feline Leukemia because the two that had passed away had it. I have two cats inside of my own. We are wondering how we can help them. She had plans of building a house-like building for them but would that work seeing how they are wild? What other options are there?
Filed under: Pet Insurance
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It seems difficult, maybe you could slowly attract them into your house by offering the same food (since leukemia is not contagious, as far as I know), or the house-like thing, but it costs to have them spayed, and what if they are lost to the weather? The males should be spayed really, their owners should do it, but I know you are powerless for this. If your cats do not fight with them, it may be easy to introduce them to your home, as I looked after what we thought was a female stray (payed for jabs, fed etc) and she became attached to one of our females, until we found the owner who disrespectfully took it back. There are methods on the internet to help this.
Theres a number of questions here: First off call your local humane societies and rescues. There is probably more than just the SPCA. You are going to need help catching these cats and getting them fixed. If you don’t do this, you will end up with a cat colony. Check out http://www.petfinder.com If you can’t find an organization near you, don’t rule out a larger organization farther away, especially if believe in Trap, Neuter, Return. There is also Alley Cats, which is a national group devoted to ferals. http://www.alleycat.org/ They keep a list of state and regional organizations that work with ferals.
If you don’t find a rescue group – try calling your local vet offices. Explain your problem, explain how much you can spend towards this effort. Many times, vet offices will offer low cost vet services to people in this situation. Also, FeLK kills very fast in wild populations. There is a good chance that only a few cats have it. I would be more concerned with FIV being in the population.
Once the cats are fixed, figure out which ones are friendly. You should be able to rehome the friendly ones very easily.
AS for the cat house, its a good idea. The Ally Cat website has a number of resources dealing with building shelters for ferals and best way to maintain a cat colony. Also, there are instructions on how to trap feral cats properly and safely for both you and the cats.
But, right now, number one thing is to get the cats fixed. You are soon going to have a population that will be out of control next kitten season.
u should Cach them and take them to a nearby forest. since they are wild the should be fine.
ps:the past owners can be arrested for abandoning the cat
I would say if you could at least catch them, get them spayed/neutered, and then release them, that it would help a great deal.
I also want to add in response to the other poster that said feline lukemia is not contagious that it definitely is. In fact, I would recommend putting down the cats that have the disease. It is VERY hard I know, but what happens to a cat after it has the disease is horrible. In addition, they will go around affecting all the other cats in the community that are not vaccinated.
Lastly, I want to add the spay/neuter and release is not an uncommon practice. Some of the cats may be so ferall that they would never be able to make a house pet.
The only thing i can think of its taking the cats to get spayed, and then putting them back where you found them. Unfortunatley, you cannot take them in becuase they would infect your cats, and the shelter would not take them in, becuase they would be put down as soon as they found out they had leukemia. However, there is no law against leaving them where they are. I’m sure that if you go to the shelter and explain that you need financial aid to pay for three spays, they will give her a certificate to take to a vet to help with costs.