Should I feed the feral cats benind my apartment? I’ve been feeding them occalionaly but am wondering if it’s a good thing. When I do feed them I kinda watch from a hiding place, and the poor things are scrawny, skinny and, well, wild.
Damn but they do eat! At very little expense to me.
What Otto said. Feral cats need to be taken in and fixed. You might also try a local pet shelter; those are usually staffed by dedicated folks who go out of their way to help the animals who need it.
I’ve gotten the impression, from watching some shows on Animal Planet, that if the animal control folks capture feral cats,and they prove to be too wild to be adoptable, they’re euthanized. Apparently, dogs, being pack animals, can adapt to living with humans even if they’ve spent years as strays, whereas cats, if not socialized to humans when they’re kittens, can’t seem to make the adaptation.
Your feeding them might be well intentioned, but sadly will not help and might make things worse, unless you aslo take another course of action…
Cats will breed to outstrip any food resource available and then will become unhealthy.You will be surprised at just how fast this can happen.
The only real way is to try catch them and have them spayed/neutered to control their numbers, hungry cats are not too difficult to catch in a trap.
Cats will protect their food source, killing them does not tend to work as others will move in if there is food available, controlling their numbers works well.
Animal welfare agencies recognise this and as long as the cats have reasonable health and a reasonably secure food source they will catch neuter and return the animals and this help control populations in the wider picture.
Depends on the shelter. Some are no-kill, some are not. In general I’m opposed to euthenizing but I also recognize the reality of out-of-control feral populations and the impact they have on the local environment. Leaving unsterilized feral cats free leads to nothing more than a lot more unsterilized feral cats.
Casdave, the apartment complex manager does call the Animal Folks and they trap the cats on a regular basis. I just looked and it seems there"s only two out there. I will take your advice though, and have the apartment manager take them to a shelter.
My parents captured and spayed a feral cat after she had kittens, then captured and neutered the kittens. They got a trap from animal control and it worked like a charm - just put some dry cat food in a dish inside the cage, set it, and wait for the cats to get hungry.
My vet, who loved cats as if there was no tomorrow, thought of feral cats as disease vectors. This was true for the sterilized ones as well, I suppose. He recommended euthanizing them if they would be caught.
To re-emphasize the spay/neuter and release vs. feed:
A female cat can easily have 2 or 3 litters a year of at least 2 or 3 kits each. Being conservative, that’s about 6 to 9 additional cats. The 3, 4, or 5 new females can begin to reproduce in six months. At the end of the year you have the original 2, plus 9, plus six more kittens from the queen’s first litter for a minimum of 17 cats. It goes on exponentially from there.
There is a couple in my neighborhood feeding a gang of feral cats. They have paid, I hear, thousands in fines from the health dept. There are humane traps in all the neighbors’ yards surrounding them. However, the local animal shelter will not neuter and release, they simply euthanize. Local animal rescue groups will take socializeable (is that a word?) kittens, but by the time any are visible from behind the massive shrubberies in the yard, they are generally far too wild to be domestic. Very sad. I’ve spoken to people in the local shelter and while they agree that neuter and release would be a nice idea, they don’t have the funds to do so.
The cats will tend to congregate where they know they can find food. So, unless you want the cats making a home in your backyard, I would suggest not feeding them. Their presence, along with the attendant noise and nuisance (including people being afraid to let their kids out to play), may not annoy you but it may annoy your neighbors. You may believe you are doing a good thing, but all you are doing is creating a consolidated target for animal control to hit as soon as one of your neighbors complains.
Locally there is a group called Alleycat Advocates that traps feral cats, spays/neuters and releases them, all at no charge. Maybe there’s something like that in your area?
Years ago I started feeding a wild neighborhood stray. Eventually she became tame with me, but stayed wild with everyone else. Normally I wouldn’t use the words “grateful” or “devoted” in relation to cats, but she is.
I have not been able to find any such organization; I wish I could. Or had the means of doing it myself. The cats have also seem to have become very smart about the traps.