We’ve had a few stray cats in our neighborhood, including a female with 3 kittens, somewhere around 6 weeks old. We had food out for them, and they were coming by a few times a day, as well as playing in our back yard. The kittens are skittish but the mommy is friendly, so we were planning to trap them all for foster/rescue
But suddenly, all 3 kittens disappeared. For the past 2 whole days, we’ve been seeing the mommy cat often, but no kittens. We fear the worst for the kittens - there have been occasional reports of coyotes in the area. (Though it does seem strange that all 3 would disappear on the same day, rather than being picked off one at a time.)
And last night the trap caught the mommy cat. We still have her in the trap.
Should we:
Release the mommy cat now, because the kittens may still be alive somewhere and need mommy. But then, I suspect she’d never get into a trap again.
Give up on the kittens, rescue mommy (spay/vaccinate, foster her for a while to see if she is friendly enough to be adopted).
Never mind. I’ve decided to let her go, and have done so.
I know there is a chance I condemned her to a dangerous life and possibly more kittens at risk, but I couldn’t bear the thought that the kittens just might still be alive somewhere and waiting for their mom.
IME cats who are pregnant or nursing tend to be friendlier than they would be otherwise.
Not to rehash the whole story, but I recently took in a couple of kittens that had first appeared in my yard last summer with their feral mother. The mother was clearly nursing and was very friendly at the time, but it didn’t take long before she was back to her normal stand-offish behavior. There were four kittens that first night, and we had been leaving out food for them, but the next time we saw them, there were only two kittens. Eventually they just started coming around without their mother, and we took them in. Have only seen the mother a couple of times since. Never saw the other two kittens again.
The two we took in got fixed just a couple of weeks ago and are doing fine living inside. Pretty sure they think I’m their mother now.
We had a coyote in our neighborhood for a while, and he got a couple of non-feral, outdoor cats, but I haven’t seen him in a while. Maybe he moved on, maybe he got hit by a car, maybe he is just keeping a low profile. There is a lot of wooded area near my house, and people are generally good about keeping their garbage cans shut up tight, so who knows.
I am not a fan of Trap/Neuter/Release, nor of feral cats in general, so my choice for your options would have been None of the Above, but what’s done is done.
Update: The kittens appear to be alive! Our doorbell camera caught sight of them last night. They weren’t with mommy at that time, but mommy has come by a few times since then.
My Mom spent a few years as the live-in manager of a cozy rural inn used primarily for business retreats and conferences.
Toward the end of her stay there, a feral cat began living in the crawlspace under the inn. Mom fed her and talked to her, but the cat would let no human approach.
Finally the cat was obviously pregnant and then not pregnant, so we assumed she’d had kittens. No one saw them, hidden somewhere under the inn, but Mom continued to leave food out for them.
Moving day arrived. I was there with a rented truck, and helped Mom pack everything and load the truck. During all the activity, the cat appeared and stared at us.
My Mom addressed her as if she was a human. “You’d better get your kittens right now if you want to come with us!” The cat left…and a few minutes later, walked up to one of our cardboard boxes and gently deposited a mewing kitten! One at a time she fetched them from under the inn and settled them in the box. Then, for the first time, she stood still and permitted a human to pick her up. I will never forget how clearly the cat seemed to understand the situation.
They rode in the truck cab with us to the new place, and lived with my Mom for the next decade and a half. Like their mother, all that clan of cats had six toes on their front feet.
Small kittens can’t be left alone, obviously. By, let’s say, 3 months of age it should be OK to sterilize the mother, and at 5-6 months you can do the same for the kittens.