oh dear

[maribou]

So, the pair of feral cats that've been hanging out in our backyard for the past month or so as the neighborhood cats are wont to do? The ones we were ignoring since a) it was fairly likely they actually belonged to one of our neighbors seeing as everyone lets their cats run loose around here (not us! but many of our neighbors do) and b) they were very skittish, very healthy, and mostly just seemed to want to be left alone to sun themselves? The ones we were certainly *not* feeding and *not* trying to befriend? The ones that seemed to have their home base in the storage shed belonging to the neighbors in back of us, whom I don't think actually live in their house but I'm really not *sure*, so I don't want to go back in there in case I get shot?

Are in fact a family of feral cats, with three kittens that look to be no more than a few weeks old. Bloody hell. Mama, Papa, and all 3 babies *do* look fit as fiddles though, we got a good look at them through our basement windows which are at ground level - they were only a couple of feet away. Mama Cat also seems to be a good mother, as when she spied us looking at her she immediately stood up and put her front legs in front of the still-nursing kittens in a wary-not-aggressive-but-protective fashion. Then once we left the window, she'd moved them away out of the backyard within 10 minutes of us stopping watching them.

So the new strategy is to go out on the back porch (about 8 feet higher than the kitties), which seems to be the only way of approaching them that doesn't make them run off, and let down some food to them. And otherwise try to win their hearts and make them trust us, so that eventually we can catch them all and get them spayed/neutered. And probably try to socialize/tame the kittens and make them housecats, in the long run. But for now, we're just thinking it's ONE thing not to feed random strange cats in one's back yard, and another thing not to feed a nursing mother...

I recognize that there are a lot of strong philosophical arguments for doing things differently, but I'm not really that interested in hearing them... I looked that mama cat in the eyes and I don't think I could bring myself to take her babies away from her. She's been doing a very good job, far as I can tell, and I just want to make things as safe for them as possible in this all-too-contingent world.

Practical advice, though, would be appreciated.

Comments

[maribou]

heh.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

aaaah, how cute! A little cat family! Plantae keeps claiming that daddy cats aren't nurturing. But I hold-out belief that some of them must be. Ya know, not all of them are dead beats, right?

-B.

[maribou]

I don't know if he's a deadbeat, and I'm not even sure a) it's the dad, b) it's a boycat at all. The mommy looks to be at least a couple years old, maybe as many as 4 or 5, and the other cat is maybe slightly less than a year, I'd say - still got kitten-face. But, one of the kittens looks very much like Other Cat (who has very unusual tabbypoint-like markings) so we are calling Other Cat DadCat for now. Could actually be AuntCat or OlderBrotherCat or something.

Anyway, since we hadn't seen the kittens before ... who knows if Daddy Cat is nurturing. But Daddy Cat does seem quite attached to Mommy Cat and they often have been hanging out next to each other in the dirt.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Perdita was a stray with two kittens who moved under the shed of friends of ours. She was always pretty approachable, but the kittens wouldn't come near people and had to be trapped in a cage lent to our friends by the local cat shelter. This only occurred, though, after it was clear that Perdita was weaning them (bringing them solid food, for instance) and indeed when I brought her home she didn't cry for the kittens at all, so it was clearly the right time.

My main advice would be to talk to your local shelter. :)

Keep in mind that momcat will be able to go back into heat even while she's still nursing the kittens.

[maribou]

Cool.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Cool! My family adopted more than one litter of feral cats and got them placed. I'm not sure what the arguments against doing that are, exactly. Good on ya.

The last time we did so, the mother couldn't have been more than six months old and the babies were starving. We had to cure them all of a terrible case of ringworm, but in the end we found the kittens homes and kept the mama cat, now named Mia or Mina or Little Black Velvet Cat, depending on who you ask. She's incredibly tiny.

She's a vicious little thing, but has always been very gentle and loyal with us, even when we had to give her ringworm baths, which we attribute to a basic memory that we saved her babies' bacon.

Now I cannot decide whether to use my kittens icon or my Wilhelmina Murray icon. Hmm. Cute for the win.

[maribou]

I think my defensiveness was more of a response to the (imagined) argument "they could get sick! bad things could happen! you should put out traps in the backyard right now and catch them and take the adults to get spayed and then keep them all in your house until the babies are old enough to be taken away from the mother!!!!" than to anything else...

Anyway, today Dad Cat did not run away as I dropped food down to him from above-mentioned 8-ft-above-ground-level porch, though he didn't move either, but when I came back later, the food had Mysteriously Disappeared and so had the cat. I think this is a good sign.

[spinnerin-ftw.livejournal.com]

I think you're doing the right thing. Our local feral cat group encourages a feed and spay/neuter strategy, because it stabilizes the population (well-fed cats who aren't breeding do a good job of keeping more cats from moving in).

[maribou]

The stabilization thing is a good point, I'd forgotten about that. Though if any of them show the slightest interest in converting to indoor catness, I will probably roll right over and become That Lady with Six Cats ... *so cute*!!!!