Feral Cats - It's Not How You Might Think

We became surrogate grandparents Spring, 2010. Four little feral kittens were born under our deck in the back yard. One orange, two calico and a gray tabby. When we first met them, they were probably about 5 weeks old. So cute it made your heart ache.

Mama was a gray tabby that had roamed our neighborhood for about three years. We were aware of her but she was too feral to actually stake a claim to us. She would just come in and out of our awareness. I guess we were honored that she trusted us enough to have her babies with us. To our knowledge this was her first litter. We can't be sure but we sure never saw any other kittens.

We were just mustering up a plan as to how to deal with this situation when she took the babies, probably at this point they were six or seven weeks old. They just up and left. They did not come back for a couple of weeks. I worried myself sick.

Doing some research on ferals and having a friend that does feral cat rescue gave me quite an education. Some people erroneously think you can just round up the feral cat and somehow get rid of it, whether humanely or inhumanely, some people just don't care, and that will take care of the problem. Well you see that is not how it works in the world of feral cats.

If there is a feral cat in the area, that cat has a roaming area, and a feral "family", meaning there are other cats that knows this certain area belongs to someone else. Some times their can be more than one feral family in one area. But it is a definite agreement between the ferals that this is okay. Anyway, when you "get rid" of the offending feral in your area. You DO NOT solve your problem. Once the area has been vacated by the current owning feral, it will become known that the area is available and a new feral will move in.

The best plan of action is to live trap the ferals, get them neutered and spayed, treated and vaccinated and then release them back into their area. They will happily reside where they always have, keeping other ferals away by their mere existence. And of course, now having population control. So a bowl of food for them would be a wonderful support to keep your area only inhabited by "your" ferals.

Once an area has been deemed by the feral population as worthy of ownership, it will always be so. So why fight it? Why not make it a happy comfortable living for all involved.

Our feral cat story has a mixed ending, sad and happy. The realities of the harshness of feral life comes to fruition in our story. We lost three of the babies to tragedy, but the fourth is no longer feral and living as an indoor cat with our next door neighbor and he is living the life of Riley. Only his name is Tommy Ginger.

If you would be interested in reading the story of my Feral Cats , just click the link. I would love to have you meet them and there are tons of kitty pictures. Even a picture of me and my husband. But more importantly there is a place that you can support the ASPCA if you are of a mind.