ferral cats

[sammmo]

I work at a factory where there are a few ferral cats and someone want to start to put food out for them.. with the rising numbers of vermin .. is this a good or bad idea?

[carmalee]

Cats hunt better if they are well fed so your rat ptoblem may be solved. Why not try and get in touch with an animal welfare organisation and see if you can't get them spayed or neutered either for free or at very little cost. A lot of organisations have a programme and you'd really be helping to keep the feral cat population down. Forget the figures but over a year a single pair of cats can produce an obscene number of kittens. what a nice person you must be to care - good luck

[wildwood]

Bad idea. Rats will eat cat food too. Feral cats are responsible for the endangerment and extinction of more animal species than any other domestic animal.

[Kleiber]

I agree with carmalee - if you can get them neutered, they will be happier, not breed (obviously) and you'll have resident mousers. Wildwood, you may have a point (I don't necessarily agree), but these cats are living around a factory - the only things they're going to make extinct are the rats & mice!! I actually would say that humans are responsible for more species becoming extinct, but then humans aren't exactly domesticated, are they???

[wildwood]

kleiber, you've obviously never dealt with feral cats. They are vicious and even if you could somehow trap them, there is no way you can handle them, let alone find anyone who will pay for their neutering.

[sqad617]

I agree with carmalee but also take the point made by wildwood.
I have always had rerral cats and they have easily been domesticated making loving pets. Some are vicious because they are frightgened.

[barb1314]

wildwood you are incorrect.We have 5 feral cats where we work who we feed and have had all of them caught and neutered by a local cat sanctuary.They hunt really well and we also feed them every day.They have become regular fixtures and are very happy. Good on you for caring sammo.

[Kleiber]

Wildwood, don't underestimate me. What makes you think I've no experience with feral cats? I've been dealing with cats all my life and have also worked at an animal sanctuary. Granted, some can be extremely nasty (have a look at my post back in July about a feral tom that I dealt with), but these cats that sammo has in the factory should be given a chance. Sqad & barb have given good advice.

[Kleiber]

Sorry, the post was September. The tom had been around since July and had killed one of my cats.

[chas2008]

My wife worked on a chicken farm and they had a major problem with feral cats, like it or not the only way they controled them was to shoot them.

Didnt stop my wife bringing home kittens if she found them, managed to rehome most we still have 3 (now fully grown) although ferral they became domesticated pretty quickly..

[lankeela]

Cats Protection will lend you traps to catch them, they will neuter them and return them, so if you want to feed them you can. We did this with some feral cats round the greyhound kennels, we used to chuck them the trimmings of the turkey meat we collected from the local turkey farm, and I found one of the kittens abandoned at a few days old, which my dog reared till it was rehomed at 6 weeks. They all used to come running for the food but you could not get near them. Someone once left an open cat food tin, and one got its head stuck. Shouldn't laugh, but it was hilarious seeing this half cat/half tin running round like a mad thing - we eventually cornered it and pulled the tin off its head and for our sins we got scratched and bitten, before it shot off like a, well, a scalded cat.

[wildwood]

Some of you should look up the meaning of feral. There is a big difference between a homeless cat and a feral one.

[Kleiber]

Yes, we know. D'you think we're stupid?