feral/stray cat stories

[Yuvi]

Hey, I just wanted to write this post since I've been thinking about these stray/feral cats since yesterday. I'm currently worried about their wellbeing as yesterday i heard very loud kitten meows and am paranoid to see if they'll come where they usually do in my back yard at the same time today. So i figured I'd just make a thread about stray/feral cats to tell my own story and hear everyone else's stories about stray/feral cats/animals too

Basically a few weeks ago i saw these cats passing by in front of my room just in front of the fence on our little raised up area. my room is only about 6 feet away from the fence.. its confusing to explain so ill just show it



i see cats there pretty often but these specific ones came here almost daily, and then i noticed- "wait, those are kittens."
i decided i should go buy cat food for them. they looked well fed, the main reason i went and bought it to put out is so they would recognize this place as a safe place to get food. i dont put a lot out, just enough for a decent snack since, again, they look well fed.

my goal currently is to get close enough to put a paper tag on them asking if it belongs to anyone and to call me if they do.

I've made decent progress i think, but they still get scared if i try to go outside to approach them. i think they know that me leaving my room means that im going to show up now and im not sure what to do about that. but thats not the important part right now.

yesterday my mom and i heard loud kitten meows, i couldnt tell if it sounded distressed or not but i definately heard them. and it was right after i saw one of them eat the food i gave them in front of my window. and since then I've been paranoid as hell, worried sick about them . i put the food out at around 6 and they show up at around 6:30 each day and im hoping they'll come again at 6 today, ill keep the thread updated.

Please tell me stories about any stray animal's you've befriended, I'd like some positivity with how worried i've been since yesterday

I'll also attach a bunch of pictures and videos of the kittens in the thread too.

[Eunice]

I've got a long story about feral cats. I live in rural Wales, with sheep farms all around us. There are several farms who have their own collections of barn/feral cats. There is one up the lane, where all the cats are tabbies. Another near there, where they only have black, or black-and-white cats. We have two tabbies, Ollie and Luna, who came from another sheep farm a fair distance away. (Tal-y-Bont, on t'other side of Aberystwyth.)

For the past year we've been feeding a bunch of tabbies who are feral, but don't seem to belong to any one particular farm. They are a "dad", we named Brazen Boy, because he is, and some girls. There were three girls, but only two of them became regulars. My husband, with his daft sense of humour, named them Tina and Turner, as we weren't sure that they were both girls. Our farming neighbours, the Bumfords, (yes, that is their name!) across the field from us, were also feeding them, along with several others.

All three girls ended up in the family way. One of them wandered off, but the Bumfords wanted to trap the other two and have them neutered, once their kittens were weaned. We happened to have several cat traps and boxes so we loaned them to the Bumfords. Turner, the one that wandered up, decided to have her kittens behind the shed in our garden. There was a gully running along the back of our garden, and fenced by the people in the house nextdoor. It was quite safe and protected from the weather by apple trees.

Brazen still came round for supper and as the kittens grew up, so did Turner and her children. (Just to be awkward, we renamed her Tabitha.) We put food out for them too, but we decided we had to do something about this. Tabitha was a lovely girl and her girls were adorable. They all deserved to have homes. However, we couldn't bring them into the house to foster them because of Ollie and Luna. They were 6 years old, set in their ways, and not friendly to other cats.

So that daft husband of mine bought a very large hen run and put it up at the back of the house, out of sight of Ollie and Luna's catio. We put in mats, a hen house (we had hens as well), litter tray, toys etc. And then came the fun of trapping them. It took a whole weekend, but finally they were all four in the hen run. They lived in there for several week, being fed three times a day. We advertised on various local facebook groups, and some people offered to adopt them, but then couldn't for various reasons. We were very strict about it too, as it was always in the back of our minds that sometimes people want kittens for bad reasons. The girls were getting older, so we decided to go ahead and get them all neutered. We had already taken Tabitha to the vet for that. It all came to an eye-watering cost, but worth it.

Then we finally found to lovely families. One had a smallholding out in the country, and took two of the kittens. They've sent us photos, and they've settled in very well with the family's other two cats and two dogs. (Poor dogs, four cats!) Then Tabitha and her remaining kitten were adopted by a family who run a very posh farm, where they breed rare breeds of sheep. They are being spoiled rotten too!

So, it took up all our summer last year, and cost a heck of a lot of money. But we'd do it again in a heartbeat. We now feed Tabitha's sister, Whitney and her little black boy, Houston. (Yes, husband named them too!) Whitney was taken to the vets by the Bumfords, and we did the same by Houston. They come around every evening with Brazen. During the day they go up to the sheep barns at the Bumford's farm, where they are very well fed again! If you've read all of this, well done.

[alkemylabz]

i really recommend taking any cats you find outdoors to a shelter or adjacent organization if you can, even if theyre not tagged. outdoor cats are really bad for local bird populations, and there are a lot of things outside that can put them in danger, especially if they're kittens. there are a lot of programs out there that will happily help you out or tell you how to get them all somewhere safe, and might be able to do it for free.

edit: just checked your profile, new zealand DEFINITELY has these types of programs! what theyll tell you to do depends on your area and if you have significant risks of ecological impact.

i wouldnt worry TOO much about the loud meows- kittens meow very loudly to get the attention of their caretakers and it could just be that one of them lost track of their mom or something. you see it a lot in videos of mom cats with their kittens, actually! if the kitten cant see their mom theyll start meowing like their life depends on it. it's like a baby crying.
see:

as for my story... one of my childhood cats was a stray kitten we found in our house when it was still being built, she was a black cat with a white spot on her chest that had gotten paint all over her. when we were washing off the paint we initially thought her spot was a stain or something... but turns out she just had white fur there.
she was a very good cat, but her feral kittenhood really stuck with her, i guess. she was very skittish whenever she got outside and would hide the first chance she got. she also would splash her paws in water before licking the water off her paws, she rarely ever put her face to the bowl. ive assumed this was because we lived in swamps lol
she was a very sweet cat though, and i miss her a lot. she lived into her late teens and was the most lovey creature ever and tolerated a lot of little kid nonsense as i was growing up


^ my car :) smile

[Yuvi]

UPDATE!!! THE CATS ARE A-OKAY! PURRFECTLY FINE
i saw the little goobers a few hours after this post and was so relieved. silly little guys. It's pretty uncharacteristic of me to be this paranoid about something with such little evidence that something was wrong

and also thanks for the stories guys!!

before i reply to them I'll reply to this real quick:

i really recommend taking any cats you find outdoors to a shelter or adjacent organization if you can, even if theyre not tagged. outdoor cats are really bad for local bird populations, and there are a lot of things outside that can put them in danger, especially if they're kittens. there are a lot of programs out there that will happily help you out or tell you how to get them all somewhere safe, and might be able to do it for free.

you're abosloutely correct that this is the responsible thing to do... however in the city i live in its unfortunately more complicated then just handing them off to a shelter :(

we have a stray problem in the country right now and unfortunately all of the organizations i looked at are prioritizing sick/injured cats/animals (because of overcrowding i assume). So even though I would like to hand them off to one of these organizations, i can't at the moment :( the plan is that i may get them spayed and vaccinated myself for now.

i wouldnt worry TOO much about the loud meows- kittens meow very loudly to get the attention of their caretakers and it could just be that one of them lost track of their mom or something. you see it a lot in videos of mom cats with their kittens, actually! if the kitten cant see their mom theyll start meowing like their life depends on it. it's like a baby crying.
see:

Yeah you where right in the end! Still not sure why they where doing that (probably what u said) but them being okay is what matters to me

see:

THATS SO PRECIOUS MY HEART IS MELTING

as for my story... one of my childhood cats was a stray kitten we found in our house when it was still being built, she was a black cat with a white spot on her chest that had gotten paint all over her. when we were washing off the paint we initially thought her spot was a stain or something... but turns out she just had white fur there.
she was a very good cat, but her feral kittenhood really stuck with her, i guess. she was very skittish whenever she got outside and would hide the first chance she got. she also would splash her paws in water before licking the water off her paws, she rarely ever put her face to the bowl. ive assumed this was because we lived in swamps lol
she was a very sweet cat though, and i miss her a lot. she lived into her late teens and was the most lovey creature ever and tolerated a lot of little kid nonsense as i was growing up

cute silly kitty, i bet it was happy even when it was tolerating your little kid self

Then we finally found to lovely families. One had a smallholding out in the country, and took two of the kittens. They've sent us photos, and they've settled in very well with the family's other two cats and two dogs. (Poor dogs, four cats!) Then Tabitha and her remaining kitten were adopted by a family who run a very posh farm, where they breed rare breeds of sheep. They are being spoiled rotten too!

So, it took up all our summer last year, and cost a heck of a lot of money. But we'd do it again in a heartbeat. We now feed Tabitha's sister, Whitney and her little black boy, Houston. (Yes, husband named them too!) Whitney was taken to the vets by the Bumfords, and we did the same by Houston. They come around every evening with Brazen. During the day they go up to the sheep barns at the Bumford's farm, where they are very well fed again! If you've read all of this, well done.

I'm so glad you guys managed to find good homes for those cats! it's good you were strict and particular about who can take them, humans can be awful creatures sometimes

do you have any pictures of your cats that you'd like to share? I forgot that i promised to share some pictures of the kitties who come here and will do so in a bit!

[Yuvi]

most of the photos i have are of the tabby one since he's a lot more comfortable with me being around vs the gray one who's a bit skiddish. theyre both so adorable!

I have some more, but i'll share those tommorow morning since icloud is being weird...

[Capybara]

My family has had "pet strays" for over a decade. One was a beat up old orange cat that hung around, but he died a decade ago. Shortly after, this derpy looking tortie has shown up and stayed ever since. Since last year she has a black cat boyfriend that eats with her in the garage.

I know it's probably not a good idea to treat stray cats like outdoor pets, but they've kept coming back for so long they're almost part of the family...

[Misanthropic Monster™]

I've always found this part of cat culture strange, where people let cats roam alone outside. I've kept cats since 1999 and I'd never dream of letting any roam outside alone where I couldn't supervise them and make sure they were safe - it seems alien to me that anyone would do that.

The misconception that cats are independent and don't need looking after probably perpetuates the reason so many people are so lackadaisical with their pet cats.