How to Care for a Feral Cat Family

How to Care for a Feral Cat Colony

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  Night behavior is common to feral cats. If you have a feral cat or feral cat colony in your area, you will have a decision to make. Ignore them and let them fend for themselves, or help them. Feral cats result primarily from pet owners' abandonment or failure to spay or neuter their pets.
  It is the general practice for feral cats, instinctively elusive and untrusting of humans, to shield their offspring from people, colony caretakers and others until they are at least that age. If you have noticed one or two feral cats, don't be surprised if you eventually discover a motley assortment of additional cats that make up your cat colony.
  Though initially "wild," once you assume responsibility for feeding the cats in a feral colony, it is then referred to more specifically as a managed colony. Even though some feral cats manage to survive by foraging for food in dumpsters, and by hunting bugs and mice, many die outdoors from disease, starvation, abuse or as food to a predator.
  Once you have made the decision to manage a colony of feral cats, start by providing fresh food and water each day. Initially, feral cats will keep their distance when you begin leaving food for them. So begin by leaving food a distance away from you, but where they are apt to find it. Gradually move the food closer for your own convenience. They will soon begin to trust and depend on the food being there.

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  Many feral cats will take shelter from the elements wherever they can find it. It is common to find them under cars and under trees and bushes, where they can at least stay reasonably dry from rain and snow. Seeking shelter beneath trees and cars, however, does not offer protection from the cold. If you are serious about caring for a feral cat colony, it is a good idea to provide more adequate shelter for them. You can buy a dog house to use as a shelter for them, or, if you posses some carpenter skills, you can build a wooden shelter for them. If you build a shelter for them, it is wise to try to line the inside walls with some sort of insulation, even if it is just Styrofoam. Cover the roof with shingle tiles and make the door big enough for the largest of the cats to get through, but small enough that it will allow less cold air to get inside. Keep straw inside the shelters and replace it frequently to keep it dry. Straw is preferable to old blankets, which will draw moisture. Once the shelters are built, strategically place them in a location protected from wind and heavy snowfall if you live in a cold climate.

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  Ideally, you should take steps to control feral cats' breeding. The Feral Cat Coalition, an organization offering spaying and neutering services through licensed veterinarians at no cost to the colony caretaker, makes it possible for you to do so. You should use the humane traps that will be lent to you by the organization to trap and have spayed or neutered the cats in your colony. Once the surgery is done, it's necessary to return the cats to their colony area. It's advisable to keep an eye on them for a few days, though, to make sure they are recovering well. Spaying and neutering will prevent your colony from expanding and will keep it more manageable for you. You can contact the Feral Cat Coalition at feralcat.com for information about such services in your area.

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  Even though feral cats are skilled hunters and often have means of communicating the availability of food to other colony members, some feral cats become very territorial and protect what they perceive as theirs -- food or shelter. Just as all animals have a pecking order, so do feral cats. If they begin to fight over food or shelter and chase away the more timid cats, you may have to place additional food and shelter for the less assertive elsewhere so that they are fed and sheltered as well. Though integration is ideal, in such instances of territorial behavior, segregation of such cats becomes necessary.

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  Once you assume responsibility for managing a feral cat colony, you must recognize that the feral cats become somewhat more tame and dependent upon you. You must maintain your care and not let them down. You must also accept the fact that you cannot manage a colony and stay detached, no matter how much you may want to in the beginning. You may try to stay detached by not touching them (if they even let you get close enough to do so) and by not naming them. To touch them and to name them somehow gives you more ownership and emotional involvement. They will become tame and more dependent on your care, and you will find yourself being amused at their personality differences, petting them, giving them names and worrying endlessly about them when the summers become mercilessly hot and the winters frigidly cold.
  Caring for a feral cat colony is the humane thing to do, but it is an unavoidable emotional dilemma.