Finally Taking Control of Feral Cats/Cat Population

kuntrykitty

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When we lived on a ranch back in Texas, we had about a dozen cats. We never had a problem with population, and therefore never spayed nor neutered our cats. We lived 45 minutes from the nearest (tiny population, about 500 people) town and 3 hours from a big town, so there was never any problem. Then we moved to this new ranch in New Mexico and WOW. Cats are pretty much taking over the whole headquarters. There were about 30 cats when we got here.

However.

Some of our momma cats are having two litters in a year, due to being over bred. We only have about 3 matured Tom cats, but apparantly it is enough. We have calicos, blacks, greys, grey tabbies, ginger tabbies, Siamese marked cats, black & whites, orange and whites, grey and white mottled cats, the list goes on. So we are taking control of the situation. Yay! Nobody ever has, I don't think...

We have 4 adult cats that are tame, and 18 kittens now that are tame, including the 3-week-old litters. Tyler's pet cat is a Tom, Sylvester, that lives outside. All of our cats do, with the exception of Zoey. Within the past few months, he has matured more (he is a year now) and has been getting run off by other Tom cats and disappearing for weeks at a time. So over the past two days, we have been keeping him on our back porch (once he returned) so he wouldn't run away anymore. We made a makeshift litter box and he had food and water and bedding, and this morning Mom took him in to get fixed.

We have 7 kittens (including my Zoey) that are getting spayed and neutered next month. They are 5 months of age.

We have a standard (about 3 ft by 1 ft) live 'skunk' trap that we will be setting. A lady who traps ferals in town, gets them spayed and neutered, and feeds over 250 of them a day, suggested canned mackerel as bait. My plan is to trap all of the ferals and get them fixed. The tame cats, I can take care of them and their babies when they have kittens, but the ferals are harder of course. So the plan is to get allll of them fixed with the exception of one pretty grey and white tabby tom cat.

Do you think that this is a good plan? Trap and fix all of the ferals (except one male so we can still produce a few kittens) as well as most of our tame cats?

I'm not sure whether I should fix all the kittens though. The males will be fixed (there are two of them). And I think the only kitten I'll leave un-spayed is a beautiful calico, I want to see what her babes look like. And our 3 current adult tame cats (two calicos that are orange, white and grey and one black and white that is a mottled black and white not your standard stype) will probably keep having babes for us, since they raise beautiful ones.

I'll keep u guys updated as we take control of our population!
 

houseofcats

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Getting ALL the cats fixed, including the tames kittens etc. is the best thing you can do. One female cat and her offspring can produce thousands of cats in a few years time. They can start having kittens when they are four months old and can have up to 3 litters a year.

Only one in three kittens born outside will ever live to see its first birthday. Most die horrible deaths from disease, malnutrition, or some misadventure.

You're doing a wonderful thing to care and fix all the ferals, but just having a cat have kittens to see what they look like is not good in my book. There are so many unwanted litters as there is. Unless you already have good potential adopters you should have these cats fixed.
 

tnr1

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I'm not sure whether I should fix all the kittens though. The males will be fixed (there are two of them). And I think the only kitten I'll leave un-spayed is a beautiful calico, I want to see what her babes look like. And our 3 current adult tame cats (two calicos that are orange, white and grey and one black and white that is a mottled black and white not your standard stype) will probably keep having babes for us, since they raise beautiful ones.
Please have her spayed...unless you local shelter has 100% adoption rate..you will be saving lives by having your female spayed. She would only account for 1/2 the genes anyways...so enjoy her beauty, as a spayed female.


Do you think that this is a good plan? Trap and fix all of the ferals (except one male so we can still produce a few kittens) as well as most of our tame cats?
Please have ALL the ferals fixed. Leaving an intact male means that you are basically allowing him to not only breed on your property, but also allows him to wander off and breed with other cats. To me, the most responsible thing is to have them all fixed. There is no lack of feral cats that need homes.

Katie
 
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