we care for ferals, but we are moving soon

My wife and I have cared for a group of feral and semi-feral cats for quite a few years now; there are about 12 in all.

My problem is that we are moving soon, and I am wondering what to do about all of the cats, and what I need to do before we move.

Ideally, I would trap them all and take them with us, but we are moving from a house to an apartment.

Any ideas would be helpful.

Oh this is such a toughie! I congratulate you that you are thinking on it.
two solutions - one, the that the people who buy house know the cats are there and promise to care for OR two, that you trap begininig with friendlies, and find home(s) for those. The unfriendly can be re-homed into barn homes, but this needs to be done with the help of a humane group or TNR group - this is something that's hard to do solo!!! The last solution is to obtain new owners permission to feed, and have someone else (not new owners) take over the feeding.

God bless you and I will pray for your efforts.

(I have 12 too, and when I leave my current location, I'll be moving to my BFs land and plan to take as many of these
babies along as I can. Instant Farm Cats. At least 6 are quite friendly
and come all the time to eat, so they do deserve to come with me. The remainder will come too, if I can only CATCH them.

We also have five "indoor" cats (ie: they don't go outside). I love the so-called "outdoor" cats, and a few of them are actually quite tame. I just don't want to leave them "high and dry" without trying to re-locate them, or persuading our neighbour(s) to care for them. I think that one of our neighbors might be willing to help (her sister lives in the country, and likes cats), but I think that she might be moving soon, too. I would even send money to the people who eventually buy/rent our house to help pay for the cat's food. I'm a big baby when it comes to cats. I love 'em all.

That's a good suggestion - but I'd also consider contacting other feral colony caretakers to see if "your" cats can be integrated into other colonies?

First thing I'd do is send a private message to HouseOfCats (she works with a group in AZ, though I'm not sure where).

I'd contact Alley Cat Allies and fill out a form to receive the list of members of the Feral Friends Network in your area and contact all of them: http://www.alleycat.org/response.aspx

I'd conduct a search of local rescues, contact them, and ask if they're aware of colony caretakers that may be able to help: http://www.pets911.com/organizations/organizations.php

If you can't find anyone through those contacts, I'd call around to local low-cost spay/neuter clinics to see if they know anyone: http://www.pets911.com/services/spay.../locations.php

....and I'd consider contacting the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Campaign Network: http://www.bestfriends.org/nomorehom...ets/about2.cfm (e-mail [email protected])

With a little searching and calling around, I'm pretty sure that in the Phoenix area you'll be able to come up with something.

Laurie