Should I just let him be?

There's a feral cat colony that lives at my apartment complex (where I've lived for 2 months). There are three that I regularly see (two males and one female), one that sort of hangs around on the periphery, and I've heard there's another as well.

A lady that lives on the first floor has been feeding them for a few years now, and told me that at least some of them were pets that were dumped when their owners moved, but I don't know if she knows this for sure or is assuming this. I don't know how regularly she feeds them now, since she was told by someone from the complex that she should stop. There are woods behind the complex, though, and I see the cats catching things back there (one of the cats appears to be quite good at it...he's pretty fat ).

Two of the cats appear to have been fixed by some rescue, because they have the snip taken off the top of one of their ears. Unfortunately, the female is not fixed, and the lady at the complex said that she's had kittens before, and thinks she had them again recently because she was 'roundish', and now isn't anymore. Also, she's very, very skittish typically, but in the last few days has gotten much closer to me than usual. Is that typical of a new mom? I wish she would've gotten spayed with the others, but she probably didn't because she typically would be nearly impossible to catch.

One of the male cats is especially friendly (I call him Tommie); I think she's right that he used to be someone's pet. Unfortunately, two years ago some sickos wrapped a wire hanger around his tail, and it caused half his tail to fall off . So he's pretty scared of sudden movement, but once you sit down, he'll come up and want to be petted, and will purr and knead his paws .

I figured that he'd be a good contender to be someone's pet again, so I called several rescues. Only one said that they could take him, but they don't take ferals. So I'd have to get him vetted, and keep him in my house for two weeks before I brought him in. It wouldn't be a problem as far as my cats go- he's friends with one of my cats (when I take him out on the leash, they always smell each other and lay down next to each other), and my other would hiss at him a bit, but would be fine in a day.

So I flea treated him a few days ago, and yesterday I gave him some food (he comes up to my apartment whenever he sees me, because he knows I feed him), and then picked him up and brought him into my apartment, just to see how he'd react. He cried and yowled for about 5 minutes, and walked around a little bit, but mostly stood by the door. So I let him back out.

But now I'm having doubts that I should even take him to a rescue. The other lady that feeds them lives on the first floor, and in winter she puts boxes on her patio and they sleep together in them (I had been concerned about where they went in winter...I'm on the second floor, so I couldn't do that). He is also clearly very, very close with the other male and the female. They're always together. I'm just not sure that it's a good idea to take him from a situation where he has food, some shelter, and his friends (though the food and shelter parts could change if the other lady and I move out, I suppose...but he'd still be able to catch prey in the woods), in order to go to a shelter where he may spend years in a little cage.

So what do you think? Would you still try to take him to a rescue? Or just let him live in his little colony?

TIA (sorry for the super long post!)

Did you go through Petfinder listings in your area to see if there are any foster networks as opposed to shelters? I'd probably foster him myself and work to get him adopted out rather than sending him to a shelter.

This thread is a really good read as re: your situation (and the howling to go out). http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=213819

Also, have you looked for any low-cost spay/neuter clinics? You might want to look into borrowing or renting a trap from a shelter or local vet in order to get the female spayed so she can't produce anymore kittens.

Thank you for the input . It ended up being a moot point because I took in a kitten today that was left on my grandma's door step, so I definitely can't take another cat at this point.

I'll bring up the trap idea to the lady who feeds the cats, though I suspect that the fat male may be the one who goes after the food and gets stuck in the trap .