Feral Cats Are Our Pets

We live in Naples Florida and we have five feral cats living in our pool cage. I installed cat door to allow them to come and go. .  Two are shown below.  I wrote a blog about them yesterday.  I would welcome advice on how to take care of them. 



The white cat, Cleo,  is the only female of the family and she's  usually cuddled like this by the two older cats.  That's Brutus, a big fearsome male with scary yellow eyes.  We can't touch him, yet.















lonepinestore

I know next to nothing about caring for feral cats but I wanted to say I loved your blog.  I do believe that getting the kitties spayed and neutered is very important so that is wonderful, your doing that.  Lovely pictures, too.  I am hoping other, more knowledgeable people will chime in here...

P.S.  My mom lived in Naples for 10+ years!  Lovely town.  

Thank you for caring.  And that's a great picture.

I'm not sure what you mean by "take care of them"--what is your goal?  Do you want to socialize them?  If not, then it seems to me you're doing just fine:  you installed a cat door and provided a place for them to escape bad weather.  Just feed them the best food you can afford, keeping in mind the cats probably obtain some of their food by hunting mice, birds and the occasionally lizard or rabbit.  Provide water.  If medically necessary, trap them and take them to your vets.  If too feral, develop a good relationship with a vet who may prescribe drugs without examining the cat(s).  There are some drugs (dewormers and flea medicine) that you can put in food or on the cat.   

I see you're in Naples--is the pool cage air conditioned or havegood ventilation?  Cats evolved from Egypt--hot but very low humidity.  The phrase "it's not the heat it's the humidity" also applies to pets.

There is a phrase among the people who take care of feral/stray/abandoned cat colonies:  if you feed, do not allow to breed.  So, definitely trap the cats and get them spayed/neutered if you haven't already.  Cats are healthier if they are s/n.

Finally, if your goal is to get them to be more friendly, I recommend you read about this topic in the feral/stray forum.  Lots of good advice.  Long answer short:  spend time with them, just sit with them while they are eating.  Maybe play with them (feather at end of stick, or "DaMouse").  Have LOTS of patience.  And know that sometimes no matter what you do, cats won't become socialized to humans because of their past experience with humans (none to horrid) or they are just hard-wired that way.

I take care of a feral/stray/abandoned cat colony, there are about 10 cats who regularly dine at my restaurant (a/k/a dumpster).  (I've TNRd around 30 cats in 20 months).  I've been feeding one cat since he was old enough to come to the dumpster (I couldn't trap his mother in time) and he still runs when I bring food.  The mother cat doesn't run quite as fast as she use to, which was around 1.5 years ago.  One cat was so friendly I swore she was in heat (and she was a he); he along with three other cats have been removed from the colony, resocialized, and adopted into Forever Homes.

Hope this helps--write back with more specific questions and I'll try to help.

Thanks for the replies and advice.  I am beginning to understand that I am doing little for feral cats compared with other people like Ritz.

 I especially liked the advice about getting prescriptions from friendly vets without visits to the vets. Vets visits are expensive enough for the dog. And I'll try the feather on a stick with Brutus.

The patio area is not air conditioned but it's covered.  They congregate there on rainy days.

Recently I got liquid  flea protection. It was quite a performance to get it on the backs of some of the feral cats. And of course they probably lick it off each others backs. It's not like you have only one cat to deal with.

 We tried flea pills. They refused pills in the food. I ground some pills to powder and put it in their food.  They ate it but there were three little piles of vomit on the patio the next day. The head of a lizard was in one of the piles.  

This is Fluffy, the cat that appears to be an abandoned outdoor cat. He's friendly. What a beautiful cat.



I don't know that Maureen and I have any objective other that to enjoy looking at these lovely animals and to make their life a little easier.  Sometimes they seem sad and meow a little pitifully. We try to pet them.  Two of them are starved for affection but the others are stand offish.  I can say without the slightest hesitation they have improved our life to have them around.  

I said in my blog that we had not seen any dead birds or feathers around.  I spoke too soon.  One of the feral cats brought a young bird into the patio to play with it. (And I suppose to eat it) . I managed to get the bird free and let it go.

The link to my blog was moderated out. My apologies to all. I thought I saw some posts with links in them.  I'll try now to get my signature working with a link.

First; thank you for taking care of these kitties!  Second, welcome!

Fluffy is a beautiful cat!

I'm glad you got to set the one bird free.  I know it's nature; but ugh!  I have a cat that visits my backyard to bird watch (my 2 are indoor only) and a few times I've seen him/her go after birds.  One time there were feathers left.  But he didn't actually get that one.  I've always heard sometimes cats bring their "kill" back as a goft to the person they see as top cat in their life.  My first cat used to bring cricket legs to my Mom's bed.  hehe

Good luck with your kitties.  Feel free to post questions in the other forums as well.  If you need any help with the site or getting around please send me a message.  I'd be glad to help!

MoochNNoodles said:

First; thank you for taking care of these kitties!  Second, welcome!

Fluffy is a beautiful cat!

I'm glad you got to set the one bird free.  I know it's nature; but ugh!  I have a cat that visits my backyard to bird watch (my 2 are indoor only) and a few times I've seen him/her go after birds.  One time there were feathers left.  But he didn't actually get that one.  I've always heard sometimes cats bring their "kill" back as a goft to the person they see as top cat in their life.  My first cat used to bring cricket legs to my Mom's bed.  hehe

Good luck with your kitties.  Feel free to post questions in the other forums as well.  If you need any help with the site or getting around please send me a message.  I'd be glad to help!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the offer to help.  I looked for a way to set up my signature and couldn't find it.

I uploaded a little video to Youtube of mostly photos of the little bird I rescued.  I'll embed the link here as I believe that is acceptable to the moderators.

I did see your blog before it was moderated out and love it! Very sweet of you both to take care of these kitties! Welcome to TCS!

Dear Lone Pine, 

I am glad I got a chance to read your blog before it was "moderated out."  I enjoyed it and am sorry others won't be able to now. 

Thank our for the kind words. I thought it was a good blog. I understand I will have a signature eventually and can add my blog's URL. I am now posting in the Feral Cats forum and I  embedded one of my YOUtube videos.  

thus encouraged, I've applied to join a feral cat organization, Brigits Crossings, which is located here in Naples FL.

Aw this melted my heart a little. Thanks for looking after them - they're beautiful

Cute story, there seem to be an inordinate amount of feral cats in Florida, 'yours' look in pretty good shape