feeling overwhelmed with feral kittens

Hi!  I have not posted in awhile but I have a new stress.

I thought one of the feral cats I have been feeding was a male but I was wrong.... it was a female and she decided to bring up her kittens last week.  There are 2 of them.  I am guessing they are 4 or 5 weeks old.

I knew I needed to spay/neuter the cat but I have just been so busy and I let a friend that has 2 feral females borrow my trap.  But now I am so mad at myself.

I live in a subdivision with neighbors close by that DO NOT like cats.  I have got to socialize these kittens so I can find homes for them.  I already have 5 adult ferals running around.

Any advice?  Do I just take them from their Mom to socialize them?  Whenever I get close to them they hiss and spit at me.  I live in a very small house and already have 2 cats inside that I adopted from the shelter 4 years ago.  I do not have a room to keep them in.  I am at a lost for what to do.  They spend most of their time in the woods behind my house so I do not see them often.

Here are the 2 kittens.

Talk with the association of the division you live in about raising money to help trap them and have them brought to a feral shelter

rebecca cats said:

 I have got to socialize these kittens so I can find homes for them.

Any advice?  Do I just take them from their Mom to socialize them?  Whenever I get close to them they hiss and spit at me.  I live in a very small house and already have 2 cats inside that I adopted from the shelter 4 years ago.  I do not have a room to keep them in.

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first, you must have the fostering place ready. Can you or you can not?   I presume you can and want foster, but you cant adopt them yourself, you must later on find an adopter.

To your question; when you have a fostering place waiting, yes, its time. They are much easier to foster now at this age, than later. So yes, it is one of the occasions when you are allowed to take them from mom before the 10 weeks day.

If you can come near, dont try to "catch them as catch can".  Wrap a towel around them. Immobilized they cease fight and you can carry away them without need to use real violence.  You can even throw the towel over their head, even better here...

But if the mom is defends them vigorously, or they are shy and running, you must use a trap of some sort, with smelly irrestesible bait. Rigged up carrier or a real trap.   Your own trap perhaps, when you get it back.   

But do it soon - even asap, when they are still such young.

And plan to neuter the mom if at all possible, before she has a new litter.

Good luck!

rebecca cats said:

I live in a subdivision with neighbors close by that DO NOT like cats.

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You can perhaps talk them over into supporting and sponsoring a TNR-programme?  Telling them this is a good way of reducing any problems with ferale cats around...

They get no more, they are lesser of a nuisance, not fighting so much with home cats allowed outside, not fighting so much with each other thus much less shrieking, no males with their intensive calling, much less pissing and spraying...  And they also, in some degree, prevent other new ferales come into the area.  As the place is occupied.

I mean, if the  subdivision has some hawks who believe in a gun as best solution, remind them  the nature hates vacuum. If they shoot down all ferales, new ones will come to this now empty area. Next year they must have a new shooting off campain, this is a never ending shooting.

But if they are nicely  TNR ed, the area is not empty, its occupied by THEIR protegees, and there will be very few new ones...   AND their conscience will be much better.   

This also a nice learning for the children:  why solve problems with a gun, death and violence, while you can solve problems with helping each other and being friends??    

etc...

Good luck!