i live in upstate NY, theres a hassidic jewish camp near my house and it is active each year from june to july, then they leave and go back to brooklyn and almost each year they leave a cat behind. the camp and most of the area becomes totally desolate and the cat then has to hunt for food to survive and becomes feral. i dont know if they realize that cats cant survive the winter temperatures in upstate NY, at least thats what google tells me. and i guess thats why the one they left behind last year was never seen again in spring time. so this year they left another one behind and i dont want to let it die so i started leaving tuna fish near the part of the camp where it stays under a camp building. i didnt realize they left this one behind until a couple of weeks ago so it must have been surviving on birds and mice since july and so by now it has been on its own for almost 4 months and runs away humans. i thought i would leave tuna fish because i know cats like that, and it has a strong smell to attract the cat to find the food, i microwave the tuna in a plastic container so it will have more smell. i doubt the cat will ever be the kind of cat that will let humans pet it but who knows. in this case i am against calling animal control because i dont think it will ever be a freindly pet for humans and will probably spend time in a cage until put to death. also i believe in karma and i dont think it would be good for my karma to be responsible for taking it away from what is now its natural habitat. i just saw the encouraging article here about making thermal boxes for feral cats. the problem is how do i get the cat to my property, the campsite is exactly 3 minit walk at normal human walking speed, so i figured what if i leave the food a little closer to my house each time and in my garage i can put a cardboard box with my electric foot warmer underneath for warmth. perhaps the cat would stay in it through out the winter. but i dont know if it will ever make it to my house, because so far it is scared to come near me, so i thought maybe if i just make sure it gets enough food maybe it wont freeze to death. or maybe the reason why the previous one didnt make it to spring was a combination of it had to deal with both the freezing temperature plus lack of food if hunting may be harder in winter or prey may be more scarce in winter. so im wondering in the event this one doesnt make it to my property before it gets too cold and has to survive under the abandond building in the camp, maybe if i feed it very food very high in fat, and try to give it a good layer of fat it might make it to spring. i understand cat food is somewhat low in fat since usually the problem is that domesticated cats tend to be sedated and fat. or possibly mixing animal fat also known as cooking fat. i remembered from when i used to work in fast food restaurants like burger king or mcdonalds that the french frys are fried not in oil but deep fried in what is basically animal fat otherwise known as lard. i noticed you can buy Manteca lard at the supermarket, i could mix a teaspoon or half a teaspoon with a 5 ounce can of cat food to make it more fat. i would microwave it first to make it mix better. any ideas or comments? |
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